All in for Equality Rally on the Capitol Steps, March 24, 2025

Happy to say that both Texas LULAC and Equality Texas had their Day of Action yesterday, March 24, 2025, at the Texas Capitol advocating for an array of policies, including trans rights, Ethnic Studies (HB 178) and Bucy's SB 393 SB 17-repeal bill. Other areas of opposition are to school vouchers and higher education anti-tenure bill SB 37. 

According to Equality Texas, yesterday was their largest statewide rally in the organization's history. Congratulations!

It's wonderful when our coalitions partner in opposition to harmful bills, as well as in support of good ones. Compliments of Equality Texas, you can view the entire press conference below. 

I love how the rally began with an honoring of the four directions.

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas LULAC at the Capitol
March 24, 2025

Miriam Laeky w Equality Texas and me

               Advocates for trans rights with Equality Texas

                        "Love is love." So simple and true.

SB 37 – Faculty Senates & Curriculum—Texas AFT Bill Summary & Talking Points

Here is another analysis of SB 37 from Texas AFT. Numerous groups are engaged in this struggle, with Amanda Garcia emerging as a powerhouse organizer, leading the charge with remarkable skill and unwavering dedication. 

She works closely with AAUP President Brian Evan on the numerous bills targeting higher education, including those by Senators Bettencourt and Middleton, SB 1489, and SB 452, respectively, that are mentioned at the end of this AFT Summary below.

I applaud the numerous organizations involved, including Texas Students for DEI that Amanda and her peers formed during the 2023 session in response to Senate Bill 17, Texas' anti-DEI bill.

You can follow them on Instagram @txstudentsfordei

I re-post herein their most recent posts on these bad bills. Go to tinyurl.com/legetoolkit to their super helpful toolkit to learn of what you can do to combat these terrible proposals.

-Angela Valenzuela

SB 37 – Faculty Senates & Curriculum

Texas AFT Bill Summary & Talking Points

Contact agarcia@texasaft.org 

Broad Overview: SB 37 restructures the governance of public institutions of higher education by establishing oversight committees, increasing the power of governing boards, and limiting the autonomy of faculty councils to advisory roles. It mandates comprehensive evaluations of curricula and administrative decisions, tying state funding to compliance with new procedural standards. These changes constrain academic freedom, centralize excessive control in governing bodies, and burden institutions with bureaucratic processes that will hinder their educational mission and innovation.

SECTION 1: General Education Review Committees (Sec. 51.315) 

• A new section, Section 51.315, is added to the Education Code establishing a "General Education Review Committee" for each institution of higher education.
• Each institution must form a review committee to annually "maintain or eliminate” courses in the core curriculum and check for workforce alignment.
• Shall ensure courses in the curriculum “do not endorse specific public policies, ideologies, or legislation” 

• Composition: Committees may include tenured faculty and local industry partners.
• Duties: The committee ensures courses are foundational, prepare students for civic and professional life, and are free from ideological endorsements.
• Recommendations: Committees make recommendations on course retention or elimination, and institutions must publicly post these before board consideration.

• Compliance Reporting: Institutions must certify compliance annually to the Office of Excellence and provide reports to continue receiving state funds. 
• Institutions may not spend appropriated funds until the governing board submits to the legislature and THECB certifies compliance.

SECTION 2: Governing Board Powers and Duties (Sec. 51.352) 

• New Responsibilities for Governing Boards: Boards will now have the authority to approve or deny the hiring of individuals for specific leadership positions (vice president, provost, dean, etc.) and must regularly evaluate the chief executive officer to assist them in achieving performance goals such as student retention and graduation rates.
• “Maintaining or increasing student retention and graduation rates, the amount of money available for research, and making efforts to ensure a variety of perspectives are represented among administration and faculty”

• Decision-Making Authority: Governing boards can now overturn decisions made by campus administrations and must post notices on their websites about meetings where finalists for leadership positions will be considered, along with the curriculum vitae of those candidates.
• Annual Reporting: The governing board must annually report to the governor, the lieutenant governor, the speaker of the house, and each member of the legislature a report regarding decisions made by the board for the academic year on:
• The hiring of administration and faculty, curriculum, any review and evaluation of the institution’s administration

SECTION 3: Faculty Council or Senate (Sec. 51.3522) 

• Sec. 51.3522 Defines a faculty council or senate, and only the governing board may establish a faculty council/senate that adopts the policies:
• Members must be tenured.
• For each college or school: one member appointed by the institution president, one member elected by faculty vote.
• A faculty senate is advisory only, and “may not publish a report directly related to the council’s duties.”
• Each proposal from faculty senates must be reviewed by the governing board, institution administration, and system administration. 
• A member serves a one-year term and may only be a member again after four years.

