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Campus Files: Scandals, Secrets & Crimes at American Universities
A Tale of Two Presidencies | Texas A&M Caught Up In Culture Wars
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Recap of our remarks on Gender
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and sexuality Moving
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I just have a question because I'm not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching.
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This is a covertly recorded video captured in a classroom at Texas A and M in August of 2025 because according
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to our president, there's only two genders.
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It's from a children's literature course which specialized in childhood exploration of identity that promote gender ide.
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And this also very much goes against not only myself, but a lot of people's religious beliefs.
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The person recording was offended by the coursework and had decided to confront the professor. The next day, the same student met with A and M President Mark Welsh. Welsh had been president for just under two years at the time and was a breath of fresh air for the school after years of turmoil. But only a week after this video was made public, the campus was shocked to learn Welsh had been forced to resign. I'm Ian Mont. This week on Campus Files, a tale of two presidencies. Texas A and M caught up in culture wars. Good universities make an impact and great universities stand for something. Texas A and M University stands to lead,
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to serve, to dream.
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If you're not from Texas, you may not appreciate how big a deal Texas A and M is. Originally founded in 1876, it has since grown into a massive multi campus University system. It was originally an agricultural and mechanical school which gave it the A and M acronym. It's known by today. A and M students and alumni are called Aggies. A and M's flagship campus and College Station has the largest student population in the United States.
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I think one of the unique parts about being a student journalist here is that A and M just can't seem to stay out of the headlines. It seems like, you know, every other year, every few months, there's this major event on campus where something one way or another blows up. This story in itself has been in the making, I think for the past two years.
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This is Nico Gottridge. When we spoke, Nico was a senior journalism student at Texas A and M. He had previously been the editor in chief of the student newspaper and was selected for a reporting fellowship at the Texas Tribune where he would report on Welsh's ouster with colleagues. Let's start by going back to 2023 and the resignation of a different A and M president, Kathy Banks. Now to this development story right now. After weeks of turmoil, the president of Texas A and M has quit. Resigned. Banks resigned from A and M's presidency after two years marked by controversy. She had introduced a massive but unpopular reorganization which lost the trust and support of most of A and M's more than 4,000 faculty members. And then things got worse when she was caught up in the botched hiring of a faculty member to run AM's revived journalism program. Banks had picked Kathleen McElroy, a popular choice on campus, but McElroy is a black woman who previously spoke about improving diversity in the newsroom. But A and M's conservative leadership were already trying to crack down on so called woke ideology on campus and found this unacceptable. McElroy's job offer was watered down to the point where she declined the job which Dr. Banks was ultimately blamed for. So after a bumpy couple years, a new president was needed to steady the ship. The job of the president is interesting because I am the least important person on this campus. I honestly believe that for many, retired General Mark Welsh III was the obvious choice. My job is to enable everybody else to be important. I mean, people should think about our unbelievable faculty, about our totally committed and dedicated staff, about students who are going to go, no kidding, change our state and our world. That's who people ought to be.
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The first few weeks to months of his tenure and the way in which he was communicating with such ease and clarity, it became very clear to me, like, oh, of course this is why you would bring someone in like this.
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This is Kate McGee. Kate is a reporter at the Texas Tribune covering higher education.
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He was able to calm the waters in a way that I think restored a lot of faith in faculty who were particularly demoralized by everything that had happened over the summer.
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In 2023, Kate's reporting partner Nico had seen the ramifications of President Banks's short tenure.
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One of the things Welsh did as soon as he stepped in was essentially reverse much of what Kathy Banks had done during her tenure. And she'd gotten a lot of criticism for a few things. She sidelined faculty in a lot of decisions. And I think the faculty voice at Texas A and M is something that's very, you know, it's particularly important. It's vital at every institution. But at A and M, you know, there's 4,000 faculty here and it's very difficult to make such major decisions as she was making without including that voice in the process, in a sense.
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Welsh also made communication and an open door policy central to his presidency. Right from the outset, he was known to take meetings with basically anyone who contacted him.
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That was something Kathy Banks was very well known to not have done well. And that was one of the major reasons, if not the major reason, he grew to be so well liked.
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But Welsh's popularity went beyond being a good communicator.
