Philosophy Professor Resigns Over Censorship of Plato: The Academic Freedom Crisis at American Universities

How It Started: A Philosophy Professor Told to Revise His Syllabus for Teaching Plato

In early 2025, Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor at Texas A&M University, received a notice he could hardly believe: he could not teach Plato's Symposium in his "Contemporary Moral Issues" course. The reason? This classic philosophical text, written over 2,300 years ago, touches on gender identity topics, violating a newly adopted university policy restricting classroom discussion of race and gender issues.

The tenured professor, who had taught in the philosophy department for over twenty years, ultimately resigned from his tenured position in April of this year. In an interview on the Vox podcast The Gray Area, he detailed the full story, sparking widespread discussion about academic freedom, political interference, and university governance.

"Teaching Plato in a philosophy department — this shouldn't be something we need to worry about. If we end up censoring a classical author who has been dead for more than 2,300 years, it just doesn't make any sense," Peterson said of the absurd situation.

Why Did Plato's Symposium Become Off-Limits in the Classroom?

The Symposium is one of Plato's most important dialogues, depicting seven Athenians delivering speeches about "the nature of love" at a banquet. In it, Aristophanes presents a famous myth about human origins: in ancient times, there were three kinds of beings — male-male, female-female, and male-female composites — who were later split apart, leaving each person searching for their other half. This narrative naturally involves discussion of same-sex relationships.

In fact, the Symposium is not only one of Plato's most literary dialogues but also a foundational text in the history of Western philosophy for exploring the concept of love (Eros). In the Western university tradition of philosophy education, it stands alongside The Republic and Phaedo as one of Plato's most essential teaching texts. In the dialogue, Socrates relays the priestess Diotima's theory of the "Ladder of Love" — ascending from love of individual beautiful bodies to rational knowledge of Beauty itself (the Form of Beauty) — which forms an important part of Plato's metaphysics. While Aristophanes' "spherical humans" myth is often seen as a comedic interlude, it raises the profound question of humanity's fundamental longing for wholeness, a theme repeatedly cited by later schools of thought from existentialism to psychoanalysis. In any serious philosophy department, not teaching the Symposium is almost equivalent to not teaching Newtonian mechanics in a physics department.

Peterson explained that he chose this text because it demonstrates how ancient thinkers viewed different types of relationships — "Just discovering that these ideas and practices have been around for a very long time is itself very illuminating." He emphasized that he was not defending Plato or promoting any ideology, but rather guiding students to read and think about classical texts.

Policy Background: From Firing a Lecturer to Systematic Curriculum Review

The roots of the incident trace back to September 2024, when Texas A&M English lecturer Melissa McCool was fired for teaching children's literature from a gender perspective — Texas Governor Greg Abbott publicly demanded her dismissal on social media, and the university president complied.

Subsequently, the university system's Board of Regents — appointed by the governor — enacted a new policy: any course content involving race, gender, sexual orientation, or gender identity must undergo review to demonstrate a "necessary educational purpose" and receive written approval from the university president.

To understand the institutional roots of this policy, one must understand the governance structure of Texas higher education. The Texas A&M University System is one of the largest public university systems in the United States, comprising 11 universities and over 150,000 students. All 9 members of its Board of Regents are appointed by the governor for six-year terms, meaning the governor wields indirect but powerful influence over university policy. Since 2023, Texas has been at the forefront of the nationwide wave of "anti-DEI" (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) legislation: SB 17 took effect in September 2023, banning public universities from establishing DEI offices and mandatory DEI training. Texas A&M subsequently dissolved its DEI office and eliminated related positions. The curriculum review policy can be seen as a further extension of this political trend — expanding from institutional-level DEI restrictions to direct control over classroom content. Florida, Ohio, and other states are also advancing similar curriculum review legislation, creating a chain reaction across the country.

More critically, Peterson's course was a "core class," and core classes were not even eligible to apply for exemptions. "This is by design," Peterson pointed out. "They don't want us to teach these topics, so they designed a process that appears to allow applications but is actually impossible to pass."

According to Texas A&M's own statements, for the Spring 2026 semester alone, 6 courses were canceled and syllabi for hundreds of courses were modified. Courses fulfilling "cultural discourse" credit requirements — such as Introduction to Race and Ethnicity, Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies, Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Human Sexuality — became nearly impossible to offer under the new policy.

Where Exactly Are the Boundaries of Academic Freedom?

As chair of the academic freedom committee, Peterson held a clear and pragmatic understanding of academic freedom's boundaries. He did not believe professors could say anything they wanted in the classroom:

• Content must be relevant to the approved course description — you can't spend a biology class talking about Plato
• Professors must possess the appropriate expertise — you can't teach geography while claiming the earth is flat
• Professors should be accountable for their classroom speech

But he insisted on a core principle: "We should not censor professors before they say something controversial. The better approach is to wait until they actually say something they shouldn't have, and then step in and deal with it." This is the fundamental distinction between prior restraint and post-hoc accountability.