• Notices/business must be made public:
• Agendas “with sufficient detail to indicate the items on which final action is contemplated”
• Votes must also be public when pertaining to a vote of no confidence and policies related to curriculum and academic standards.
• Advertisements for tenured faculty positions except STEM fields

SECTION 4: Minor Degree and Certificate Programs Review (Sec. 51.989) 

• Sec. 51.989 is added to specify the review process for minor degree and certificate programs
• 🚩Review Criteria: The president and provost must develop a process for reviewing minor and certificate programs and identify programs with low enrollment, leading to consolidation or elimination. 
• To avoid consolidation or elimination, undergraduate programs must have graduated at least 10 students in the preceding two years, OR at least 5 students enrolled at the time of review; graduate programs must have at least 3 students enrolled at the time of review and 3 students graduated in the preceding two years.
• Must show industry data demonstrating workforce demand for the program.
• Periodic Review: Presidents and provosts conduct reviews every four years, subject to board approval for any changes. 

SECTION 5: Governing Board Member Training (Sec. 61.084)

• Training Content: Focuses on roles, duties, governance topics like ethics, policy development, and budgeting.
• Topics covered: audit procedures, legislation that creates higher education institutions, the role of governing boards including its disciplinary and investigative authorities, faculty council/senate policies, the Legislature and state budget.
• Affirmation: Board members must affirm understanding of their responsibilities upon completing training. 

SECTION 6: Faculty Evaluation (Sec. 51.942) 

• Evaluation Process: New requirement for comprehensive performance evaluations for tenured faculty members to occur at least once every six years and no more than once every yea
• Performance evaluation is based on teaching, research, service, patient care, administration, and peer review. It should also be directed toward professional development. The performance evaluation will incorporate “commonly recognized” due process rights. For those receiving unsatisfactory ratings, a short-term development plan with performance benchmarks must be established.
• 🚩 “A faculty member is subject to revocation of tenure or disciplinary action for incompetency, neglect of duty, or other good cause; a faculty member may not be involved in decision-making in a grievance review process or faculty discipline process.”

SECTION 7: Office of Excellence in Higher Education (Ch. 454, Government Code)

• Establishment: The Office of Excellence in Higher Education, administratively attached to the THECB. The director of the office will be appointed by the governor with approval by the senate.
• “Serves at the pleasure of the governor.”
• Mandates the creation of General Education Review Committees within each institution to annually assess the core curriculum and provide recommendations on coursework, ensuring that these courses meet foundational educational standards while maintaining neutrality regarding public policies.
• Role: Acts as an intermediary between the legislature, the public, and institutions. The office is responsible for investigating noncompliance by institutions with state law or institution policy. An institution must respond to the office’s information request within 30 days. Findings will be submitted to the attorney general and the governing board and is subject to investigation. 
• Annual Report: The office will submit an annual report to the governor, lieutenant governor, the attorney general, and the chair of each standing committee the number of reports of noncompliance, the number of investigations, and a summary of investigations results.

SECTION 8-11: Implementation and Transition 

• Timelines: Implementation begins in the 2025-2026 academic year, with initial recommendations due by 2027. 
• Existing Councils: Current faculty councils must be reconstituted or ratified by October 1, 2025, to comply with new standards. These sections collectively aim to increase oversight and standardize processes across Texas public higher education institutions, with significant implications for governance, academic freedom, and administrative operations.
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"SB 37 doesn't fix problems at Texas universities. It undermines faculty, students," by Dr. Polly Strong—OpEd

Friends:

Do give this op-ed on Senate Bill 37, authored by Dr. Pauline Strong, a close read. I am very concerned that Texans aren't aware of this horrible bill, SB 37 that essentially controls the higher education curriculum premised on the false premise of "woke indoctrination." Geez, how offensive can they be!

We are in a drought state and we have a water crisis, a housing crisis, and growing income inequality. Our leaders should focus on these things rather than wasting time and taxpayer dollars on finding ways to silence professors who might actually critique them. This is not heading in the right direction.

The bill will at some point soon make its way to the House Higher Education Committee where we hope it dies. It is constitutionally not sound.

Do not be fooled that this is not about "fixing" higher education. For starters, it ain't broke! If anything, it's about curtailing faculty governance and turning us into a corporation. We are not a business, and it is unethical for us to be run by a non-elective body—as SB 37 proposes—that has control over curriculum and hiring.

Talk about killing higher education!

This is terrible policy.

-Angela Valenzuela

SB 37 doesn't fix problems at Texas universities. It undermines faculty, students | Opinion
by Pauline Strong
Austin American-Statesman | March 24, 2025

Texas public higher education has been in the crosshairs of right-wing politicians since February 2022. That month, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick threatened “looney Marxist professors” with the end of tenure after the University of Texas faculty council issued a statement affirming its faculty’s right to academic freedom. Patrick’s threats led to the 2023 passage of Senate Bill 17, which banned diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts at universities, and SB 18, which weakened the protections of faculty tenure.

