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A mature female African American college professor uses a desktop computer on a lecturn in a lecture hall. She is looking confidently at the camera.
Texas A&M has reached a $1 million settlement with Dr. Kathleen McElroy, the Black professor hired to revive its defunct journalism department, after failing to honor its original agreement due to her past curriculum focused on diversity.
The Interim Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, José Luis Bermúdez, and Texas A&M’s President Katherine Banks, have since resigned.
According to the Associated Press, the university has released a joint statement with McElroy regarding the settlement assuring students and faculty that the school “has learned from its mistakes and will strive to ensure similar mistakes are not repeated in the future.” Though she will not be heading up the journalism department as initially expected, McElroy hopes that her willingness to advocate for herself and the university’s subsequent actions will be a guiding post for future attempts to diversify curriculum and faculty at the historic institution. “I hope the resolution of my matter will reinforce A&M’s allegiance to excellence in higher education and its commitment to academic freedom and journalism,” she said. She went on to call the matter “resolved” and will continue her work as a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin, the liberal rival of Texas A&M.
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Source: Black Enterprise
