Esteemed Black journalist Kathleen McElroy, caught in ‘DEI hysteria,’ rejects Texas A&M offer to teach
McElroy says it appears not much has changed at Texas A&M University since she was a student there in the '70s and '80s.
Kathleen O. McElroy will not be joining the staff at Texas A&M University.
Last month, according to The Texas Tribune, the institution announced that it had hired McElroy, a University of Texas at Austin professor, respected journalist with a lengthy career and 1981 graduate of Texas A&M, to resurrect its journalism school. This week, she decided she won’t be departing her UT Austin position.
After 55 years, Texas A&M discontinued its journalism department in 2004, despite continuing to offer it as a minor and then as a liberal arts degree.
At an official signing ceremony a month ago, McElroy officially accepted the position to direct the revived program and instruct as a tenured professor, pending approval from the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents.
The veteran journalist was eager to return to her alma mater and establish a new program there. Then, the road for her started to get rocky.
“I feel damaged by this entire process,” McElroy told The Tribune. “I’m being judged by race, maybe gender. And I don’t think other folks would face the same bars or challenges. And it seems that my being an Aggie, wanting to lead an Aggie program to what I thought would be prosperity, wasn’t enough.”
Between 2016 and 2022, McElroy served as director of the University of Texas at Austin’s School of Journalism, where she is a tenured professor. She worked for The New York Times for 20 years in various editing positions before transferring to UT Austin to complete her doctoral program.
McElroy has spent her career reporting on different topics, including athletics and obituaries of prominent civil rights figures. Her research on the media and race focused on ways to increase diversity and inclusion in newsrooms.
She was hired by A&M as a tenured professor in the Department of Communication and Journalism and as the director of the journalism department, according to the initial offer letter McElroy signed on June 13; her employment did not have a set end date. However, she consented to a five-year contract post without tenure, which the university system’s governor-appointed board of regents would have had to approve.
After the signing ceremony, McElroy said A&M staffers informed her that many systemic stakeholders were raising concerns about her time at the Times and her efforts on racial diversity in newsrooms.
McElroy claimed that she was informed her appointment was being held up in “DEI hysteria” — using the acronym for diversity, equity and inclusion — as administrators at a Texas university tried to determine what kind of work regarding race is permitted.
At public universities in Texas, schools are preparing for the implementation of new state legislation in January that prohibits offices, programs and training that advance diversity, equity and inclusion. In response to the new law, the Texas A&M System recently began an audit of all DEI offices system-wide.
McElroy’s duties weren’t going to be particularly focused on diversity or equity, but included expanding the program, hiring teachers and developing an internship program for aspiring student journalists. She was also appointed to assist in developing a curriculum that explicitly addressed delivering news to underrepresented communities throughout the state.
José Luis Bermúdez, A&M’s interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, called McElroy on Friday, she claimed, and warned her that there were individuals who may compel leadership to fire her, and he could not shield her from them.
Bermúdez informed her that her hiring had “stirred up a hornet’s nest,” that she had detractors, and “even if he hired me, these people could make him fire me,” and nobody — not even the school’s president or the chancellor — could stop it from happening, according to The Tribune.
On June 19, McElroy claimed, she spoke with Bermúdez, who told her she had a big target on her back and that Texas A&M differed from UT Austin regarding its politics and culture.
A few days later, they had another talk during which Bermúdez informed her of “noise in the [university] system” regarding her. When she pressed him, he acknowledged that she was a Black lady who worked for The New York Times. He explained to her that The New York Times is sometimes compared to the early 1900s Russian Communist Party publication Pravda in conservative circles, the outlet reported.
Ultimately, he suggested she continue in her tenured position at UT-Austin.
The most recent offer letter from Texas A&M, which was different from the one she formally signed on campus, was delivered to her on Sunday. She shared that A&M had now offered her a three-year appointment as the director of the journalism program and a one-year contract as a professor without tenure, stipulating her removal at any time.
McElroy, as of early Tuesday, retracted her resignation from UT and has chosen to remain in Austin.
As reality struck during these discussions, she commented that she was sad not much had changed about Texas A&M’s culture since she was a student there in the ’70s and ’80s.
”This offer letter on Sunday really makes it clear that they don’t want me there,” McElroy told The Tribune. “But in no shape, form, or fashion would I give up a tenured position at UT for a one-year contract that emphasizes that you can be let go at any point.”
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