Sept. 18 (UPI) — Texas A&M University President Mark Welsh is to step down from his position, the school announced, making him the latest university executive to lose their job amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on left-leaning ideology being taught at education institutions.
The resignation of Welsh, a distinguished four-star Air Force pilot and member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, will be effective Friday at 5 p.m., Texas A&M University System Chancellor Glenn Hegar announced Thursday.
“President Welsh is a man of honor who has led Texas A&M with selfless dedication,” Hegar said in a statement.
“We are grateful for his service and contributions. At the same time, we agree that now is the right moment to make a change and to position Texas A&M for continued excellence in the years ahead.”
Texas State Rep. Brian Harrison, a Republican, celebrated Welsh’s resignation online, stating: “WE DID IT!”
“As the first elected official to call for him to be fired, this news is welcome, although over due. Now… END ALL EDI AND LGBTQ INDOCTRINATION IN TEXAS!!”
Welsh’s resignation comes on the heels of the school being pulled into a scandal around a professor discussing gender and sexuality in children’s literature during a children’s literature course.
On Wednesday, Harrison had shared an uncorroborated video of a student filming herself in a Texas A&M University classroom arguing with her professor, Melissa McCoul.
In the video, the female student references an executive order President Donald Trump signed on his first day in office recognizing only two genders defined at “conception.” She also references Trump administration moves to pause federal funding for schools that have policies that do not align with its own, including diversity, equity and inclusion programs.
The video sparked backlash from Republicans, resulting in Welsh first firing two administrators followed by him later firing McCoul. He said the grounds of the firing were that the course contained content that was not included in the course curriculum. Course content “must match catalog descriptions,” he explained.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican and President Donald Trump ally, had called for McCoul’s firing.
After the firings, Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a Republican, suggested Welsh to be fired over his handling of the situation and his “ambivalence on the issue.”
“Most parents, students and Aggie alumni expect Texas A&M to reflect the values of our state and our nation as well as A&M’s rich history,” Patrick said in a statement late last week.
“If President Welsh will not or cannot reflect those values, then change needs to happen.”
Since Trump returned to the White House in January, he has led a charge to remove left-leaning ideology from government, public and private spaces via his executive powers.
He has targeted dozens of universities, in particular so-called elite institutions, with executive orders, lawsuits, reallocation of resources and threats over a swath of allegations, from anti-Semitism to employing diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
Critics and Democrats have accused the Trump administration of using these allegations to coerce schools under threat of stringent punishments, including fines sometimes exceeding $1 billion, to adopt his far-right policies.
While some schools, including Columbia University, Brown University, and others, have reached settlements with the Trump administration, others, such as Harvard, are challenging the White House in court.
On Tuesday, a coalition of faculty, staff, students and labor unions sued the Trump administration to have the courts stop the president’s attempt “to require that universities conform to his worldview.”
Welsh is the latest university exeutive to either be fired or resign amid the second Trump administration.
Michael Schill, president of Northwestern University, resigned earlier this month after the Trump administration froze some $790 million in research funding for the school on accusations of ignoring Jewish students amid pro-Palestine protests.
James Ryan, president of the University of Virginia, resigned late June as the Trump administration demanded he step down as part of a settlement of a civil rights investigation over the school’s DEI policies.
Katrina Armstrong, interim president of Columbia University, resigned in late March, among others.