The Regents of the Texas A&M University System voted unanimously on Thursday to adopt a policy requiring college presidents to sign off on any course that could be interpreted as pushing “race and gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.”

The new policy seeks to prevent another controversy like the one that erupted at Texas A&M earlier this year when an English professor was filmed pushing pro-LGBT talking points during a children’s literature course. The policy approved by regents defines race ideology as “attempts to shame a particular race or ethnicity” or anything that “promotes activism on issues related to race or ethnicity rather than academic instruction,” The Texas Tribune reported. Gender ideology is defined under the policy as “a concept of self-assessed gender identity replacing, and disconnected from, the biological category of sex.”

The policy also prohibits professors from teaching any material that is not consistent with the approved syllabus. Enforcement of the policy is set to begin at all 12 colleges in the Texas A&M University System in the spring 2026 semester.

“What we’re doing is pretty simple,” regent Sam Torn told The Texas Tribune. “It’s not as complex. We’re simply making sure that we do educate, and we’re simply making sure that we teach what the course syllabus specifies that we teach.”

Videos obtained and shared by Republican Texas state Rep. Brian Harrison and first reported by The Daily Wire in September showed children’s literature professor Dr. Melissa McCoul advocating for leftist views on race and gender and asking one student who pushed back on her arguments to leave a lecture. The children’s literature course included material that advocated for introducing leftist gender ideas to children. One of the slides in the class was titled “Let’s talk gender in children’s lit!” and argued that “Childhood is the time for figuring out how to be a boy, girl, man, woman, or another gender.”

In a phone call with the student who publicly opposed the leftism espoused in the literature course, then-Texas A&M President Mark Welsh said, “There’s not a problem” with teaching LGBT literature as long as the university makes it clear it will be part of a class. When the student asked Welsh if any more changes would be made, such as firing McCoul, Welsh accused the student of attempting to “pick a fight,” adding that the university would not punish the professor.

Welsh stepped down as Texas A&M president less than two weeks after the videos and details of the children’s literature class were made public. A rule implemented in September requires that all course content at each of the Texas A&M System’s 12 schools be audited.

“It’s a serious system-wide review of every course, every syllabus,” Torn said on Thursday. “We are examining the body of knowledge behind each degree, low-producing programs, workforce relevance and financial stewardship.”

Rep. Harrison celebrated after the regents approved the new policy on race and gender ideology, saying that his use of social media to highlight the issue at Texas A&M “has done more this year to combat woke indoctrination than the entire Texas House and Texas Senate… combined.”

Some professors are concerned that the policy will only add confusion.

Geography professor Andrew Klein told the board of regents, “The vagueness of the language is problematic. Faculty are now assuming that all instructions in the topic of concern will be prohibited. Will subjects like medicine, public health and law, where such content is required to prepare professionals for the Texas workforce, be disallowed?”

Philosophy professor Martin Peterson added that academics must “seek the truth,” arguing, “When we seek the truth, we sometimes have to explore ideas that touch on controversial issues.”

“It is not always clear what counts as advocating for an ideology in those contexts,” Peterson said.

European history professor Miranda Sachs argued that the new rule would prevent her from addressing certain historical topics, such as the Holocaust. Regent John Bellinger responded to Sachs’s comment, saying, “There’s got to be some common sense in this.”

“I think we’re taking it a little bit too far when [we say] that we’re not going to teach about what happened in world wars,” Bellinger said.

Disney CEO Bob Iger alluded to “productive conversations” he’s having with unnamed AI companies — talks that he said could eventually let Disney+ subscribers generate their own content on the platform.

The entertainment exec made the revelation during the company’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 earnings conference call this week, saying Disney+ is “in the midst of rolling out the biggest and the most significant changes — from a product perspective, from a technology perspective” since its launch in 2019, per The Hollywood Reporter.

Some of the changes Iger highlighted include “game-like features” and user-generated short-form content generated by AI.

“The other thing that we’re really excited about, that AI is going to give us the ability to do, is to provide users of Disney+ with a much more engaged experience,” the Disney CEO said.

Iger mentioned that “it’s obviously imperative for us to protect our (intellectual property) with this new technology.” 

Though no further details were given, these hints at a user-generated, AI-based future were enough to send social media into a frenzy, with most commenters agreeing it’s a very bad idea.

“Hey! so, we don’t want this! at all, actually! it’s a disgrace to Walt Disney and real animators & artists—also a super quick way to lose your entire fanbase,” one viral X comment said.

“On a serious note, this is a disgrace to the entire animation industry,” another account echoed.

“Imagine going on a years long losing streak at the box office, and thinking the answer was cheaply produced AI slop,” another said.

“User generated AI content on Disney+ is either going to be amazing or absolutely terrible. No middle ground on this one,” a third commenter predicted.

Earlier this year, Disney and Universal teamed up to sue the AI image generation firm Midjourney for what they described as copyright infringement and a “bottomless pit of plagiarism,” as The Daily Wire previously reported.  

The future of AI and how it’s being applied to the entertainment industry has been a hotly debated topic lately among everyone from company execs to actors, unions, and everyday consumers.