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News

News: February/March 2026

Texas Prof Banned from Teaching Plato • Chatbots Have Favourite Philosophers • Singer Fears AI Doesn’t ‘Get’ Animal Rights — News reports by Anja Steinbauer

Philosophy Professor Banned from Teaching Plato’s Symposium

More than 200 courses at Texas A&M University have been flagged or cancelled as part of a review called by the system board into course content related to race and gender, according to academics who contacted Inside Higher Education and other publications. The scope of the review has extended well beyond contemporary material. Alongside feminist writers and queer filmmakers, foundational figures in Western philosophy have been targeted.

Philosophy professor Martin Peterson, scheduled to teach his usual course on Contemporary Moral Problems, was instructed by university leadership to remove several passages by Plato from his syllabus. In an email from department chair Kristi Sweet, Peterson was given a choice: either eliminate “modules on race and gender ideology, and the Plato readings that may include these,” or else be reassigned to a different course.

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