THE HALLS OF ACADEMIA

by Mary Janicke 

Mark Welsh didn’t resign last week as president of Texas A&M because he lost the confidence of students or faculty. He resigned because politicians demanded it. And that should outrage anyone who believes universities exist to pursue knowledge rather than to appease partisans. The sequence was depressingly predictable. A children’s literature course included material about gender identity. One student objected, invoked religion and a Trump-era executive order, and complained. Instead of being a moment for education—for engaging uncomfortable ideas—the episode became a weapon. A video went viral, lawmakers pounced, and the pressure machine revved into high gear. Welsh tried to manage the firestorm. He reassigned administrators. He fired the professor. He ordered a sweeping audit of the curriculum. But it was never going to be enough.  —Cartoon and news summary by Nick Anderson, September 21, 2025

The hallowed halls now hollowed 
Academia no longer a place for ideas
Now a place for ideology
 
A professor professes inclusiveness
Is now excluded for not honoring exclusiveness
 
A president supporting his faculty
Now questioned about his faculties
 
The learning of students stifled
Because one of them felt uncomfortable
 
So academia becomes a wasteland
Where young people go to have their minds
Closed not opened

Mary Janicke is a gardener, poet, and writer living in Texas. Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies. Her haiku appears on Substack.

RULES FOR TEACHERS, SOMEWHERE IN THE USA, 2023

by Cecil Morris

Attending a drag show at Hamburger Mary’s, and later posting about it on social media, led to Kristi Maris losing her teaching job of nearly 20 years, she wrote on Facebook. —Houston Public Media, July 26, 2023

You shall not attend drag shows
as drag might rub off on you
like the contagion we disbelieve
and you might drag it then to school
where you indoctrinate children
in the unspeakable pleasures
of women’s undergarments
and torture shoes and cult behavior.
You shall not mention slavery
in the same breath as oppression
or affirmative action or
reparations though you can note
how slavery afforded some slaves
with advantageous skills they used
to their own betterment later.
You shall not criticize your boss
or your boss’s lackeys for their
support of policies or practices
either ignorant, ill-informed,
or cruel, or, really, speak any
words not explicitly spelled out
in the approved curriculum.
You shall as much as humanly
possible act and speak and dress
and think in the same Godly way
as your employer does or says
he or she or they does or do. 

Cecil Morris taught high school English for 37 years. Now retired, he spends his time writing poems and shaking his head at the news. He has poems in or forthcoming from Cimarron Review, Hole in the Head Review, The New Verse News, Sugar House Review, Talking River Review, and other literary magazines.