"Thomas Jefferson loathed Plato. In 1814, he wrote to John Adams that he had been reading the Republic and came away unimpressed: “Bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities, & incomprehensibilities, and what remains?” The only reason the Greek philosopher is so revered, Jefferson opined, is that “education is chiefly in the hands of persons who, from their profession, have an interest in the reputation and the dreams of Plato.” Even so, Jefferson would have been appalled by what happened last week at Texas A&M University. Days before the spring semester began, Martin Peterson, a philosophy professor, was ordered to remove Plato’s Symposium from the list of assigned readings for the class “Contemporary Moral Issues.” Peterson and Plato fell victim to a policy adopted by the university in the fall, which states that classes cannot “advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” without special approval. In his email response to his department chair, Inside Higher Ed reported, Peterson warned, “You are making Texas A&M famous—but not for the right reasons.” He was right. The case has attracted widespread outrage, including a protest from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. It’s hard to imagine a starker violation of academic freedom than forbidding students to read one of the most famous texts in all of Western philosophy. “Your decision to bar a philosophy professor from teaching Plato is unprecedented,” Peterson protested."