Several Republican-sponsored bills this session go after higher education even further. But in my view, Patrick’s priority bill, SB 37, should be most vehemently opposed by Texans who care about the quality of higher education in this state.

In crafting SB 37, Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, has abandoned the culture war language of “wokeness” and “CRT,” or critical race theory. Instead, the bill promises to provide more oversight of universities and promote excellence in higher education.

At first glance, that may sound rather innocuous. But the bill has harmful implications for our public colleges and universities. It will lead to inefficiencies, undermine democratic processes and deny educational liberty and student choice, among other negative effects.

SB 37 would create an Office of Excellence in Higher Education to oversee compliance in our public colleges and universities. But the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board and the Board of Regents already provide such oversight. Adding another layer of bureaucracy will lead to unnecessary government spending and duplicate an infrastructure that already exists.

SB 37 would also require that half of the members of faculty senates and councils be elected. Appointed faculty are more likely to align with the views of the administration, which would reduce the range of perspectives that would be offered in deliberation. The bill would also expand senate membership to constituencies outside the university and limit faculty membership to tenured faculty.

Faculty senates in Texas already serve in an advisory capacity to the president, but under this configuration, only the most elite members of the university workforce — those with tenure — would even be eligible for service. As tenured faculty make up only a minority of the faculty workforce, this severely undermines any semblance of democratic deliberation.

SB 37 would also eliminate minors and certificate programs that politicians determine are under-enrolled. But certificates and minors cost the university virtually nothing to offer. Offering fewer will effectively eliminate students’ ability to seek the credentials they believe are best for them, regardless of the popularity of those studies.

Additionally, SB 37 would place the core curriculum at each institution under the review of an appointed committee. This committee would ensure that “courses do not endorse specific public policies, ideologies or legislation” — a vague provision that in practice could easily lead to state censorship of education.

Like any bureaucratic system, universities could be more efficient in delivering the services the state has asked them to provide. A real inefficiency that should be addressed, for instance, is the increase in highly-paid upper administrative positions at universities that have increasingly taken the work of governance out of the hands of faculty.

But this bill doesn’t fix any real problems in our public colleges and universities. Instead, SB 37 implies that faculty are not experts in the fields in which they’ve spent decades working. It suggests bureaucrats are better at managing organizations than those who labor in them every day. And it contends that students don’t deserve the educational liberty to choose the courses of study that they deem best.

I’m sure if he reached out, Sen. Creighton would find faculty to be willing partners in making our universities the best in the world. Instead, he has proposed a course of action that will greatly hamper our pursuit of excellence. SB 37 is not only bad for Texas colleges and universities, it’s bad for Texas.

Pauline Strong is a professor at the University of Texas and president of the AAUP (American Association of University Professors) chapter at UT Austin.

"SB 37 Will Harm Students’ Development as Critical Thinkers"—TLEEC Testimony Against Senate Bill 37, March 20, 2025

Friends:

Sen. Brandon Creighton's (R-Dist. 4) Senate Bill 37 merits a close read not only because it is injurious to the purposes of higher education, but it could prove to be model legislation for other states. It is an anti-tenure and anti-faculty governance bill and is premised on the view that we are not doing our job in higher education in preparing young people for productive lives in society. At worst, we're allegedly and falsely about "woke indoctrination" instead of real education. 

As University of Houston's Dr. Maria Gonzalez demonstrated in her testimony, citing all the Texas institutions that granted the very legislators on Senate Education Committee their college diplomas, the system isn't broken, but rather doing what it's supposed to be doing. Similarly, Texas AFT's Amanda Garcia said that if it's not broken, it shouldn't be fixed.

To get the whole picture, I encourage you to listen for yourselves to the testimony delivered in yesterday's hearing in the Senate Committee on Education (Part I and Part II).  Of course, as usual, the invited testimony was approving of the bill while everyone else that spoke was strongly opposed. 

I am happy to share here this Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition policy brief on the bill from which witness Vivek Datla testified. A version of it will most certainly come out of the Senate. A goal would be to stop it in the House.

Of course, reach out to whoever represents you to express your views on this horrific legislation that spells disaster for Texas higher education should any version of this become law.

-Angela Valenzuela

SB 37 Will Harm Students’ Development as Critical Thinkers

TLEEC Testimony Against Senate Bill 37, submitted by Vivek Datla to the Texas Senate K-16 Education Committee, March 20, 2025

Dear Chairman Creighton and members of the K-16 Education Committee,

My name is Vivek Datla, and I am an IDRA Education Policy Fellow testifying on behalf of the Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition (TLEEC) against Senate Bill 37. Our coalition is a statewide collaborative of more than 38 organizations and individuals with the mission to improve the quality of public education for all children, with a focus on racial equity. We advocate at the local, state and national levels for high-quality teaching, curricula and instructional practices, bilingual education, fair funding, and enhanced college access and success.