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Here's Kate Welch, when he came in as interim president, was a known quantity on campus. He had been dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service, which is a pretty renowned school on campus for seven years. He was known as being like a nonpartisan consensus builder. And those were the kinds of qualities he brought to the presidency. Before he came to A and M, he was a four star general in the Air Force. A and M is for people who are not familiar with. The school is steeped in military tradition.
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Texas A and M is home to the largest cadet corps in the United States with more than half of its 60,000 undergrads participating. The history of the cadet corps stretches all the way back to the founding of the university. Cadets receive military and leadership training and often take jobs in the military upon graduation. For many years, membership in the cadet corps was mandatory. It's not anymore, but the heritage persists, as does an emphasis on tradition. And Mark Welch was a retired four star general. President Obama appointed him to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest ranking military leadership in the country, responsible for advising the President and the Secretary of Defense.
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I really don't know anybody else on campus who could probably have stepped into those shoes at this time I had multiple people tell me if Welsh was president of this university five, 10 years ago, he probably would have been a decade long president.
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But shockingly, it was these military credentials which he was so revered for that ultimately planted the seeds for his dramatic ouster just two short years later. Confronting high credit card debt can feel scary, but the good news is if you owe $10,000 or more in credit card debt, financial relief options are now available. National Debt Relief is currently offering debt relief designed to reduce what you owe and put you on the fast track to becoming debt free. If you qualify for debt relief, you may be able to pay back less than what you owe and save thousands of dollars. Just visit nationaldebtrelief.com Imagine only paying one low monthly program payment you can afford and saving money as you become debt free. National Debt Relief has already helped bring debt relief to over 550,000 US consumers earning thousands of five star review and an A rating with the Better Business Bureau. You're stronger than your credit card debt. Let today be the day you start turning things around. Take the first step and visit nationaldebtrelief.com to see what debt relief you may qualify for. That's nationaldebtrelief.com for years, gone south has been a podcast about crime in the American South. But for our new season we're widening the lens. Through deeply reported narrative driven stories. We're digging into the myths, scandals and power structures that shape the south and in a lot of ways, the country itself. Follow and listen to gone South Season 5 An Odyssey podcast available now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your shows. Your little one grew three inches overnight. Adorable. Also expensive. Sell their pint sized pieces on Depop and list them in minutes with no selling fees because somewhere a dad refuses to pay full price for the clothes his kids will outgrow tomorrow and he's ready to buy your son's entire wardrobe right now. Consider your future growth Bird budget secured. Start selling on Depop, where taste recognizes taste. Payment processing fees and boosting fees still apply. See website for details.
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Texas has 25 plus public universities that are all organized into university systems with a chancellor and a Board of Regents at the top.
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That's Texas Tribune reporter Kate McGee.
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They typically hire the big names that you hear at a university the chancellor, the university presidents and the football coaches. There's state statute that kind of spells out what the board is supposed to do and what their roles are. And one of their roles is that they are supposed to even though they are appointed by the governor, their job is to almost defend the university, to make sure that they can act independently.
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But Texas Governor Greg Abbott had been in office for nearly a decade. Being in office for that long meant he had appointed every regent at every public university in Texas.
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And one of the major kind of criticisms or concerns that we heard throughout reporting this story is that the Board of Regents see their role as serving the governor. That's who they are supposed to be serving, rather than doing what might be best for the university.
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And this new slate of regents appeared to be especially vulnerable to chatter online when Kathy Banks resigned as A&M's president. Mark Welch was appointed as interim president and was seen as a shoo in for the permanent job. But parts of his background were fodder for the online chatter the new regents were so keyed into.
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In Texas, there is a political website called Texas Scorecard that has largely received a lot of funding from large Republican mega donors who live in the state. And Scorecard particularly honed in on Welsh from the get go.
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Immediately, Welsh was hit with attacks for being appointed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Obama, even though the military is an apolitical organization. Texas Scorecard also quoted times when Welsh spoke about the importance of improving diversity in the military.
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Those comments in particular raised a lot of red flags for some of the regents.
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In emails from the time one regent shared a Texas Scorecard link saying, we really need to vet this guy. From what I've heard, along with this and other articles, I have many questions. Texas Governor Greg Abbott also expressed concern over Welsh. The two met in Austin. Abbott peppered Welsh with questions, but he wasn't satisfied with Welsh's answers and wanted someone more willing to act on conservative politics. But Welsh had already made a good impression during his interim presidency because Welsh
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was seen as such a steady hand on campus. The regents still went with him after all of that because of what they saw him be able to do in terms of calming the waters back in College Station.
