Texas A&M’s Ban on Plato: Anti-”Woke” Censorship?

Podcast audio:

In this episode of The Ayn Rand Institute Podcast, Sam Weaver and Ben Bayer discuss a new policy in Texas A&M University that restricts professors’ ability to teach topics related to gender and sexual orientation, which resulted in one professor being prevented from teaching Plato’s Symposium.

Topics include:

• Texas A&M’s policy;
• The case of Plato’s Symposium;
• Relation to intellectual freedom;
• Who should decide in public universities;
• Motives behind the policy.

Resources:

• Ayn Rand’s essay “Fairness Doctrine for Education” in Philosophy: Who Needs It
• Onkar Ghate and Sam Weaver’s article “Trump vs. Harvard: Intellectual Freedom in the Crosshairs”

This episode was recorded on January 27, 2026, and posted on February 5, 2026. Listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Watch archived podcasts here.

Image credit: Jon Hicks / Stone / via Getty Images