Texas A&M University announced Friday that its president has resigned after the celebrated hiring of a black journalist on one of the nation’s largest campuses unraveled after backlash over her diversity and inclusion work.

President Katherine Banks said in a letter of resignation that she would retire immediately as negative press has become a distraction on the nearly 70,000 student campus in College Station.

Her departure comes as Republican lawmakers in the US focus on diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses. So is Texas, where the Republican Gov. Greg Abbott signed a bill in June that would dismantle program offices at public colleges.

The A&M system said in a statement that Banks this week told faculty leaders she took responsibility for the flawed hiring process of Kathleen McElroy, a former New York Times editor who was selected to revive the school’s journalism department. The statement said a flurry of national publicity suggested McElroy was a victim of anti-woke hysteria and outside interference in the faculty’s hiring process.

Banks told the Texas Tribune this month that there was backlash over her hiring at A&M because of her work on race and diversity in newsrooms.

McElroy’s 20-year career at the New York Times has included research on the relationship between news media and race, particularly in editorial practices, Pulitzers, obituaries, and sports.

McElroy did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Friday, but she told the Tribune she felt it

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damaged by this whole process” and that she thought she was being judged by race, maybe gender. And I don’t think other people would face the same bars or challenges.

The Rudder Assn., which describes itself as a collection of Texas A&M students, alumni, faculty, and staff who are dedicated Aggies committed to preserving and continuing the core values ​​and unique spirit of Texas A&M, has acknowledged that it has complained to school boards about McElroy’s hiring.

TRA believes a department head should embrace the egalitarian and merit-based traditions that characterize Texas A&Ms’ values, rather than the divisive ideology of identity politics, the group wrote last week.

McEloy’s original job offer to revive Texas A&M’s journalism program, which was celebrated on campus with a signing party, “was later changed from a tenure track position to a five-year position and then to a one-year job from which she could be fired at any time.”

A 1981 Texas A&M graduate, McElroy turned down the changes and job offers and instead decided to stay on as a professor at the University of Texas.

At a meeting with the university faculty

on

On Wednesday, Banks said she was not involved in the contract offer changes. The faculty then voted to set up a panel to investigate the matter.

On Monday, Jos Luis Bermdez, interim dean of the Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences, also announced that he would be stepping down and returning to his job on the faculty. McElroy said Bemdez warned her of increasing hysteria about diversity, equity and inclusion at Texas A&M and advised her to stay in Texas.

Banks is the second major university president to step down this week amid unrest. Stanford president Marc Tessier-Lavigne said Wednesday he would resign on Aug. 31, citing an independent review that cleared him of research misconduct but found serious flaws in five scientific papers on topics like brain development, of which he was the lead author.