Friends,
Higher Education in Texas is in trouble.
Read this piece, along with the earlier North Texas Daily publication titled, "Guidance on research and teaching aimed at SB 17 compliance announced, North Texas Daily.17 isn't supposed to be impacting research of teaching, yet this is what is happening right now right before our very eyes!
I'm glad that the faculty at UNT Denton are standing up, but this could easily become a slippery slope with faculty losing ground at other universities. We must organize, my friends, to push back against an agenda that will incur irreparable damage to Texas' crowned jewel of higher education which boasts some of the best institutions in the country!
-Angela Valenzuela
- Nov. 12, 2024|
The College of Education is making 78 alterations to course titles and descriptions. Photo by Aiden Gonzalez
The College of Education is making 78 changes to course titles and descriptions to comply with Senate Bill 17 and to protect faculty from public backlash.
The altered courses are within the College of Education’s Department of Teacher Education and Administration. Course names and descriptions are reviewed, selected for adjustments and then rewritten by Brian McFarlin, an associate dean for undergraduate studies and research in the College of Education.
Faculty were initially informed of the changes through their colleague Bill Camp, a professor in the College of Education. Camp emailed ten other faculty within the College of Education, informing them that “if a change is being made to your course, there were problems related to SB 17 and the new charge in the new legislative session.”
SB 17, passed June 17, 2023, is a state law that prohibits public colleges and universities that receive state funding from participating in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. The bill explicitly states the DEI prohibition does not apply to “academic course instruction.”
The course changes also follow the release of a Sept. 10 memo by Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick entitled, “Stopping DEI to Strengthen the Texas Workforce.”
In the memo, Patrick directs the Subcommittee on Higher Education to “examine programs and certificates at higher education institutions that maintain discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.”
The memo then directs the committee to “expose how these programs and their curriculum are damaging and not aligned with state workforce demands,” and to “make recommendations for any needed reforms to ensure universities are appropriately educating students to meet workforce needs.”
According to an email sent by Assistant Professor Lok-Sze Wong to fellow faculty and obtained by the North Texas Daily from an anonymous source, Patrick’s directive was in mind when McFarlin, Interim Dean of the College of Education Rudi Thompson and the Integrity and Compliance office decided to make the changes.
McFarlin was tasked with the College of Education’s course review and adjustment process.
After course titles and descriptions are altered by McFarlin, he has to “send the changes through another process or two,” according to Wong’s email. Some of the tentative course adjustments are as listed:
Altered College of Education course descriptions
Wong’s email said McFarlin was made aware of Patrick’s charge in early October. Afterward, McFarlin and Thompson spoke with the university’s Integrity and Compliance Office about “how to best protect our faculty and courses from being further targeted.”
Their discussion also included how to protect faculty from student complaints, according to the email.
The Integrity and Compliance Office, Thompson and McFarlin decided to address course names and descriptions because they are “public facing,” the email said. Wong’s email referenced a grassroots organization named Parents Defending Education who use syllabi available to the public to target and expose schools and higher education institutions all over the United States for “imposing harmful agendas,” according to Parents Defending Education’s website.
Parents Defending Education has listed three of the university’s courses as “incidents” and posted the courses’ syllabi online. According to the website, the courses’ infractions involve critical race theory, decolonization, oppression, white privilege and tenets of queer theory.
One of the classes listed on the website is “EDLE 5600: Race, Class, and Gender Issues in Education.” This is also one of the courses altered by McFarlin.
The changes to EDLE 5600 include a new title and course description. The tentative new course title, “Critical Inquiry into Education,” and description makes no mention of race, gender or class.
The old course description, which operates on the basis that inequities exist between people of different races, gender and social class, was replaced with language saying students in the course would “critically examine current topics related to providing leadership for various student groups.”
The new description also includes new language emphasizing that “all learners” are “capable, motivated, and resilient.”
Katherine Mansfield, a tenured professor in the College of Education who teaches the current Race, Class, and Gender Issues course at the university, said she did not yet know whether the same course could be taught with the listed changes because of the lack of information about the changes.
“All we know is that the title has been changed and the written focus of the class has been changed,” Mansfield said in an interview with the Daily.
According to the email from Wong, faculty whose courses have been adjusted have until the 2025-2026 academic year to revise their curricula to match the new course descriptions.
Wong also emphasized in the email that McFarlin feels empathetic to the faculty and said “he would feel similarly [upset] if he were in [the faculty’s] shoes.”
This follows the latest university Faculty Senate meeting, during which Chief Integrity Officer Clay Simmons presented new guidance on research and academic course instruction aimed at complying with SB 17.
In Simmons’ presentation, he said the new guidance, which was recommended by the university’s Office of General Counsel, requires course instruction on DEI topics to be “limited to the elements of the course.”
For example, Simmons said a mathematics class could not include an activity on DEI topics, whether graded or not.
Devynn Case, university director of media relations, said in a statement to the Daily that the university “[continues] to support all our students as we comply with Senate Bill 17.”
Case also said the law forbids the university from engaging in DEI efforts and “does not apply to student organizations or academic course instruction/research.”
This is a developing story that will be updated as new information becomes available.
Editor's note: this story has been updated to add context.
Their discussion also included how to protect faculty from student complaints, according to the email.
The Integrity and Compliance Office, Thompson and McFarlin decided to address course names and descriptions because they are “public facing,” the email said. Wong’s email referenced a grassroots organization named Parents Defending Education who use syllabi available to the public to target and expose schools and higher education institutions all over the United States for “imposing harmful agendas,” according to Parents Defending Education’s website.
Parents Defending Education has listed three of the university’s courses as “incidents” and posted the courses’ syllabi online. According to the website, the courses’ infractions involve critical race theory, decolonization, oppression, white privilege and tenets of queer theory.
One of the classes listed on the website is “EDLE 5600: Race, Class, and Gender Issues in Education.” This is also one of the courses altered by McFarlin.
The changes to EDLE 5600 include a new title and course description. The tentative new course title, “Critical Inquiry into Education,” and description makes no mention of race, gender or class.
The old course description, which operates on the basis that inequities exist between people of different races, gender and social class, was replaced with language saying students in the course would “critically examine current topics related to providing leadership for various student groups.”
The new description also includes new language emphasizing that “all learners” are “capable, motivated, and resilient.”
Katherine Mansfield, a tenured professor in the College of Education who teaches the current Race, Class, and Gender Issues course at the university, said she did not yet know whether the same course could be taught with the listed changes because of the lack of information about the changes.
“All we know is that the title has been changed and the written focus of the class has been changed,” Mansfield said in an interview with the Daily.
According to the email from Wong, faculty whose courses have been adjusted have until the 2025-2026 academic year to revise their curricula to match the new course descriptions.
Wong also emphasized in the email that McFarlin feels empathetic to the faculty and said “he would feel similarly [upset] if he were in [the faculty’s] shoes.”
This follows the latest university Faculty Senate meeting, during which Chief Integrity Officer Clay Simmons presented new guidance on research and academic course instruction aimed at complying with SB 17.
In Simmons’ presentation, he said the new guidance, which was recommended by the university’s Office of General Counsel, requires course instruction on DEI topics to be “limited to the elements of the course.”
For example, Simmons said a mathematics class could not include an activity on DEI topics, whether graded or not.
Devynn Case, university director of media relations, said in a statement to the Daily that the university “[continues] to support all our students as we comply with Senate Bill 17.”
Case also said the law forbids the university from engaging in DEI efforts and “does not apply to student organizations or academic course instruction/research.”
This is a developing story that will be updated as new information becomes available.
Editor's note: this story has been updated to add context.
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