Texas A&M banned these Plato readings from my class. Here’s what everyone should know about his teachings. – MS NOW

Opinion

Texas A&M told me not to teach these Plato readings. That’s not how you make universities great again.

The Greek philosopher explicitly urged his students to seek the truth — even when it was uncomfortable or controversial. So should universities.

By Martin Peterson, Jan. 10, 2026, 6:00 AM EST

As a professor of philosophy and ethics, I am more accustomed to reading the news than being a part of it. But many media outlets have reported this week on a directive I was given to excise Plato lessons from a course syllabus. I offer this to provide insight into my experiences at Texas A&M both recently and more broadly. 

I have been to Athens many times, and on every visit I make a point of stopping by the site of Plato’s Academy, the world’s first university, founded around 387 BCE. Whereas other schools at the time primarily trained students in rhetoric and the art of winning debates, Plato explicitly urged his students to seek the truth — even when it was uncomfortable or controversial. It is precisely this attitude toward teaching and research that has made American universities the best in the world. We do not Make Universities Great Again by censoring the classics.

We do not Make Universities Great Again by censoring the classics.

The ban on teaching Plato’s “Symposium” at Texas A&M is, in a sense, understandable. If one accepts the university rule, adopted in November, that bans the teaching of “race and gender ideology,” Plato joins a long list of prominent thinkers whose ideas might be deemed corrupting to youth and therefore subject to censorship.

In the “Symposium,” Plato describes homosexuality as fully natural and suggests that there are more than two genders: “you should learn the nature of humanity … in times past our nature was not the same as it is now, but otherwise. For in the first place there were three kinds of human being and not two as nowadays, male and female. No, there was also a third kind, a combination of both genders.”

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