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President Welsh, we congratulate you today on your investiture as president of Texas A
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and M University or as Mark Welsh
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believes that leadership is a gift. It's given by those who follow, but you have to be worthy of it. While Welsh managed to get the campus back on track, he also inherited a number of political hot potatoes, including one involving the A and M Corps of cadets. Here's Texas Tribune reporting.
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Fellow Nico One of the cadets over at Texas A and M had by this point come out as a transgender woman and Texas A And M wasn't allowing her to use kind of female restrooms with her gender identity.
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The cadet had come out as transgender long before Welsh became president. The university had also already worked out an arrangement with the cadet where they would ensure she would have access to a gender neutral bathroom by her senior year. But then the Biden administration proposed a change to Title ix, the rules preventing sex based discrimination in higher ed. The new rules would require colleges to provide equal access to transgender students.
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By this point, she was kind of threatening to report the university to the Biden administration, to the Education Department, for violating her kind of civil rights.
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According to reporting, at this point, she only had access to one staff bathroom in the entire Cadet Corps facility. Anytime she needed to use the bathroom, she had to travel all the way to that specific bathroom. And with a campus as big as A and M, something as simple as using the bathroom became a huge obstacle, which only she had to deal with, which is exactly what Title IX is designed to prevent.
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As soon as Welsh stepped in as president, he had immediately inherited this issue. This began long before he stepped in as president. That kind of culminated in this one December 2023 meeting that we were able to pin down after quite a bit of reporting.
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Present for the meeting was the board of regents, President Welch, and the commandant of the Cadet Corps.
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And they came to this kind of agreement where rather than build gender neutral restrooms all across the corps, they would build four gender neutral restrooms, one in four of the Corps's 12 dorms. And that agreement very much went through to this day. There are four gender neutral restrooms at
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Texas A and M. With the regent sign off, the plan went ahead. It would cost about $3 million. But it wasn't solely for this student. A and M was also using this as a pilot program for future dorms.
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The way it was explained to us, too, was not only to accommodate this individual student, but to accommodate all students, not just transgender students, but any student who maybe wanted more privacy in their bathroom usage. But obviously it got politicized.
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But as the renovations were taking place, a conservative group on campus got wind of the plans.
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This one very conservative alumni organization called the Rudder Association. They were founded back in 2020 to protect this one statue on campus. And it was a statue of a person who was one of the first presidents of the university, but also a Confederate general. And so in 2024, when they heard this was kind of happening, this construction was undergoing, they submitted quite a few open records requests to the university, got a lot of records about the restrooms. And from there, they wrote this kind of large editorial alleging that Texas A and m would spend $72 million building gender neutral restrooms all across the corps of cadets. And that blew up immediately.
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The $72 million figure and much of their editorial was entirely bogus, but it was shocking, so it spread like wildfire.
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It's very difficult to properly portray how much. A lot of the more conservative alumni of the university were not particular fans of that, especially those in the core. And many core alumni, as one note, are lawmakers. Many of the a few of the regions were in the core.
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After the Post went live, Welch and the regents were inundated with angry calls and messages. One alum wrote, this is the kind of crap that makes me despise the university, that I used to love.
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All of that hate, all of that criticism that came from, that came to Welsh. And I think that's one of the defining muggers of his presidency, this kind of swirling misinformation around so much of what he did, around all of these decisions being mischaracterized in maybe one way or another.
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To make matters worse, Welch was also dealing with backlash over the commandant, the man in charge of the corps of cadets. In addition to being involved in the bathroom renovations, the commandant had also tried to crack down on hazing and had apparently promoted too many female leaders in the corps, according to critics.
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And Welsh was holding firm to say, no, I'm working with him. We're trying to figure this out. He's making progress. I've given him the feedback. But In August of 2024, he ended up finally telling the commandant that he had to go and fired him because the board, at a meeting, took a vote internally and said, we want this guy gone.
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This moment is emblematic of what appears to be a major change in the Board of Regents. Rather than taking an impartial long view, regents were instead responding to momentary political whimsical and insisting Welch do the same.
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They felt that they needed to get involved and that Welch wasn't taking a strong enough stand to lead the university in the way that they wanted.
