January 7, 2026
Plato’s love ladder, kicked off campus
Texas A&M bans part of Plato's Symposium
Internet melts down as A&M tells prof to skip Plato's 'love' chapters
TLDR: Texas A&M told a philosophy professor to drop parts of Plato’s Symposium on love or teach another course under new rules. Comments cried censorship and hypocrisy, shared archive links, joked “Dick and Jane,” and urged: read the text and decide; the clash spotlights academic freedom.
Texas A&M told philosophy professor Martin Peterson to drop parts of Plato’s Symposium—yes, the famous speeches about love—or teach a different course under “Rule 08.01,” and the internet promptly lost its chill. Commenters raged at the idea of a university banning Plato, with bediger4000 calling out a free‑speech flip‑flop: “Didn’t we bring back freedom of speech?” Meanwhile, slater declared the original report was “hugged to death,” dropping an archive because the site buckled under rage traffic. The vibe: stunned disbelief, spicy sarcasm, and meme‑fuel everywhere.
Then the thread morphed into a pop‑up book club. A_Duck argued most critics haven’t read it and posted a Gutenberg link, promising the ancient love debate is a 1–2 hour read. Cue the snark: aebtebeten joked that if Plato’s “too woke,” what’s next—Dick and Jane? Folks riffed on “flute girls,” Diotima’s ladder of love, and the cosmic irony of sidelining the guy who basically helped invent higher education. Some tried to parse whether the new rule bans “advocacy” on race and gender; defenders were notably quiet. The dominant mood is “this is absurd,” while the hot take crowd is turning outrage into reading homework. Bottom line: canceling ancient love speeches is peak internet drama, and the comments are the show.
Key Points
- •Texas A&M University told Professor Martin Peterson to remove race/gender material and readings from Plato’s Symposium from his course or teach a different course.
- •The directive cited recent policy changes referred to as “Rule 08.01.”
- •The message was relayed by Department Chair Kristi Sweet from the college leadership team led by interim dean Simon North.
- •The targeted readings included passages on Aristophanes’ myth of split humans and Diotima’s ladder of love from Plato’s Symposium.
- •Peterson had submitted his syllabus after a December 19 review request, stating his course does not advocate ideology and invoking constitutional and academic freedom protections.