The Theology of Power Behind the Anti-DEI Movement: What Katherine Stewart, Nancy MacLean, and Jane Mayer Help Us See, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Theology of Power Behind the Anti-DEI Movement:
What Katherine Stewart, Nancy MacLean, and Jane Mayer Help Us See          

by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

June 10, 2026

Today's anti-DEI movement does not merely invoke the language of neutrality; it weaponizes it. Its appeals to “colorblind equality,” “individual responsibility,” “viewpoint diversity,” and “freedom from coercion” provide moral cover for a coordinated effort to dismantle the institutional commitments that make multiracial and multiethnic democracy possible.

A Manhattan Institute (2023) policy brief by Christopher Rufo, Ilya Shapiro, and Matt Beienburg makes this clear. The document calls for state legislatures to abolish DEI offices, end mandatory diversity training, prohibit diversity statements, and eliminate identity-conscious policies in public universities. It even supplies model legislative language for states to adopt. In other words, it does not merely criticize DEI. It operationalizes a political project.

What would Katherine Stewart, Nancy MacLean, and Jane Mayer help us see in this document and in the broader movement from which it emerges? At the risk of oversimplifying the work of these formidable researchers and thinkers—or failing to fully acknowledge the many conceptual overlaps among them—I offer the following reading. Each illuminates a different dimension of the same political project: Stewart helps us understand the religious-nationalist drive for power; MacLean reveals the anti-democratic political economy beneath it; and Mayer follows the money and institutional networks that make such ideas actionable.

Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers and Money, Lies, and God, would
likely urge us not to mistake this for a simple “culture war.” Christian nationalism, in her analysis, is not merely about religious belief. Nor is it reducible to debates over prayer, abortion, sexuality, or school curricula. It is a political movement seeking power over the institutions of democracy. Its aim is not pluralism, but control. From this perspective, attacks on DEI, Ethnic Studies, gender studies, and public education are not side issues. They are part of a larger attempt to define whose knowledge counts, whose histories matter, and whose presence in public institutions is legitimate.

Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains, would likely locate this effort within a longer history of anti-democratic political economy. Her work shows how radical-right, neoliberal thinkers and donors have sought to constrain majority rule, weaken public institutions, privatize public goods, and insulate concentrated wealth from democratic accountability. Seen through MacLean’s lens, anti-DEI legislation is not only a cultural backlash. It is also a governance strategy. It

narrows what public universities can do, what faculty can say, what students can learn, and what communities can demand of taxpayer-supported institutions.

Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money, would likely follow the money. She would ask: Who funds the think tanks, advocacy organizations, litigation networks, media campaigns, and policy shops that produce these “model bills”? Who benefits when public institutions are weakened? Who gains when democracy is recast as “coercion,” equity as “orthodoxy,” and civil rights as “preference”? 

Mayer’s work helps us see that ideas rarely move on their own. They are carried, amplified, and institutionalized through networks of wealth, influence, litigation, media, and policy advocacy. In higher education, this influence can become especially consequential when donor support comes with expectations—whether explicit or implicit—that shape curricula, research priorities, faculty appointments, or public-facing programs. When private wealth gains this kind of leverage over academic life, it does more than fund ideas; it helps determine which ideas become legitimate, visible, and powerful. The result is a serious threat to academic freedom, shared governance, and the integrity of universities as public-serving institutions.

Together, these three writers help us understand that the attack on DEI is not simply about administrative offices or training sessions. It is about the future of democracy itself.

John Oliver’s recent and timely Last Week Tonight segment on New College of Florida gives us a concrete glimpse of what this project looks like when theory becomes governance. New College was not merely criticized as “woke”; it was politically captured and remade through state power. 

Board appointments, administrative upheaval, the elimination of gender studies, numerous faculty departures, escalating costs, and an aggressive campaign to rebrand the institution all became part of a larger effort to transform a distinctive honors public liberal arts college into a showcase for ideological control. Put plainly, New College was not simply reformed; it was targeted. Its transformation should be understood as an intentional and orchestrated attack—one that other states, especially those already moving in this direction, should heed as a warning.

Oliver’s satire makes the story accessible, but the implications are grave: New College reveals how appeals to freedom, neutrality, and anti-indoctrination can become instruments for narrowing intellectual life and subordinating public education to political spectacle.

Link to John Oliver's show on New College

What happened at New College of Florida should therefore be read not as an isolated Florida story, but as a warning about a broader national strategy—one that has already taken legislative form in Texas through SB 17 and related efforts to discipline public higher education.

