Civil Rights, Reversed: When “Equality” Masks Inequality, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

 Civil Rights, Reversed: When “Equality” Masks Inequality

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 28, 2026

There is a through line connecting two arguments that, at first glance, may appear distinct but are in fact deeply aligned. One, advanced by Christopher Rufo, calls for a “colorblind” reinterpretation of civil rights law—one that would prohibit any consideration of race, even for remedial purposes. The other, emerging from more radical libertarian circles, goes further: it claims that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 itself is an illegitimate infringement on freedom of association and suggests it should be dismantled altogether. 

What links these positions is not merely their skepticism of race-conscious policy, but a shared project of narrowing—if not undoing—the legal architecture of civil rights itself. For a revealing articulation of this trajectory, see Ross Douthat’s interview with Rufo in The New York Times (Douthat, 2025).

Taken together, these positions mark not a debate over policy nuance, but a coordinated redefinition of civil rights. One narrows its meaning to the point of inversion. The other seeks its outright elimination. Both rest on the same premise: that efforts to address inequality are themselves the problem.

Let us begin with the “colorblind” argument. Its appeal lies in its simplicity: no advantages or disadvantages based on ancestry; no consideration of race in admissions, hiring, or public policy. Equality, in this view, is achieved by ignoring history and the politics of difference altogether.

Digital graphic by Angela Valenzuela

But this formulation depends on a false premise—that we are operating on a level playing field. We are not. 

What this argument ultimately masks is not neutrality, but grievance politics reframed as principle. Under the banner of “colorblind equality,” what is being advanced is a narrative of injury—that white Americans, and particularly those aligned with dominant institutional power, are now the true victims of discrimination. This is not a legal argument so much as a political one. It converts historically grounded efforts at remedy into perceived acts of injustice, recasting inclusion as exclusion and equity as unfairness. 

Digital graphic by Angela Valenzuela

In doing so, it mobilizes resentment while disavowing it, presenting grievance as constitutional fidelity. But grievance politics, however carefully dressed in the language of rights, does not resolve inequality—it obscures it. And in the current Texas context, it provides the affective fuel for policies like anti-DEI Senate Bill 17 and Senate Bill 37 where the rhetoric of neutrality legitimates the restructuring of institutions in ways that ultimately consolidate, rather than challenge, existing hierarchies.

The United States did not arrive at inequality by accident. It was produced through centuries of law and policy: enslavement, segregation, exclusion from housing and employment, and systematic disinvestment. The Jim Crow laws were not merely social customs; they were legal regimes that structured access to opportunity. The Civil Rights Act was enacted precisely to dismantle those regimes and, crucially, to enable remedies where their effects persisted.

To collapse race-conscious remedies into “racial favoritism,” as Rufo does, is to erase this history. It is to treat corrective measures as equivalent to the harms they were designed to address. This is not legal reasoning; it is what I would call policy theater—a reframing of institutional retrenchment as moral clarity.

We see the consequences of this reframing most clearly in Texas.

With SB 17, the state has effectively banned DEI initiatives across public universities, invoking the language of neutrality while triggering widespread anticipatory compliance. Programs have been dismantled, trainings canceled, and academic units reorganized in ways that extend well beyond the statute’s text. At the University of Texas at Austin, the consolidation of departments focused on race, ethnicity, and gender signals not simply administrative efficiency, but a reorientation of institutional priorities.

SB 37 builds on this foundation by weakening faculty governance and centralizing authority, reducing the capacity of academic communities to respond collectively to these changes. The result is not a neutral landscape, but a managed one—where the boundaries of permissible knowledge are increasingly shaped by political directives.

This is the paradox of the “colorblind” project: in the name of limiting the role of the state, it invites a different kind of state intervention—one that withdraws protections while actively restructuring institutions.

Digital graphic by Angela Valenzuela

The libertarian argument takes this logic to its endpoint. If any government mandate for nondiscrimination is an infringement on liberty, then civil rights law itself must be dismantled. Businesses, employers, and institutions should be free to associate—or refuse to associate—on any basis, including race.

At first glance, this may appear as a principled defense of freedom. In reality, it rests on a deeply flawed understanding of both freedom and history.

Freedom of association has never been absolute, particularly in the public sphere. Once an entity opens itself to the public—whether a restaurant, a university, or an employer—it becomes part of a broader civic infrastructure. The rules that govern that space are not arbitrary constraints; they are conditions that make participation possible.