Prior restraint is a core concept in First Amendment jurisprudence, referring to government prohibition or restriction of speech before it is expressed, rather than holding speakers accountable after the fact. The U.S. Supreme Court established a strong presumption against the constitutionality of prior restraint in the 1931 case Near v. Minnesota, and has repeatedly reaffirmed this principle in landmark cases such as the Pentagon Papers case (1971). In the academic context, prior restraint means a university dictating what content professors cannot teach before they have even opened their mouths — a fundamental conflict with the tradition of academic freedom. Since the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) published its Declaration of Principles on Academic Freedom and Academic Tenure in 1915, it has regarded content autonomy in classroom teaching as one of the three pillars of academic freedom (the other two being freedom of research and extramural speech). The "post-hoc accountability" model Peterson advocates — allowing professors to teach freely while correcting problems through peer review and academic procedures when they arise — is precisely the governance framework the AAUP has long championed.

On the question of whether public universities should reflect the will of taxpayers, Peterson acknowledged that the Board of Regents has a responsibility to the people of Texas, but he drew a clear line: "The board can decide whether to invest in building a new law school or a new building — those are political decisions. But controlling what individual professors say in the classroom is not the board's job. They have to trust the professors — we are the experts."

He also issued a profound warning: if political winds are allowed to dictate course content, then once the political landscape shifts, will curricula have to swing dramatically in the other direction? Universities need to maintain a degree of distance from political influence.

"Dissenting Compliance": A Pragmatic Strategy for Academic Resistance

Peterson did not choose civil disobedience. Instead, he proposed a strategy he called "dissenting compliance": forcefully expressing opposition while ultimately complying with the policy, so that the other side cannot fire you for violating the rules.

"I don't support civil disobedience within the university, because the risks are too high. The university can easily say, 'You violated the policy, so we can fire you,' and then nothing changes." He replaced Plato with a lesson on free speech and academic freedom, assigned a New York Times article about the incident as reading material, and invited a law professor to give a guest lecture.

The weight of Peterson's decision to give up tenure must be understood within the institutional context of American higher education. The tenure system originated in the early 20th century, designed specifically to protect academic freedom — ensuring that professors would not be fired for publishing unpopular research findings or teaching controversial viewpoints. Earning tenure typically requires a rigorous 6-7 year review period, with approval rates below 50% at many top institutions. However, the tenure system itself has been eroding in recent years: the proportion of tenured or tenure-track faculty at U.S. universities has declined from approximately 78% in 1969 to less than 30% today, with much of the teaching now carried out by adjunct lecturers and contract faculty. Peterson's case reveals a deeper paradox: even with tenure — the highest level of professional protection — a professor can still be unable to fulfill normal teaching duties under systemic pressure. Tenure's protective function appears inadequate in the face of systematic policy changes.

"In a way, the university helped me create great teaching content for the 'Contemporary Moral Issues' course," he said with a touch of bitter humor.

In a class of about 250 students — roughly 100 conservatives, 100 liberals, and 50 moderates — Peterson said he received no negative feedback. "Even very conservative students thanked me for encouraging them to express their views. My job is not to tell them what to think, but to help them articulate their views clearly."

The Bigger Picture: A Competitiveness Crisis in American Higher Education

Peterson will join Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas this fall as an endowed chair professor in AI ethics. As a private university, SMU is not directly subject to Texas's review policies.

Peterson's pivot to AI ethics is no coincidence. With the rapid development of large language models, autonomous vehicles, algorithmic decision-making systems, and other technologies, AI ethics has quickly grown from a fringe academic field into one of the fastest-growing interdisciplinary areas in global higher education. Core issues in AI ethics include: algorithmic bias and fairness, the moral status of autonomous weapons systems, intellectual property and authenticity of AI-generated content, privacy and surveillance, and AI's impact on labor markets. As a philosopher with deep expertise in engineering ethics and risk analysis — he was previously affiliated with both the philosophy department and the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Texas A&M — Peterson's interdisciplinary background makes him particularly well-suited for this emerging field. With the support of the Dallas technology corridor, SMU has been aggressively developing data science and AI-related programs in recent years, and Peterson's appointment also reflects the strategic opportunity for private universities to attract talent lost from public institutions due to changing policy environments.

But he expressed deep concern about the overall outlook for American higher education. "I was born in Sweden and came to work in the United States because I found American universities to be much better than European ones. But if this continues, that may no longer be the case in the future."

He pointed out that one of the core reasons American universities are strong is their ability to attract talent from around the world and let them develop ideas freely in an environment without interference and censorship. When this foundation is eroded, the competitive advantage will disappear with it.

Ethics in the Gray Area: Peterson's Philosophical Stance

It's worth noting that Peterson's recently published book, Ethics in the Gray Area, forms an interesting parallel with this incident. In the book, he challenges a fundamental assumption of mainstream ethical theory — that every action is either right or wrong.

He argues that most real-life decisions exist in a gray area: "Some things are in some sense right and in some sense wrong." He even advances a rather provocative idea: in truly gray areas, random choice may be the most reasonable response, because it "reflects the messiness and ambiguity of the situation you're in."

When asked whether he himself was in a gray area during this controversy, Peterson answered candidly: "I openly admit that criticizing the university, claiming that A&M is currently not a real university — I am indeed in a gray area. If I had to do it over again, I'm not sure I would do everything in exactly the same way." This kind of honest alignment between thought and action may be the most precious quality of philosophical education.

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