This is especially clear in higher education. Public universities are among the few institutions where young people can still encounter histories, literatures, theories, and communities that challenge inherited hierarchies. They are places where students learn that inequality is not natural, that democracy is unfinished, and that knowledge can serve justice. This is precisely why they have become targets.

The anti-DEI movement tells us that it seeks neutrality. But there is nothing neutral or apolitical about banning the vocabulary of race, gender, sexuality, colonialism, power, privilege, or structural inequality from public life. 

There is nothing neutral or apolitical about using state power to restrict how universities support historically excluded students. There is nothing neutral about turning “colorblindness” into a weapon against the very communities whose labor, taxes, cultures, and struggles built the state.

Nor is there anything Christian, in the deepest moral sense, about denying the dignity of the vulnerable, erasing histories of suffering and resistance, or consolidating power in the hands of the already powerful. The Christianity rooted in justice that many of us recognize speaks to humility, justice, love, mercy, and care for the stranger. Christian nationalism, by contrast, cloaks hierarchy in sacred authority. It baptizes domination. It transforms—and disfigures—a faith tradition into an instrument of political control.

This is why Stewart’s analysis matters. She helps us see how religious language can be marshaled to justify anti-democratic power. This is why MacLean’s analysis matters. She helps us see how democracy is weakened not always by dramatic coups, but by slow institutional redesign. And this is why Mayer’s analysis matters. She helps us see how concentrated wealth builds the infrastructure that makes these transformations possible.

The struggle over DEI, then, is not a narrow dispute over campus bureaucracy. It is a struggle over whether public institutions will continue to serve a multiracial democracy or whether they will be remade to protect hierarchy under the banner of freedom.

For those of us in Texas, this is not abstract. Under SB 17, we have seen how anti-DEI laws chill speech, restructure universities, eliminate offices, threaten programs, and place entire fields of study under suspicion. We have seen how Mexican American Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and other knowledge traditions become vulnerable when political leaders decide that democracy itself has become too diverse, too demanding, and too honest.

The answer is not despair. It is clarity.

We should name the movement accurately. We should refuse the false innocence of its language. We should defend academic freedom, shared governance, Ethnic Studies, gender studies, civil rights, and public education as essential democratic goods. 

And we should insist that pluralism is not a threat to democracy. Pluralism is democracy.

The future being offered by Christian nationalism and its allied political networks is a narrowed one: fewer rights, fewer histories, fewer voices, fewer protections, fewer public goods. The future we must defend is broader, deeper, and more humane: a democracy capacious enough to tell the truth, educate all children, honor all communities, and build institutions worthy of the public trust.

That is the real choice before us.

Reference

Last Week Tonight. (2026, June 8). New College of Florida: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFMc07F1UUU

Manhattan Institute. (2023, January 18). New issue brief: Abolish DEI bureaucracies and restore colorblind equality in public universities [Press release]. https://manhattan.institute/article/new-issue-brief-abolish-dei-bureaucracies-and-restore-colorblind-equality-in-public-universities

MacLean, N. (2017). Democracy in chains: The deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan for America. Penguin Press.

Mayer, J. (2016). Dark money: The hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right. Anchor.

Stewart, K. (2020). The power worshippers: Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Stewart, K. (2025). Money, lies, and God: Inside the movement to destroy American democracy. Bloomsbury Publishing.

John Oliver Takes Aim at New College of Florida

John Oliver’s segment on New College of Florida is both hilarious and devastating because it captures, with painful clarity, what happens when higher education becomes a staging ground for ideological conquest. What has unfolded there is not reform, but a political takeover that has driven away faculty, destabilized students, dismantled programs, and turned a once-distinctive public honors college into a warning for the nation. The lesson is clear for us here in Texas and beyond: when political power is used to control universities, the result is not educational improvement, but the erosion of academic freedom, institutional integrity, and student well-being.

-Angela Valenzuela

John Oliver Takes Aim at New College of Florida
“It’s not going great,” the late-night host said of the political takeover and institutional upheaval that have transformed New College’s campus since 2023.

By Kendall Southworth June 8, 2026

John Oliver turned his satirical lens on New College of Florida in a blistering 28-minute segment on Sunday, June 7. Image: Courtesy HBO

If you happened to be scrolling through channels late Sunday night, you might have stumbled across an unexpected but familiar sight: the bayfront views of the original winter home of circus magnate Charles Ringling—now known as College Hall, the academic and administrative building of New College of Florida. For the last several years, the tiny Sarasota enclave has occupied a persistent, polarizing place in headlines big and small—and on Sunday night, that long-running conflict landed onto one of television’s biggest stages.