Without such protections, “freedom” becomes asymmetrical. Those with power retain the freedom to exclude, while those without it bear the consequences.

This is not a hypothetical concern. It is a historical fact.

Prior to the Civil Rights Act, discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and education was not episodic—it was systemic. Entire populations were excluded from the basic institutions of public life. To suggest that market forces alone would have corrected these injustices is to ignore the depth and durability of structural inequality.

Here, the libertarian argument converges with the “colorblind” one. Both assume that inequality is either no longer significant or irrelevant to the question of justice. Both prioritize formal neutrality over substantive fairness. And both, in doing so, risk entrenching the very inequalities they claim to transcend.

As Eduardo Bonilla-Silva has argued, colorblind ideology functions by masking structural inequality, allowing it to persist under the guise of neutrality (Bonilla-Silva, 2018). And as Kimberlé Crenshaw reminds us, civil rights law has always been contested terrain—expanded through struggle, and vulnerable to retrenchment (Crenshaw, 1988).

What we are witnessing now is a moment of such retrenchment.

The language of civil rights is being repurposed to constrain remedy. The concept of freedom is being narrowed to exclude considerations of equity. And the institutions tasked with fostering knowledge and opportunity are being reshaped accordingly.

The stakes are not abstract.

They are visible in classrooms where faculty hesitate to engage certain topics. In departments that are merged or dissolved. In students who find fewer spaces where their histories and experiences are taken seriously as objects of study. In a broader climate where the line between policy and politics grows increasingly difficult to discern.

The question before us is not whether we believe in equality. It is what kind of equality we are willing to defend.

Digital graphic by Angela Valenzuela

Is it an equality that ignores history, overlooks power, and quietly reproduces existing hierarchies? It is an equality that recognizes the unfinished work of democracy—one that understands that justice requires more than neutrality—one that requires attending to the conditions that make inequality endure?

In Texas, this question is no longer theoretical. It is legislative. It is institutional. And it is unfolding in real time.

The answer we choose will determine not only the future of civil rights law, but the meaning of freedom itself.

References

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2018). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States (5th ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

Crenshaw, K. (1988). Race, reform, and retrenchment: Transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law. Harvard Law Review, 101(7), 1331–1387.

Douthat, R. (2025, March 7). The anti-D.E.I. crusader who wants to dismantle the Department of Education. The New York Times.

From Deficit to Doctrine: The Hidden Logic Behind the University of North Texas Denton's Drastic Program Cuts, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

From Deficit to Doctrine: The Hidden Logic Behind the University of North Texas Denton's Drastic Program Cuts

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 28, 2026

The headline in the Texas Tribune is is nothing short of staggering: "University of North Texas to cut more than 70 programs and minors to trim $45 million deficit." At first glance, the decision by the University of North Texas to eliminate more than 70 academic programs, minors, and certificates appears to be a straightforward case of institutional belt-tightening. A $45 million deficit, declining international enrollment, and reduced state funding are presented as the primary drivers. President Harrison Keller has been explicit: no state official directed these cuts. On its surface, then, this reads as a story of fiscal responsibility.

But to read it that way alone is to miss two critical dynamics. First, the revenue shortfall is tied to the steep decline in international students—who have long subsidized public universities by paying full tuition. Second, it obscures how power operates in the current context. In Texas today, policy does not always arrive as an explicit mandate; it often works through what might be called anticipatory compliance—a form of governance in which institutions reorganize themselves in response to political signals rather than direct edicts.

Hence, the pattern of what is being eliminated matters. The phase-out of programs in Women and Gender Studies, LGBTQ Studies, Latino and Latin American studies, Mexican American Studies, Africana Studies, and Asian studies is not incidental. It reflects a broader alignment between institutional decision-making and an increasingly restrictive political climate around race, gender, and knowledge itself.

The university’s stated rationale rests on metrics—low enrollment, high instructional costs, and a concept that has gained traction in higher education: “time to value.” Programs are evaluated according to how quickly graduates can recoup the cost of their degrees through post-graduation earnings. Framed this way, the cuts appear pragmatic. Yet this metric quietly narrows the meaning of education. 

Fields that interrogate power, history, language, and inequality rarely produce immediate financial returns. Their contributions are less easily quantified but no less essential. They cultivate the habits of mind necessary for democratic life: critical analysis, historical awareness, and the capacity to engage across difference. To judge them primarily through wage outcomes is not simply to measure their value differently; it is to redefine what counts as valuable knowledge in the first place.