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This wasn't the only time the regents felt Welsh had failed to act politically enough. He was also targeted by nearly weekly posts from Texas Scorecard about courses touching on LGBTQ topics and a number of other real or fabricated scandals. At this point, life at A and M was a tale of two presidencies. On one side, Welch had made major inroads on campus and had become a beloved figure amongst students and faculty. But on the other side, his Relationship with the starkly conservative regents, who by all appearances cared more about public opinion, was deeply frayed, something which became clear when Kate and Nico reviewed emails between Welsh and the regents.
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I think seeing especially the back and forth in writing to me, signaled just how frayed the communication was, especially knowing that Welsh was the kind of person who was known on campus to meet with anyone.
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Amidst the Texas scorecard posts about LGBTQ course content, one regent wrote to Welsh, when does our administration's obsession with student sexual preference and lifestyle finally stop? Why do we allow the administration to continue to promote these liberal agendas? In another exchange, after A and M's baseball coach left, the same regent wrote, we had better not lose our baseball coach. Welsh responded, okay, let's be straight. He's gone. We didn't lose him. He left. Not sure what you're expecting here or what you hope to accomplish with threats. The regent fired back, you were in way over your head.
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If these kinds of things are being exchanged in email. To me, that said that they weren't meeting in person and having any kind of, like, frank conversations to build consensus or to come to some kind of mutual understanding that there was clearly two sides.
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After years of building tension, one small incident in a classroom was enough for the relationship to finally snap. And that brings us back to the video you heard at the top of this episode.
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I just have a question, because I'm not entirely sure this is legal to be teaching.
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In September 2025, that video was posted on Twitter. For many regents, it was the final straw.
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We're supposed to learn from our own mistakes. But other people's errors can be instructive, too. From efforts to control the weather that
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went disastrously awry to the untimely death
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of the Segway boss, history is a treasure trove of mishaps and meltdowns that
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can teach us all.
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I'm Tim Harford, host of Cautionary Tales, the podcast that mines the greatest fiascos
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of the past for their most valuable lessons.
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Listen to Cautionary Tales wherever you get your podcasts.
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It starts back in July, in the second summer semester of Texas A and M. That's Nico.
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He's describing the incident which ultimately killed Welsh's time as president of A and
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M. The professor, who is Melissa McCour, was teaching a semester's worth of children's literature.
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Her version of the course included a section focused on representation of LGBTQ identities in children's literature. A time when young people begin to understand their own identity.
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How do we properly kind of represent, maybe more Marginalized communities in children's literature. And how do we portray these kind of communities properly?
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It was in this course that a student recorded herself confronting the professor. Following the confrontation, Professor McCool asked the student to leave so she could continue with her lecture.
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I think the day after that, that students met one on one with President Welsh. And so in that conversation they had, the student was asking President Welsh to fire the professor for essentially, quote, unquote, breaking the law. In that one on one conversation with Welsh, it was also recorded by that same student.
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What do you expect us to do? Fire her?
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Yes, absolutely, because it goes away.
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Okay, well, that's not happening. You can hear in the video that Welch balks at the idea of firing the professor. She had not violated any laws and had taught that course successfully many times before. But that context is missing when these videos are posted by Texas State representative Brian Harrison, who had already been attacking Welsh for months.
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It's almost like a university under siege. By the time this video went live, it was very much just seeming like they would not stop until they got this kind of scalp. There was state lawmakers calling for Welsh's resignation, and by this point, Brian Harrison had probably called for his resignation at least 100 times in many different contexts. But, you know, by this point, it was extending to other state lawmakers.
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Welsh was forced to respond to public pressure by firing the professor and demoting two of her supervisors, in spite of the fact she had not violated any laws or campus rules. Professor McCool has since sued the school over her termination.
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Right after these videos got released, the records coming into the regions were, this guy needs to be fired. This guy needs to go. And then the second that there was a rumor that they were actually going to get rid of him, a new wave of people started chiming in with their support for Welsh to say, you cannot let this guy go. He has been incredible for our university. This would be a huge mistake.
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Former President Bush's own son weighed in defending Welsh and urging the university not to get caught up in sensationalized cultural conflicts. But the effort to save Welsh had one major obstacle.