In a blistering 28-minute segment on Last Week Tonight, host John Oliver turned his satirical lens toward the local liberal arts college that became ground zero for the conservative movement’s efforts to reshape higher education. Backed by months of research and interviews with current and former students, faculty and alumni—including the independent alumni organization Novo Collegian Alliance—the segment traced the political takeover and institutional upheaval that have transformed the campus since 2023.

For former and current New College students who have borne close witness to watching what Oliver called a “political theater” reshape where they live and learn, seeing the story broadcast to millions across platforms felt surreal.

“We’ve watched this destruction of a great educational program for the last three and a half years. Seeing it brought to national attention is both hard to see but also cathartic,” says Brian Cody, secretary of the Novo Collegian Alliance. “Seeing his face next to the null set [the college’s beloved former mascot, which Oliver described as ‘the single dorkiest thing’ he had ever heard] is just crazy.”

Oliver opened the segment by introducing viewers to the New College generations of Sarasotans have known since the ’60s: a small public honors college known for attracting unusually intellectual students, self-directed study and narrative evaluations instead of traditional grades and a reputation for attracting unusually intellectual students—or, as Oliver affectionately put it, being “a rare haven for gentle nerds.” He highlighted the school’s academic track record, including a 2018 report showing that 80 percent of graduates attended graduate school within five years and that New College ranked third nationally among public and private institutions for producing graduates who go on to earn doctoral degrees.

Oliver then revisited Gov. Ron DeSantis’ early 2023 appointment of six conservative allies to the college’s board of trustees. He described the takeover not merely as an effort to “recapture an institution,” but to “provide a model for red states to then replicate.”

That national ambition was openly shared by conservative activist Christopher Rufo, one of the newly appointed trustees. At the time of his appointment, Oliver pointed out, Rufo tweeted, “We are now over the wall and ready to transform higher education from within.” He doubled down on this language later in his foreword to Storming the Ivory Tower, a book written by New College president and former Florida House Speaker Richard Corcoran. In it, Rufo praised Corcoran for implementing “the vision of Governor Ron DeSantis,” adding: “He fought the press—and won. Florida has become the blueprint for red-state governance.”

Much of the segment focused on those efforts by Corcoran. Oliver highlighted what he framed as a tension between promises of restored academic rigor and the realities of the college’s recent trajectory. He pointed to faculty departures, Corcoran’s nearly $700,000 annual salary (the highest per-student compensation of any public university president in Florida, with perks and bonuses pushing total compensation above $1 million), and the dismantling of longstanding programs and campus traditions.

He also highlighted a series of controversial hires, including vice provost David Rancourt, a former lobbyist with no prior experience in higher education. Oliver claimed that “the most noteworthy thing” Rancourt had done since his appointment was participate in a stand-up comedy night in which he described an incident from childhood in which he exposed his genitalia to a child the same age, referring to her as a “little b—-.” Ironically, Oliver also pointed to former communications director Fred Piccolo to make his point, whose tenure ended after multiple charges of indecent exposure became public.

The segment also examined one of the administration’s most frequently cited achievements: enrollment growth.

While incoming classes have increased since the takeover, Oliver argued that the gains come with important caveats. He cited reports from former admissions employees who alleged that academic standards had been lowered, and he spent several minutes on the college’s expanded recruitment of athletes, including roughly 70 baseball players the first year, when there were no athletic facilities. He also noted reporting that student-athletes have received a disproportionately large share of merit-based scholarships despite, on average, holding weaker academic credentials than other applicants.

For Cody, it was affirming to see these points surface on a national stage, but he noted there is even more to the story, saying that “they keep bringing in these big classes, but last year they only grew by 22 students compared to the year prior. They’re coming in to play sports but are leaving after a year or two. They’re wasting money recruiting people, but not keeping them.”

Oliver scrutinized the financial implications of the changes, citing a state audit that found New College’s public cost per degree had risen to nearly $500,000—far higher than other institutions in Florida’s university system. Cody added that, in the wake of a recent move by lawmakers to slash the college’s operating budget by 40 percent, the consequences of that spending trajectory may soon become more acute.

A state audit found New College’s public cost per degree had risen to nearly $500,000—far higher than other institutions in Florida’s university system.

Image: Courtesy Florida State University Efficiency Study

Throughout the piece, Oliver argued that New College had become a vehicle for political performance rather than educational reform, a view echoed by one current student who described the changes as disorienting and personal. “It feels like New College has become a political playground for what these people want the country to be,” she said. “I’m upset—this is my education.” Another student in his final year described being moved out of his campus housing by administration to make room for incoming athletes.