Although President Keller has emphasized that the program cuts are separate from political pressures, the broader context cannot be ignored. In recent years, Texas has witnessed the dismantling of DEI infrastructures through legislation such as Senate Bill 17, alongside executive and administrative directives that narrow acceptable discourse on race, gender, and sexuality. Universities have been asked to review curricula under compliance frameworks that, while not explicitly banning certain fields, clearly signal heightened scrutiny. 

At the same time, faculty governance has been weakened through measures such as Senate Bill 37 , shifting decision-making authority away from traditional shared governance structures. In such an environment, institutions do not need to be told what to cut. They understand the terrain well enough to adjust on their own.

This is what policy looks like when it operates without formal declaration. No directive is issued, yet outcomes begin to mirror political priorities. The language remains managerial—efficiency, sustainability, return on investment—but the effects are unmistakably political. The adoption of “time to value” as a guiding principle further embeds this shift, privileging disciplines aligned with immediate labor market demands while marginalizing those that offer critical perspectives on society. 

Linguistics, for instance, may not produce the highest salaries, but its applications span law, education, and technology. Ethnic studies fields are indispensable for understanding demographic change and inequality in a state as diverse as Texas. Their elimination signals not just a budgetary decision, but a reordering of intellectual priorities—raising questions about coherence as the university simultaneously advances a new undergraduate degree in artificial intelligence, a field deeply rooted in linguistics (Breeding-Gonzales, 2026).

Equally telling is the reported lack of meaningful faculty consultation. This reflects a broader transformation in governance across Texas higher education, where decisions once shaped through deliberation are increasingly centralized. As shared governance erodes, so too does the ability of institutions to resist external pressures—whether economic, political, or ideological. What emerges is a system in which major academic decisions can be made quickly, efficiently, and with limited internal dissent.

The consequences are already visible. Students are forced to reconsider their academic trajectories. Departments lose the capacity to sustain intellectual communities. Campuses become thinner spaces, offering fewer opportunities to engage deeply with questions of race, gender, and inequality. Over time, the public itself is affected, as the range of knowledge produced and circulated through these institutions narrows.

None of this occurs through dramatic decree. It unfolds incrementally, through decisions that, taken individually, appear reasonable—even necessary. But collectively, they amount to something far more significant: a restructuring of knowledge itself.

The question, then, is not whether universities should be fiscally responsible. It is what values guide those decisions. If higher education is reduced to workforce preparation alone, programs that challenge power and expand democratic understanding will always be at risk. If, however, universities are understood as public goods—institutions responsible for cultivating not only workers but informed and engaged citizens—then a different calculus is required.

What is happening at the University of North Texas is not an isolated development. It is part of a broader reconfiguration of higher education in Texas and across the nation. The language used to justify it may be technocratic, but the underlying logic is unmistakably political. And its consequences will shape not only what universities teach, but what society is able to know about itself.

Reference

Breeding-Gonzales, L. (2026, February 24). UNT to launch undergraduate AI degree this fall, Denton Record-Chronicle.

University of North Texas to cut more than 70 programs and minors to trim $45 million deficit

Offering new details, President Harrison Keller said no state official pushed for the changes, which include phasing out degrees in linguistics and Latin American and women’s and gender studies.

by Jessica Priest March 20, 2026, 2:15 p.m. Central Updated March 25, 2026, 1:40 p.m. Central


Students walk the University of North Texas campus in Denton on Feb. 24, 2022. Shelby Tauber for The Texas Tribune

University of North Texas President Harrison Keller offered new details this week after announcing plans to cut or consolidate more than 70 academic programs, minors and certificates as it works to close a projected $45 million budget shortfall driven by a sharp decline in international enrollment and reduced state funding.

“We weren’t directed to eliminate programs by any state official,” Keller said in a March 24 interview with The Texas Tribune about a plan that includes phasing out its linguistics degrees, eliminating a women’s and gender studies master’s program and cutting a bachelor’s degree in Latino and Latin American Studies, along with 25 undergraduate minors and more than 40 certificate programs.

The minors being eliminated include women’s and gender studies, LGBTQ studies, Mexican American studies, Africana studies, Asian studies as well as dance, geology and special education.

The cuts come amid a broader political climate in which Texas public universities have faced pressure from state Republican leaders and conservative activists to limit teaching about gender, race and sexuality.