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The board chair told us that he spoke to the governor and that the governor said was time for a change, which no matter how much autonomy he might have given to the board to make a decision, I think anyone can understand that the person who appoints you to your job, their word carries a lot of weight.
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Within days of the video going live, regents had been calling around looking for a replacement for Welsh. Welsh only learned about this when one potential candidate called him after getting a soft offer. While that candidate turned down the offer. After a week, the regents head found their replacement. Welsh was finally given an resign or be fired.
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There was nothing Welch could do by that point, so by that Thursday, he would announce his resignation.
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Less than an hour ago, Mark Welch became the former Texas A and M university president. Welsh resigned from the job and left campus a final time as its leader. The day Welsh resigned, Nico happened to be reporting on a board of regents meeting. At the end of the meeting, Nico had a chance to interview the chair of the board.
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As we were interviewing him, it was announced via this big email blast that Welch had announced his resignation.
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When Nico saw this news, he had a question for the chair of the board.
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I think the exact thing I asked him was, well, what are you looking for in a university president that Welch couldn't bring to the table? And it was silence for 10 seconds afterward until the university spokesperson who was right next to the chair, kind of stepped in with the talking points and everything.
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Online, the news was cheered. The Rudder association posted a letter celebrating his departure. The Texas representative who posted the classroom video tweeted in all caps, we did it. The Texas A and M president is out. Tommy Williams, a conservative Texas politician with almost no higher ed experience, was picked as interim president. And the ouster at A and M has triggered a wave of changes across the state.
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We've seen this year cracking down on schools that they think are indoctrinating students with liberal ideologies. And I think there's going to have profound change. But I think we live in such a politicized society that I think there are as many people who see that as like the crumbling of civilization as there are people who celebrate it.
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While Welsh's ouster was celebrated online, the news was a shock on a campus that had grown to respect and admire him. Welch announced his resignation on a Thursday. The next day, Friday, would be his final day.
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I think there's a lot of kind of perception a lot of the time at a lot of universities that maybe students don't know who the president is or aren't connected to the top administrators. During Welch's presidency, that was not the perception whatsoever, based off my experience both as a student journalist and as a regular student.
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Within hours of Welch announcing his resignation, plans were made for students, staff and faculty to gather outside his office to see him off on his final day. That afternoon, hundreds showed up. I'm outside the administration building on campus where president Mark Welch got a send off from hundreds of Aggies just hours before his time as president ended at 5pm Farms like Hey bro,
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he shows up for us. He embodies the Aggie Corps values. Even though he's not an Aggie himself, he definitely is the true example of what an Aggie should be.
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And at the sendoff students were crying and students were giving him hugs and everything and people had on such short notice written up these large signs and everything praising him and hundreds and hundreds of people had come out. The student body president was one of the first people right on the steps. Never before, at least you know, in my experience, what I've seen, what I've researched as a president, had such a send off like this. It was very shocking and it was very surprising and I'm not sure if there's ever going to be anything like that in the near future.
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One, two, three
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Arm five.
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Arms fight.
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Arm arm five.
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If you've got a story idea, we would love to hear about it. Send us an email@campusfilespodmail.com and if you're loving this podcast, be sure to click Follow on your favorite podcast app so you never miss an episode. While you're there, leave us a review and a five star rating. Campus Files is an Odyssey original podcast hosted by Margo Gray and Ian Mont. Our executive producers are Leah Rees Dennis and Lloyd Lockridge. Campus Files is produced by Ian Mont and Margot Gray. Sound design and engineering by Andy Jaskowicz and Zach Clark. Legal support by Laura Berman and Melissa Jean. Original music by Davy Sumner Special thanks to Maura Curran, Josephina Francis, Hilary Schuff, Eric Donnelly, Kate Hutchison, Rose, Sean Cherry, Curt Courtney and Lauren Vieira.
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To realize the future America needs, we understand what's needed from us to face each threat head on. We've earned our place in the fight for our nation's future.
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We are Marines.
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We were made for this.
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Some crimes are so shocking, they don't just make headlines, they forever change our society. I'm Katie Ring, host of America's Most Infamous Crimes. Each week I take on one of the most notorious criminal cases. Each case unfolds across multiple episodes released every Tuesday through Thursday, from the first sign that something was wrong to the moment the truth came out or didn't. Listen to and follow America's Most Infamous Crimes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.