 “Depressingly,” said Oliver in closing, “this is the exact sort of smash-and-grab we’re seeing in so many places right now, from public health to newspapers to broadcast news. Ideologues capture something they dislike, claim they want to fix it, and then proceed to dismantle it. But seldom has that been more blatant than watching people talk about great debates and classical education, only to drive away faculty, dismiss books as trash, and assemble a veritable Avengers of D-list conservatives, celebrities, creeps and weirdos—all so they can lecture the world’s single largest baseball team.”

Corcoran didn’t reply to a request for a phone interview but released a statement to Sarasota Magazine, referencing “record enrollment growth, rising academic achievement, significant philanthropic investment, historic growth in foundation support and endowment assets, [and] the recruitment of exceptional faculty.” Despite the show’s focus on campus upheaval, Corcoran maintained that the administration’s efforts have ultimately resulted in “a strengthened campus culture rooted in intellectual freedom, civil discourse, and academic freedom.” He added that the college had repeatedly invited John Oliver to visit campus, meet with students and faculty, film on site or participate in an open conversation on its Socratic Stage, noting that the invitation “was declined” but “remains open.”

 William Rosenberg—president of the Novo Collegian Alliance—on the other hand, praised the segment, saying, “John Oliver has a rare gift for making people laugh without letting them look away.” He added that while as humorous as the segment may have been, “what is happening at New College is no laughing matter for the students, faculty and staff living through it every day.”

To watch Last Week Tonight’s segment on New College of Florida, click here. 

Public Schools Are on the Ballot: Why Gina Hinojosa’s Campaign Matters, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. June 8, 2026

Public Schools Are on the Ballot: Why Gina Hinojosa’s Campaign Matters

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

June 8, 2026

Today’s news about Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa’s
launch of “Team Texas Public Schools” could not come at a more urgent moment. Across Texas, school communities are being forc
ed to confront an unthinkable reality: neighborhood schools—beloved places where generations of children have learned, played, been fed, been loved, and been known—are being closed, consolidated, and destabilized.

Emilio, Gina, & me

It was an honor to stand with Gina today at the press conference she held at Pease Elementary this morning. CBS Austin below recorded the event so that you can view it, at least in part.

Here in Austin, the pain is immediate. Ten schools are closing. Families are grieving not simply the loss of buildings, but the loss of community, continuity, trust, and belonging. Anyone who has ever walked the halls of a neighborhood public school knows that a school is never just a school. It is where children learn their own worth. It is where teachers become lifelines. It is where parents build relationships. It is where democracy begins, one classroom, one child, one family at a time.

That is why Hinojosa’s words today matter: “It is not just you.” Austin families are not alone. This is happening across Texas. It is happening in communities large and small, urban and rural, Black, Brown, white, immigrant, working-class, and middle-class. It is happening because our public schools have been pushed to the brink by policy choices—choices that have starved districts, demoralized educators, politicized curriculum, over-tested children, and opened the door to privatization.

Let us be clear: school closures are not natural disasters. They are political outcomes.

For years, Texas leaders have told us that there is no money for public schools while finding money for vouchers, border militarization, tax giveaways, political theater, and the steady expansion of private interests into the public sphere. They have manufactured crisis and then offered privatization as the cure. 

They have treated our children’s schools as though they were expendable, especially when those schools serve communities of color, working families, emergent bilingual students, students with disabilities, and children whose parents lack the political power of wealthy donors.

This is why the fight for public education is inseparable from the fight for democracy.

Public schools are one of the last great public institutions where we still gather across difference. They belong to all of us. They are funded by all of us. They serve the common good. When they are weakened, the entire civic fabric weakens. When they are closed, communities lose anchors. When public dollars are diverted to private schools, the children left behind are our children, our neighbors, our students, our future.

Gina Hinojosa’s campaign speaks directly to this crisis because her own public life began in the struggle to save a neighborhood school. As a former Austin ISD trustee, a state legislator, a mother, and a longtime defender of public education, she understands that schools are not line items on a spreadsheet. They are living institutions. They carry history, memory, culture, language, and hope.

Her critique of vouchers as a scam resonates because vouchers do not create real choice for most families. They subsidize private options for some while draining resources from the public schools that educate the overwhelming majority of Texas children. 

They do not guarantee transportation. 

They do not guarantee admission. 

They do not guarantee services for children with disabilities. 

They do not guarantee accountability. 

What they do guarantee is that public money will flow away from public institutions at the very moment those institutions are being told to do more with less.

And the A–F accountability system, as Hinojosa rightly notes, has become part of this machinery. A state agency can design the test, control the rating system, shift the rules, and then declare schools “failing”—often without acknowledging the structural underfunding, poverty, language inequities, and policy instability that shape school outcomes. This is not accountability in any meaningful democratic sense. It is a system that too often punishes the very communities that deserve the most investment.