Last fall, the UNT System, like other public university systems in the state, ordered a review of its courses. Some university systems said the reviews were meant to ensure compliance with an executive order from President Donald Trump, a directive from Gov. Greg Abbott and House Bill 229, all of which recognize only two sexes, male and female, though none explicitly bans teaching gender-related topics.

The UNT System did not cite a specific law when it ordered its review.

Keller said that review is separate from the decision to cut areas of study and expected to be complete by April 1.

Earlier this year, Texas A&M eliminated its women’s and gender studies program, while the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas at San Antonio moved to consolidate programs focused on race, gender and ethnicity.

Keller and Provost Michael McPherson said in a March 19 message to the campus community that the decisions followed a “careful review.” They said the linguistics department has seen declining enrollment since 2021, along with higher instructional costs and lower “time to value,” and that the merger with the Department of World Languages, Literatures and Cultures will take effect Sept. 1.

They said the master’s programs being cut enrolled an average of 15 or fewer students over the past five years, while the undergraduate minors had 20 or fewer students since 2021 and certificate programs had fewer than two students per year.

Students enrolled in affected programs will be able to complete their degrees, but new students will no longer be admitted.

“We must adapt to meet the changing needs of our students, employers and communities across Texas and beyond, especially by providing degree and credential pathways that translate into opportunities beyond graduation,” they wrote.

William Salmon, chair of the linguistics department, told the Tribune that faculty learned of the decision shortly before every else did.

“And we weren’t consulted on the matter at all,” he said.

Salmon declined to elaborate further, saying he was focused on supporting students and faculty and “answering the many questions coming in.”

University officials did not immediately respond to detailed questions last week, but Keller said this week that the changes are expected to save the university “a few million dollars” over the next several years, though the exact amount remains unclear. He said the university uses “time to value” to measure how long it takes graduates to recoup the cost of their degrees, factoring in tuition, lost wages while enrolled and typical earnings after graduation, and that officials aim for programs to reach that point in less than 10 years.

Last month, UNT offered buyouts to faculty with at least 15 years of service. Tenured faculty could receive a payout equal to one year of salary, while some non-tenure-track faculty on multiyear contracts could receive half a year’s salary to leave early. About 30 faculty members have applied ahead of the the April 10 deadline, Keller said, and no faculty have been laid off, though some adjunct instructors may not be rehired if their courses were eliminated.

UNT is also planning to move more lectures online in response to the budget shortfall. Beginning this fall, more than 40 courses will shift to a model where lectures are delivered online and students attend weekly in-person sessions in smaller groups focused on discussion and problem-solving. Keller said the hybrid courses will include an additional $35 per credit hour fee, capped at $315 per semester, to cover technology costs, and described the model as a way to serve more students without making more hires.

It’s not yet clear the total number of students enrolled in the affected programs or how long required courses will continue to be offered.

Grace Youngberg, a third-year linguistics major, said she was shocked and felt “disrespected” by the decision and lack of prior notice.

She had planned to attend graduate school at UNT and pursue a career in forensic linguistics, applying language analysis in legal settings to help people better understand and communicate in court proceedings.

Now, she said, she may have to look elsewhere to continue her studies.

Youngberg also questioned the university’s emphasis on “time to value.”

“Putting a monetary value on education to begin with is closed-minded,” she said, adding that there is a need for linguists even if the field is not the highest paying.

Nearly 47,000 students attend the Denton university.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: University of North Texas, University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas at San Antonio have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

National scholars of Latino studies protest elimination of the department at UT Austin, K-UT News

Friends:

Glad this rally took place yesterday at the National Latina/x/o Studies Association (LSA) meeting that is taking place currently. News of consolidation is shocking to folks coming from other campuses, a number of whom wouldn't be where they are professionally had it not been for UT Austin's Department of Mexican American and Latino Studies.

David Vazquez framed the site as a cornerstone of the profession, stressing the collective duty to preserve it. As conference participant, Professor Suhey Vega underscores, forcing these communities together creates a system in which they must compete—often with one another—for limited funding, a dynamic that is both unjust and counterproductive. 

In this light, consolidation is not merely administrative efficiency; it becomes a mechanism that redistributes scarcity downward, compelling historically marginalized fields to struggle against each other for survival rather than enabling them to collectively advance knowledge and equity.

We have no other option than to continue protesting this vigorously.

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.