TLEEC opposes SB 37 and is specifically concerned about Sections 51.315 and 454 and the potential of these proposals to censor students’ exposure to diverse curricula and ideologies as taught by field experts. The sections would diminish students’ exercise of free thought and academic judgement and impede the overall development of students as critically thinking adults.

Shared Governance Structures Promote Fair Curricula, Critical Thinking and Free Expression

Texas’ public universities do a great job of developing students and preparing them for the workforce. They consistently rank highly in publications of the nation’s best college institutions. They are powered by the principles of shared governance developed jointly in the 1960s by the American Association of University Professors, the American Council on Education, and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

In producing those guidelines, the representatives of faculty, school leaders and governing board members recognized that the shared interests of different university bodies necessitate collaboration, shared management of responsibilities, and freedom of expression without fear of reprisal. Those shared interests should, as they correctly described, create and maintain an educational process that enables students to “be stimulated by it to become independent adults” and that transmits to them “the cultural heritage of the larger society,” including the “strength, freshness of view and idealism of the student body.” Research suggests that when students engage with curricula that challenge previously held beliefs, they become more civically engaged and are better prepared to cooperate with others in their workspaces and in their communities (Son Holoien, 2013).

It was understood then that decisions concerning curricula and instructional methods are best left, as they are now, to field and research experts: the faculty who work directly with students daily to introduce them to diverse subject matter, foster their creative thinking and analytical skills, and prepare them for careers after college that require them to exercise individual judgement to work with others to solve complex problems.

SB 37 Creates Vague Requirements and Processes that May Induce a “Chilling Effect” on Curriculum and Instruction

SB 37 introduces vague and potentially harmful constraints on students’ exposure to diverse curricula and ideas, while transferring curriculum oversight from faculty to new and unnecessary review committees. Specifically, we are concerned about bill language that seeks to establish an office to “address matters of academic discourse,” though the bill does not clarify allowable or unallowable discourse.

Additionally, we are concerned that the bill restricts any curricula from endorsing “specific public policies, ideologies or legislation,” though these terms and what endorsement is are not defined. This lack of clarity and the broad nature of these proposals are likely to create a political chilling effect on higher education courses, curricula and activities that ultimately reduces students’ exposure to and discussion of complex topics, inhibiting their development as critical thinkers in the process.

Recommendations

TLEEC urges the following recommendations.

• Maintain and strengthen shared governance structures that allow for engagement with diverse curriculum curated by experts.
• Support Texas colleges to offer students a diverse range of perspectives, experiences and opportunities that will prepare them to be critical thinkers, innovators and leaders.

For questions, please contact TLEEC either through Kaci Wright at IDRA (kaci.wright@idra.org), Dr. Chloe Latham Sikes at IDRA (chloe.sikes@idra.org) or Jaime Puente at Every Texan (puente@everytexan.org).

Resources

Son Holoien, D. (September 2013). Do Differences Make a Difference? The Effects of Diversity on Learning, Intergroup Outcomes, and Civic Engagement. Princeton Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity. https://inclusive.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf7151/files/pu-report- diversity-outcomes.pdf

Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition (TLEEC) is a collaborative of organizations and individuals with the mission to improve the quality of public education for all children, with a focus on racial equity. The coalition convenes organizations and individuals who advocate in the interest of public school students at the local, state and national levels.

TLEEC Member Organizations

ARISE Adelante Asian Texans for Justice Austin Justice Coalition Big Thought Black Parents and Families Collective Breakthrough Central  Texas Coalition of Texans with Disabilities Culturingua Dr. Hector P. García G.I. Forum Easterseals Central Texas Educators in Solidarity (EIS) Ethnic Studies Network of Texas (ESNTX) Every Texan Houston Community Voices for Public Education IDRA McNeil Educational Foundation for Ecumenical Leadership Measure Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) Mexican American School Board Members Association (MASBA)

National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) – Tejas Foco San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce SEAT (Students Engaged in Advancing Texas) Southwest Region Youth Legislative Action Center Texas American Federation of Teachers Texas Association for Bilingual Education (TABE) Texas Association for Chicanos in Higher Education (TACHE) Texas Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (TADOHE) Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce (TAMACC) Texas Center for Education Policy at the University of Texas – Austin Texas Hispanics Organized for Political Education (HOPE) Texas League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Texas NAACP Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA) The Arc of Texas UnidosUS (formerly known as NCLR) UP Partnership