This is why voting matters.

We cannot mourn school closures and then stay home on Election Day. We cannot say we love teachers and then fail to defend them at the ballot box. We cannot lament what is happening to our children’s schools while allowing the same political leadership to continue dismantling them.

Getting out the vote is not a slogan. It is a responsibility. It means checking our registration, having a voting plan. It means helping our students, families, neighbors, elders, and young people understand what is at stake. It means offering rides, making calls, knocking on doors, sharing information, and refusing cynicism. It means remembering that democracy is not something we possess once and for all; it is something we practice, protect, and renew.

Texas is not a lost cause. Texas is a living struggle. And we are worthy foes against the oligarchs.

Every school closure meeting, every parent testimony, every teacher who stays late, every student who speaks up, every community member who refuses to accept austerity as destiny—these are signs that people still believe in the public good. They still believe that our children deserve better. They still believe that a multiracial, multilingual, working-family Texas has the right to govern itself.

This election must be about more than personalities. It must be about whether Texas will continue down the road of privatization, underfunding, censorship, and manufactured crisis—or whether we will choose a future rooted in public schools, public accountability, and public care.

Our children are watching. Our teachers are exhausted. Our families are hurting. Our communities are organizing.

Now we must vote like our schools depend on it—because they do.

Hinojosa launches program to fight Texas school closures, citing public school crisis

by Jahmal Kennedy | Mon, June 8, 2026 at 5:08 PM CBS Austin



Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa in Austin Monday, June 8, 2026.

As school districts across Texas, including Austin ISD, face budget crises and the threat of campus closures, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa is launching a new effort she says is aimed at helping communities fight back.

Hinojosa said Texas public schools are in dire condition.

“I will tell you that our public schools are on life support right now,” she said.

ALSO "It hurts": Austin ISD families look to keep community alive on final day for 10 campuses

Hinojosa announced a nonpartisan organizing program called Team Texas Public Schools. The program is designed to train parents, teachers and administrators to fight school closures in communities “getting hit the hardest.”

“Ten schools in this city alone in the school district are shutting down, but it is happening all over this state,” Hinojosa said.

Asked about Austin ISD’s budget process and closures, Hinojosa said, “WhatI think is important for the people of Austin to understand as they are in the trenches fighting this fight is that it is not just you.”

She also blamed Gov. Greg Abbott for the situation, saying, “And it is important for supporters of our public schools for parents and teachers to understand that Greg Abbott meant for this to happen.”

Abbott, Hinojosa’s November opponent, has focused his K-12 agenda on school vouchers in recent years. In February, Abbott celebrated what his office called “record-breaking school choice demand” after more than 100,000 families applied for vouchers.

Abbott said of vouchers: “Through this program, families will receive funds to send their children to a school that is the best fit for them.”

However, University of Texas at Austin professor Jennifer Keys Adair studies elementary and early childhood education, and says, "vouchers are definitely diverting funds from public neighborhood elementary schools."

She also added, "it seems like in this voucher conversation, oh, it will allow all families to be able to choose where they go to school. But we know that that's not what's happening," said Adair. She added more affluent families are more likely to get a voucher and said, "So in that case, you're furthering the kind of pressure on teachers and we're furthering the like lack of resources that we're offering to children who need it most."

Hinojosa said she opposes that approach.

“I don't believe in public school vouchers,” she said. Hinojosa even called it a "scam."

Austin ISD parent and former district principal Claudia Kramer Santamaria said she believes Hinojosa is the right advocate for Texas public schools.

“We understand as former principal and teacher that we needed to really have an advocate and I think that's what failed,” Santamaria said.

Hinojosa also criticized Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath for what she called a “rigged” A-F report card system, saying Morath gets to "make the [STAAR] test, rate the test, look at results, and then decide who fails and who passes," and added "And he rigs it to make it show what he wants it to show. And he wants it to show that our Texas public schools aren't strong. And he wants it to show that privatization is a better option."

Hinojosa said that if she becomes governor she would replace Morath.

UT should restore Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, Opinion-Editorial, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. & Emilio Zamora, Ph.D.

Friends,

I welcome you to read the op-ed that Emilio Zamora and I co-authored, published today in the Austin American-Statesman. We are grateful to the editors for publishing it and for helping bring public attention to the importance of restoring Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at UT Austin.

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

UT should restore Mexican American and Latina/o Studies

By Angela Valenzuela and Emilio Zamora,Guest columnists
June 4, 2026 Austin American-Statesman

Mexican American and Latina/o Studies helps students understand the people, history and culture that shape Texas. UT should restore it, professors Angela Valenzuela and Emilio Zamora write.