National scholars of Latino studies protest elimination of the department at UT Austin

KUT 90.5 | By Greta Díaz González Vázquez
Published March 27, 2026 at 12:01 PM CDT

UT professor Karma Chávez said faculty members were asked to review their curriculum and what majors will be offered in the future. Patricia Lim-K-UT News

As the Mexican American and Latina/o Studies (MALS) department at UT Austin is set to disappear, scholars from all over the country attended the national Latina/x/o Studies Association (LSA) meeting on campus this week. Researchers held a rally on Thursday outside the conference to protest changes at the College of Liberal Arts.

“This place is one of the places that is the origin points of our profession,” said David Vazquez, a professor at American University in Washington, D.C., and the president of LSA. “We need to be here to protect this place.”

In February, UT President Jim Davis announced seven departments, including ethnic and gender studies departments, would be consolidated into two newly created departments and said academic courses would be reviewed.

Since the announcement, UT officials have not shared any further details with the community about the consolidation. But Karma Chávez, a professor in the MALS department, says faculty have been tasked with reviewing the current majors and proposing what majors will be offered in the future.

Suhey Vega, a professor at Arizona State University, where a similar consolidation happened in 2008, says eliminating the autonomy of areas of study comes with long-lasting consequences.

“It's important to realize that in joining these communities together, especially by force, you're creating a system in which they have to fight, sometimes with each other, for funding, and that is ridiculous and unfair,” Vega said.

Vega, who grew up in Texas, said it was important for her to attend the conference to demand that Tejano history is known in the state.

Vazquez, the LSA president, said the conference was held at UT Austin to honor the history and significance its programs have had for Latino studies, and to express solidarity with faculty and students. He said over 600 academics registered for the conference, and over 700 research proposals were submitted, making it one of the biggest Latino studies conferences in the country.

Latino studies at UT began in the 1970s with the creation of the Center for Mexican American Studies. It was born out of community pressure to have a program that reflected Latina/o/x and Chicana/o/x experiences.

Since then it’s been the academic home of internationally renowned scholars, like one of the first border researchers, Américo Paredes, and Chicana feminist Gloria Anzaldúa. MALS was created in 2014 and is now the only department in Texas and one of a few in the country to offer a Ph.D. in Latino studies.

When the consolidation was announced, Davis said UT is committed to ensuring every student has access to a balanced educational experience.

Julie Minich, a professor in UT's English department, said faculty have tried engaging with university officials to show that the work at MALS comes from a diverse point of view, but have not received a positive response.

“Efforts to justify this have been minimal because there are no justifications,” Minich said. “Eliminating our departments and telling their students that their presence at this university is not wanted tells the 40% of Latino population of the state of Texas that the public flagship [university] is not for them.”

KUT News reached out to UT Austin for comment and has not heard back.

Featuring Katherine Stewart: Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy

Featuring Katherine Stewart: Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy

If you are trying to understand this political moment—not just its surface conflicts, but the deeper architecture of power shaping it—then Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy by Katherine Stewart is essential reading. With careful reporting and years of embedded research, Stewart maps a coordinated movement where concentrated wealth, strategic disinformation, and Christian nationalism converge to reshape American democracy itself. 

Adam Gabbatt in The Guardian proves more detail; however, I urge you to read the book. It's a good audiobook, too. 

What makes this book especially powerful is not only its diagnosis of what she calls “reactionary nihilism,” but its clarity about how such forces organize, message, and endure. This is not simply a warning—it is a call to think more urgently, strategically, historically, and collectively about the defense of democratic life.

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Katherine Stewart and her book, Money, Lies and God. Composite: The Guardian/Katherine Stewart/Bloomsbury


‘Reactionary nihilism’: how a rightwing movement strives to end US democracy


Adam Gabbatt | January 2025 | The Guardian
article is more than 1 year old

Money, Lies, and God exposes a Christian nationalist movement funded by the super-rich seeking to secure their wealth at the expense of othersThere is a “real and very, very present” threat to the US from a shadowy collection of rightwing leaders, a new book on the movement behind Donald Trump warns, with the aim being “an end to pluralistic democracy”.

Katherine Stewart, a journalist who specializes in the religious right, spent years researching the money and influence that has aided and encouraged tens of millions of Americans in their worship at the throne of Trump.


The result is Money, Lies and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy, which sees Stewart explore the “antidemocratic movement” – an unholy mix of Christian nationalists, billionaire oligarchs and conservative ideologues who have seized control of the Republican party, and aim to fundamentally change the US.

“Money is a huge part of the story, meaning that huge concentrations of wealth have destabilized the political system. Second, lies, or conscious disinformation, is a huge feature of this movement. And third God, because the most important ideological framework for the largest part of this movement is Christian nationalism,” Stewart said.

