When Professor Martin Peterson of Texas A&M University opened his inbox in early January 2026, he did not expect to become a central figure in a global debate about academic freedom<\/strong>. The message from department head Dr. Kristi Sweet was blunt: he had to remove 2 modules on \u201cracial and gender ideology\u201d from the syllabus of his ethics course or face reassignment to other classes. Peterson, a philosopher with more than 20 years of experience, was left with a choice: comply or lose a course he had taught for years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The removed passages came from Plato\u2019s Symposium<\/em>. More specifically, the directive targeted the famous myth of the androgynes<\/strong>, told by the playwright Aristophanes. In that story, Plato suggests that humanity once consisted of 3 sexes rather than 2, and that same-sex attraction is entirely natural. As Peterson later said in an interview with a public radio station: <\/p>\n\n\n\n We will not make universities great again by censoring the classics.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n