Aaron Martinez/American-Statesman 

Concerns about the University of Texas’ commitment to a broad and inclusive education have grown since the dismantling of diversity, equity and inclusion programs on the Austin campus. Those concerns deepened recently when the College of Liberal Arts consolidated four important departments— African and African Diaspora Studies, American Studies,Mexican American and Latina/o Studies (MALS), and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies — into a new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.

The decisionraises important questions about the university’s intentions, its academic mission, its contractual obligations to faculty members, staff and students, and whether administrators followed the review process such a significant restructuring requires.

The new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis is now responsible for administering four fully developed academic programs with hundreds of faculty members, staff and students, each grounded in their distinct histories, scholarly traditions and educational goals. That arrangement is not a viable proposition, given the scale of the undertaking and the difficulty of administering a bloated department. Whether its officials anticipate it or not, a perverse incentive exists to pare down the new department to more manageable proportions, thereby diminishing the intellectual and curricular integrity of the fields serving students across the university.

Universities exist not merely to transmit established knowledge but alsoto generate new knowledge, cultivate critical inquiry and help students understand the full complexity of the societies in which they live. As one of the state’s two flagship public universities, UT Austin bears a special responsibility to prepare students for leadership in an increasingly diverse state and nation.

Programs such as MALS help students understand the histories, cultures, labor, civic contributions and lived experiences that have shaped Texas for generations. Weakening fields dedicated to such study risks narrowing, rather than expanding, students' understanding of the state they will inherit and help lead.

Major restructuring like what has occurred at UT allows a university to bypass standard personnel and budgetary rules governing employment and funding arrangements. Faculty, staff and students in the affected departments have been left feeling deeply insecure. Theirs is an uncertain future at the university.

Equally troubling are questions about the process that led to the decision. University officials know the importance of consulting faculty, students, staff, alumni and community partners when making decisions of this magnitude. Yet consolidation was not fully explained to the public or to key stakeholders. Nor was it accompanied by a statement of anticipated impact.

The review committee appointed by university officials to explore the possibility of restructuring the College of Liberal Arts did not include faculty representation either from MALS or Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies. Also, the university has not solicited feedback or encouraged a public dialogue on such an important issue.
The Latino Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education, a statewide advocacy organization, has made formal requests to meet with UT President James Davis and discuss its concerns. He has not responded in three months.

Universities make difficult decisions all the time. But those decisions should be guided by sound educational policy, transparency and meaningful consultation with the communities they affect. In this case, the university has fallen short.

The consolidation sends an unsettling message that the study of Mexican history, labor, culture, civic life, and thought matters less today than during the last 50 years. Advocates of the other affected fields have been equally perplexed by the university’s undue actions.

UT Austin should restore MALS as an independent department. The university's responsibility is not to marginalize fields that help Texans understand themselves, but to ensure their continued strength and vitality for generations to come.

Angela Valenzuela is a professor of Educational Leadership and Policy at the University of Texas. Emilio Zamora is a professor emeritus in history at the University of Texas.

A Report from UT’s College of Education, by Noah De Lissovoy and Deb Kelt, The Higher Ed Advocate June 3, 2026

Friends:

I am proud of my UT-Austin College of Education fellow colleagues, Dr. Deb Kelt and Dr. Noah De Lissovoy, for this powerful and timely The Higher Ed Substack Advocate post. Writing as educators, scholars, and members of our university community, they remind us that the struggle over academic freedom is not only a struggle over content, curriculum, or political ideology. It is also a struggle over pedagogy itself—over the conditions that allow teaching and learning to be intellectually honest, socially meaningful, and grounded in care, rigor, and relationships.

What Deb and Noah make especially clear is that these attacks do not remain confined to a single college, building, department, or program. In the College of Education, restrictions on teaching ripple outward into Texas classrooms through the teachers, counselors, principals, superintendents, and education leaders we prepare. In Liberal Arts, the consolidation of fields rooted in Ethnic Studies, gender and sexuality studies, and critical interdisciplinary inquiry similarly affects the future of knowledge production, civic understanding, and democratic engagement. In both cases, what is at stake is not simply institutional rearrangement. It is the university’s public mission.

Their post invites us to recognize the courage, solidarity, and clarity already emerging across campus. I am grateful to Deb and Noah for naming what so many of us know to be true: when we defend open and critical inquiry, affirming classroom relationships, and the knowledge traditions that speak to the lives of diverse students and communities, we are defending teaching itself.

May such reports from the front lines of our university continue to illuminate the stakes, strengthen our resolve, and remind us that defending education is a collective calling.