In the book, Stewart details how Republicans have been held hostage by the antidemocratic movement, something that “came together long before Donald Trump descended on a golden escalator in 2015 to announce his candidacy for president”.

Stewart – whose previous two books, The Good News Club and The Power Worshippers, focused on the impact of the Christian right and religious nationalism in the US – spent years traveling to an array of rightwing conferences, from Christian nationalist events to ”Make America great again” fests and sober think tank talks, and found many similarities. The eclectic groups may not seem to have much in common, but their aim is the same: bringing an end to democracy in the US as we know it. Their method of achieving that is the same too.

“The overwhelming message, from speaker after speaker, was that ‘Trump needs to be allowed to enact his agenda, and you need to get behind him,’” Stewart said.

Though there is an intriguing collection of individuals and organizations in the movement, Stewart categorizes its members as Christian nationalists – who believe, wrongly, that America was founded as a Christian nation and must be governed as such – and the super-rich, who are seeking to secure their own wealth at the expense of others.

“Much of the energy of the movement, too, comes from below, from the anger and resentment that characterizes life among those who perceive, more or less accurately, that they are falling behind,” Stewart writes.

“The best label I can find for the phenomenon – and I do not pretend it is a fully satisfactory label – is ‘reactionary nihilism’. It is reactionary in the sense that it expresses itself as mortal opposition to a perceived catastrophic change in the political order; it is nihilistic because its deepest premise is that the actual world is devoid of value, impervious to reason, and governable only through brutal acts of will. It stands for a kind of unraveling of the American political mind – a madness that now afflicts one side of nearly every political debate.”

Stewart tells the story of how American Christians rallied in response to a plan by Catholic bishops in 1986 to call on their flock to support “economic justice for all”. The bishops’ sentiment was “a challenge to President Ronald Reagan’s trickle-down economic ideology”, Stewart writes – and sent Christian capitalists scrambling.

Over the next few decades, ultra-wealthy Christian donors spent millions promoting a different vision of the gospel, one which Stewart writes “promote[s] the capitalist institutions of property, markets, and free enterprise”.

Among the leaders of that movement were Thomas Monaghan, the founder of Domino’s Pizza who in 2002 attempted to build a 250ft-tall crucifix in Michigan, banker Frank Hanna, hedge fund manager Sean Fieler and Timothy Busch, who in donating to the Catholic University of America in 2015 announced that he was “proud to donate to CUA’s vision for an educational program that shows how capitalism and Catholicism can work hand in hand”. Together, they and others have pledged fortunes toward Republican candidates and causes, and established thinktanks and organizations designed to push pro-capitalist, antidemocratic causes – in a way Stewart said Democrats have yet to counter.

“I’m always impressed by how well-organized and strategic this movement is,” Stewart said, noting that it offers “young people and newcomers” a “sustainable career path and incentive to create their futures, secure their futures within the movement”.

Stewart continued, pointing out that “there are pro-democracy thinktanks and institutions and the like, but they tend to center on policy and issues: pro-democracy forces don’t seem to identify and mentor young talent in the same way, they don’t organize and collaborate in the same way.

“They don’t operate with the same coordination of the right, they don’t think strategically about messaging, and about voter engagement and winning over the rank and file.”

Stewart documents some of the troubling ways that organizations, supported by those wealthy backers, have spent their energy – including how they have pushed people to vote. She reports on Chad Connelly, the founder of Faith Wins, an initiative which seeks to turn pastors and churchgoers into political activists.

“The Faith Wins website encourages event attendees to help lead voter registration in their churches with the help of a ‘pastors tool kit’, become poll watchers, and assist ‘with voter integrity efforts’ and other actions,” Stewart writes.

“Pastors are given a QR code, along with an online form, which leads to a suite of tools and messaging materials, including voter guides, voter registration resources, and videos they can use to activate their congregations.”

A central issue for Connelly and Faith Wins is election integrity, which he expounds upon repeatedly in his TV appearances. This is one of the central themes that unites the diverse groups in the antidemocratic movement: Stewart writes that the State Policy Network of libertarian thinktanks and the Virginia Project – a pugnacious get-out-the-vote Republican organization which aims to “eliminate the Democrat party” – may not share the Christian nationalist theology of Faith Wins, but they have the same focus.

“The point, of course, is to convey the frightening but entirely unsubstantiated belief that vast plots are afoot to steal Republican votes,” Stewart writes.

