Texas A&M said Friday that president M. Katherine Banks resigned in the aftermath of the botched hiring of a Black journalism professor who is an outspoken proponent of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.
Banks submitted her letter of resignation Thursday night, one day after taking responsibility for the failed hire of Kathleen McElroy and calling the events "embarrassing."
"The recent challenges regarding Dr. McElroy have made it clear to me that I must retire immediately," Banks wrote in her resignation letter, according to The Texas Tribune. "The negative press is a distraction from the wonderful work being done here."
McElroy, a former New York Times editor, turned down Texas A&M to run its journalism program after what she said were shifting offers from the university. After first being promised a five-year contract, McElroy said she was given a one-year deal instead with a provision that she could be fired at any time.
Texas A&M already had held a public signing ceremony to announce McElroy's hire, weeks before the turn of events. McElroy is currently a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin.
But pushback came when McElroy's DEI efforts came to light.
McElroy, who is part of the Council for Racial and Ethnic Equity and Diversity at the University of Texas at Austin, wrote an op-ed in 2020 for the school's newspaper, The Daily Texan, advocating for faculty hires other than "cisgender straight White men."
She also pushed critical race theory in an interview with NPR in 2021, arguing that journalists "can't cover all of these institutions without recognizing how all these institutions were built."
"This offer letter ... really makes it clear that they don't want me there," McElroy told The Tribune last week. "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."
McElroy told The Tribune that she was told by Jose Luis Bermudez, then interim dean of Texas A&M's College of Arts and Sciences, that he could not protect her from "DEI hysteria."
"You're a Black woman who worked at The New York Times," Bermudez purportedly told her, adding that The Times is akin to Pravda in Texas conservative circles. He advised her to stay at UT.
Bermudez has since resigned.
In a reported tense two-hour meeting with A&M's Faculty Senate on Wednesday, Banks said neither she nor the Board of Regents revised the contract offer to McElroy.
"What I can tell us is that if there was a statement that the initial offer, accepted offer, is revoked that is not true, it was never revoked," Banks told the Senate. "It was never pulled back and there was never an agreement revising that offer."
Mark A. Welsh III, dean of A&M's Bush School of Government and Public Service, will serve as acting president until an interim president is named, per The Tribune.
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