-Angela Valenzuela

A Report from UT’s College of Education

by Noah De Lissovoy and Deb Kelt, Members, AAUP@UT Chapter

In the field of education, we know something about what works in teaching. From this vantage point, the current attack on critical inquiry in higher education in Texas is not just ideological—it is also pedagogical.

Restrictions on academic freedom and on teaching about “controversial” topics (including race, gender, and sexuality) are not just a matter of moving the ideological center of gravity in the classroom; they fundamentally undermine teaching that starts from any perspective, since they make it difficult for teachers to explore with students the full scope of a subject and its social context and implications. But the current conservative attack is not just limited to these aspects of teaching. This attack also makes it hard to make connections between students’ lived experiences and class content, and to create a robust learning community that is grounded on care and solidarity. These pedagogical principles are supported by decades of research on K-12 and higher education teaching.

It should be no surprise then that even as legislators and university administrators in Texas seek to reorganize curriculum and teaching across the university, they have also turned their attention to colleges of education. Like our colleagues in other fields, faculty in education have felt pressure to self-censor and to limit the scope of classroom discussions. (Interestingly, in teacher education spaces, this pressure is felt doubly, since faculty are teaching about the pedagogy that they seek at the same time to embody.) And alongside our UT colleagues, we await the results of a shadowy curriculum audit connected to the passage of Senate Bill 37.

In addition, our College of Education dean, who has been dedicated to supporting faculty and reimagining education to better serve the state and its many communities, was not renewed in his contract despite broad faculty support and remarkable success. The search for his replacement, by a committee with limited faculty representation, has been shrouded in secrecy. At the same time, right-wing news outlets have vilified the college and called out specific courses and staff. A recent successful tenure-track faculty search was blocked at the last minute by the university for reasons that remain obscure to faculty. In the context of these developments, faculty are anxious for themselves and their students.

It is important to recognize that any move to compromise our freedom to teach -- and our students’ freedom to learn -- will not stay contained in the Sánchez Building on UT’s campus. Our students leave to teach in Texas and across the United States, mentoring children with care and rigor in numerous content areas. In this way, our graduates prepare young people for all professions. As teachers of teachers, we know that censoring our work ripples like a rock tossed in a pond: If our UT students receive a compromised education, so will their future students. When one considers the various departments in our college, we can see how the damage compounds further. Stellar superintendents and principals graduate from our programs, as do special education experts, health science specialists, and school counselors. Any move to stymie the work done in these departments will, undoubtedly, cause broad harm.

It is important to recognize that any move to compromise our freedom to teach -- and our students’ freedom to learn -- will not stay contained in the Sánchez Building on UT’s campus.

As educators and scholars dedicated to creating a better world for all people, we have organized to push back against the current challenges. Sixty tenured and professional track faculty in the college signed a letter of concern regarding the non-renewal of Dean Charles Martinez. (Neither the President nor the Provost responded.) We have grown our membership in AAUP in recent months, and we have met as a new college-based group to strategize against interference regarding our right to teach and research. We attend rallies, speak at state school board meetings, and network with like-minded colleagues across UT. We are also working to strengthen relationships with the community, as many of us have long histories with public school teachers here in Austin.

Our group knows the stakes are high for students, staff, and faculty. Though this work of resistance sometimes keeps us up at night, we don’t see any alternative. We have always advocated for our students, for their future students, and for schools in Texas and beyond. The times are certainly different – with aggressive forces working harder than ever to muzzle us -- but we are steadfast in our calling to serve.

Both the recent pressure applied to colleges of education and the resistance to it show that how we understand and organize the process of pedagogy is deeply consequential. This struggle is a reminder to faculty across the university that as we fight for content and courses that are critical and relevant to diverse students we are also fighting for enlivening and affirming classroom relationships, community, and collaboration– that is, for teaching itself.

Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center Grand Reopening—Saturday, June 6 from from 11:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.

Friends,

What a joy to welcome the grand reopening of the Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center—Juntos de Nuevo—this Saturday, June 6, from 11:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Home to Academia Cuauhtli (meaning "Eagle Academy" in Nahuatl), this reopening is more than a celebration of a beautifully renovated building. It is a testament to our resilience as a community, the strength of our cultural memory, and the ongoing vitality of Mexican American, Latina/o/e, and Indigenous arts, music, dance, food, and storytelling in Central Texas.

At a time when so-called “culture wars” seek to divide us—and when some would have us believe that honoring our histories somehow diminishes others—the MACC reminds us of a deeper truth: we are not at war with anyone. Our culture is not a threat. It is a gift. It is life-giving, bridge-building, future-making, and beautifully ascendant.