It might seem like a gloomy situation, and a grim future for the US. But Stewart insists the situation is not hopeless.

“We don’t have to crawl into bed and take it. They organized and strategized their way into power, and we need to organize and strategize back,” she said.

Indeed, Stewart ends the book on an optimistic note, listing “six principal findings reported in this book … which should be of interest to a pro-democracy movement”.

“There’s no magic bullet. It’ll take time and effort. But if there is a will for it to be done, I think it can be done,” she said.

“There’s no feature as of yet in the American political system that would ensure that the Maga movement is going to rule indefinitely. And frankly, I take heart from the fact that those of us who believe in democracy and its core principles probably represent a majority and not a minority of the population. I continue to believe more Americans support a democratic political system over some sort of cronyistic, kleptocratic and theocratic system that has authoritarian features.”

Individuated Into Silence: Why the Heterodox Academy Gets Higher Education Wrong, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Individuated Into Silence: Why the Heterodox Academy Gets Higher Education Wrong

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 26, 2026

I saw this video this evening on the Heterodox Academy and decided to write this blog that you can understand best if you view this video on the organization's website.

A growing chorus of voices associated with the Heterodox Academy insists that the central task of higher education is to treat students as individuals—to “individuate” them, to strip away group identities, and to return the university to a supposedly neutral space of ideas. On its surface, this sounds reasonable, even principled. But beneath this framing lies a profound misunderstanding of both education and democracy.

The problem is not individuality. The problem is individualism detached from history, power, and community.

To “individuate” students in the abstract is to ignore the conditions that shape their lives: race, class, language, gender, citizenship status, urbanity, and the institutional arrangements that structure opportunity. It is to pretend that students arrive on campus as free-floating agents rather than as members of communities with histories of exclusion, resilience, and struggle. This is not neutrality. It is erasure.

In fact, the call to individuate often functions as a quiet form of depoliticization. It relocates structural inequality into the realm of personal responsibility and reframes collective concerns as distractions from intellectual life. In doing so, it mirrors what Apple (2018) identified as the ideological work of schooling: to naturalize inequality by presenting it as the outcome of individual differences rather than systemic conditions.

But students—especially in this century—do not need to be stripped of their connections. They need to be anchored in them.

The challenges they face are not individual problems. Climate change, racial injustice, democratic erosion, and economic precarity are collective crises that demand collective capacities. Preparing students to navigate such a world requires more than critical thinking in isolation; it requires relational thinking, coalitional practice, and community accountability (Giroux, 2020).

This is why the most powerful educational spaces today are not those that isolate students into individualized intellectual actors, but those that cultivate shared inquiry and collective agency. Ethnic Studies, community-based learning, and culturally sustaining pedagogies do precisely this. They do not deny individuality; they situate it—within histories, within communities, within movements for justice (Paris & Alim, 2017; Solórzano & Delgado Bernal, 2001).

Indeed, as Paulo Freire (1970) reminds us, education is never a solitary act. It is a dialogical process rooted in relationships, in naming the world together, and in transforming it. To educate is not to extract individuals from community, but to deepen their capacity to act within it.

The Heterodox Academy’s framework ultimately rests on a thin vision of democracy—one that imagines a marketplace of ideas populated by disembodied individuals. But democracy is not sustained by isolated thinkers. It is sustained by communities capable of deliberation, solidarity, and action (Dewey, 2004).

If we are serious about preparing students for the world they are inheriting, we must reject the false choice between individuality and community. The task is not to individuate students away from one another, but to cultivate individuals in and through community—capable of thinking critically, acting collectively, and building a more just society.

Anything less leaves them alone in a world that demands we face it together.

References

Apple, M. W. (2018). Ideology and curriculum (4th ed.). Routledge.

Dewey, J. (2004). Democracy and education. Dover. (Original work published 1916)

Freire, P. (1970). Pedagogy of the oppressed. Continuum.

Giroux, H. A. (2020). On critical pedagogy (2nd ed.). Bloomsbury.

Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. Teachers College Press.

Solórzano, D. G., & Delgado Bernal, D. (2001). Examining transformational resistance through a critical race and LatCrit theory framework: Chicana and Chicano students in an urban context. Urban Education, 36(3), 308–342.

