Melissa McCoul fired

United States

Texas A&M University is a public university.

President Mark Welsh resigned on September 19, 2025, after English Professor Melissa McCoul, who was teaching a class on children's literature, told a student she could leave the classroom over a discussion.

What was the discussion? McCoul showed an image of a gender unicorn from a book titled, Jude Saves the World, about a 12-year-old boy who comes out as nonbinary, published by Scholastic Press, age range 8-12.

The author labels Jude Winters as a queer, bisexual, nonbinary kid who uses they/them pronouns. A unicorn in a sexual or romantic ideology is typically a bisexual woman who joins an established couple, most often a heterosexual couple, for romantic or sexual experiences.

​None of these categories exist, and we know that Jude is a male name because of St. Jude the Apostle, aka Judas Thaddaeus.

https://www.drbo.org/chapter/72001.htm​

McCoul was fired; Welsh resigned.