The reopening of the ESB-MACC signals real progress in the life of an important community institution. It points to a more inclusive and prosperous future—not only for our communities, but for all of Austin and Central Texas.

May this be a day of reconnection, celebration, and joy.

¡Juntos de nuevo! Together again!

—Angela Valenzuela

Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center Grand Reopening

Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center Grand Reopening
June 6th from 11:00 a.m. - 9:00 p.m.
600 River St, Austin, TX 78701

RSVP on Facebook or Eventbrite!

The ESB-MACC welcomes the community back to our newly renovated facility with Juntos de Nuevo -a day of reconnection, celebration, and cultural expression. This free family-friendly event is free and open to all.

This reopening is more than a milestone. It is a celebration of identity, creativity, and the enduring cultural legacy of Austin’s communities. The City of Austin’s Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment department is honored to invite you to visit the renovated Emma S. Barrientos Mexican American Cultural Center.

Get Involved

• Volunteer for the event by signing up on Givepulse.
• RSVP and SHARE the event on Facebook and Eventbrite!  Follow @ESBMACC!
• For media inquiries, contact Olivia Tamzarian

Upcoming Events 

•  Discover all of the MACC's events: MACC Events Calendar

RSVP on Eventbrite

Arrival and Parking

• The address of the ESB MACC is 600 River Street, at the intersection of Rainey Street and River Street.
• The ESB MACC parking lot will be closed to the public from Thursday, June 4th to midnight on Saturday, June 6th. There is no public parking on-site for the Grand Reopening on June 6th.
• Parking is free in the Holly Street neighborhood. Parking is also available at the Austin Convention Center Parking Lot 5th St. Garage (601 E. 5th St) with a special flat rate of $5 from 10:00am-2:00pm.
• There will be a free shuttle bus giving rides from the Sanchez Elementary parking lot to the ESB MACC and back from 10:30am-10:00pm. Please look for the "shuttle stop" signs.
• The ESB MACC building is accessible from Rainey Street and the Ann and Roy Butler Hike & Bike Trail. For an exact location to the entrance of the ESB MACC on the Hike & Bike trail, type in "Trail of Tejano Legends" on Google Maps.
• Ridesharing and public transit are encouraged. Bicycle parking is available on site.
• The June 6th Reopening coincides with the reopening of the Waterloo Greenway's Confluence. 

View the MACC on Google Maps

Featured Artist & Performance Times on June 6th

Performance Time	Featured Artist	Location within the MACC
10:45am-11:45am	Mariachi Suroeste	Ribbon Cutting Ceremony at the Gran Entrada (Puerta 3)
11:45am-2:30pm	DJ Mira Mira (Xochi Solis)	Main Stage, Outdoor (Zocalo)
1:45pm-2:30pm	Ballet Folklorico de Austin	Auditorium, Indoor
2:30-3:30pm	Fuzion (Mariachi)	Main Stage, Outdoor (Zocalo)
4:00-5:00pm	Andrea Daniela	Main Stage, Outdoor (Zocalo)
5:00pm-5:30pm	Los Fandangueros de Austin	Snakepath Head, near Trail (outdoor)
5:30-6:30pm	La Moña Loca	Main Stage, Outdoor (Zocalo)
6:30-7:00pm	Ballet Folklorico Maricruz	Main Stage, Outdoor (Zocalo) - dancers in front of stage
7:00pm-8:15pm	Los Sabrosos de La Cumbia	Main Stage, Outdoor (Zocalo)
8:40pm-9:00pm	Danza Azteca Guadalupana	Main Stage, Outdoor (Zocalo) - dancers in front of stage

Event Highlights- June 6th

• 3 stages with live music under the Zocalo. The main "Zocalo Stage" is outside on our plaza. There will also be an outdoor stage at the edge of the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail, at the head of the "snake path". There are also performances in the Auditorium, inside.

• Tours of newly renovated indoor & outdoor spaces. Tour times are 12:00pm, 12:30pm, 1:00pm, and 1:30pm. Anyone can join the tour- meet at the purple MACC tent which is in the middle of the Zocalo plaza.

• All-ages arts, dance, music, theater, and culinary workshops. See workshop schedule below.

• Free children’s art activities in the new youth education classrooms

• Art exhibits on view in the NEW Community Gallery (1st floor), Sam Z. Coronado Gallery (2nd floor), and Auditorium Atrium (1st floor)

• Community Resource Fair featuring local nonprofits.

• Artisan Vendor Market supporting local Latino/a/e entrepreneurs.

• Food trucks on site.

RSVP to the Grand Reopening