Silence Has a Sound: Texas' SB 37, the End of Shared Governance, and the Structured Diminishment of Voice, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Silence Has a Sound: Texas' SB 37, the End of Shared Governance, and the Structured Diminishment of Voice

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 23, 2026

What if the 1963 song, “The Sounds of Silence” authored by Paul Simon and that he & Art Garfunkel sang is not only existential loneliness, but the quiet cultural condition that makes authoritarianism possible? Or might it not reflect dystopian futurity under American fascism about which Katharine Stewart writes in her New York Times best-selling book, Money, Lies, and God: Inside the Movement to Destroy American Democracy (2025)?

I encourage you to listen to the song here. 

Listen here. 

While Paul Simon did not explicitly write the song as a critique of fascism, critical theorists—from Theodor Adorno and Hannah Arendt to Herbert Marcuse—have long warned that domination often advances not only through coercion, but through conformity, passivity, and the erosion of meaningful dialogue about which Simon indeed wrote.

In this vein, Horkheimer and Adorno (1944/2002) theorize how mass culture can dull critical consciousness, producing compliance rather than critique. Arendt (1951) reminds us that authoritarianism thrives where public discourse collapses and individuals retreat into isolation. 

Read in this light, the song’s haunting refrain—“people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening”—evokes not just alienation, but a hollowing out of democratic life itself. 

It has a sound. It surfaces in whispers and half-spoken cautions, in the careful recalibration of what can be said and where, in meetings where voices once carried authority but now trail off into procedural quiet. It lingers in the pauses before someone decides whether it is safe to speak, in the substitution of clarity with ambiguity, critique with compliance. It hums beneath the surface of institutional life—not loud enough to name, but present enough to shape behavior.

It's not like scholars and people, in general, have nothing to say. It's that the conditions for saying it have been quietly rearranged. It is the sound of knowledge narrowed, of questions deferred, of dissent rerouted into safer channels. It is not the spectacle of repression that defines it, but its subtlety. 

And once you learn to hear it, it is everywhere.

Contemporary scholars extend this diagnosis into our present moment. Brown (2019) argues that neoliberalism hollows out democratic institutions from within, converting them into instruments of market and political control. Henry Giroux (2022) describes the rise of “authoritarian neoliberalism,” where higher education becomes a key site for disciplining thought and narrowing dissent. He argues for critical analyses of the current, politicized context of education and the need for a collective pedagogy of resistance with social justice, freedom, and democracy as its goals.

Fraser (2019) similarly points to the entanglement of economic, political, and cultural crises that destabilize democratic publics, making them more vulnerable to reactionary capture. Building on Fraser, Stewart, outlines the history and processes of the current moment, naming it "reactionary nihilism." Together, these scholars help us see that silence is not merely absence—it is produced, structured, and weaponized.

In Texas, this “silence” is no longer metaphorical—it is being institutionalized. Under SB 37, faculty senates—the historic vehicles of shared governance—have been stripped of meaningful authority or eliminated altogether, consolidating decision-making power in governing boards and political appointees. This restructuring represents more than administrative change; it marks a profound shift in the governance of knowledge, where faculty expertise is subordinated to political oversight. 

At the same time, the law expands top-down control over curriculum, enabling the rejection, restructuring, or defunding of programs deemed ideologically suspect—developments that dovetail with ongoing efforts to marginalize or eliminate Ethnic Studies, Women and Gender Studies, and related fields.

As Marcuse (1964) warned in One-Dimensional Man, advanced systems of control do not always silence through overt repression; they produce conditions in which dissent becomes increasingly difficult to articulate, let alone sustain. 

From this vantage point, the “sounds of silence” becomes newly legible as a political condition: not simply the absence of speech, but the structured diminishment of voice. It is the quieting of faculty governance, the narrowing of permissible knowledge, and the normalization of a system in which critique is not dramatically crushed, but procedurally sidelined.

This interpretation may exceed the original intent of the song’s authors. But as with much enduring art, its meaning expands in relation to historical context. In our present moment, the “sounds of silence” is not just something we hear—it is something being built.

We are not without power, however, beginning with the vote. Lest we all get turned into their not-so-grand vision of "one dimensional man"—as Iowa, per yesterday's blog, wants to do—let's run all these power players, these anti-democratic incumbents, out of office. And let's not vote new ones in.

Sí, se puede! Yes, we can!

References

Arendt, H. (1951). The origins of totalitarianism. Harcourt, Brace & Company.

Brown, W. (2019). In the ruins of neoliberalism: The rise of antidemocratic politics in the West. Columbia University Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7312/brow19384

Fraser, N. (2019). The old is dying and the new cannot be born: From progressive neoliberalism to Trump and beyond. Verso.

Giroux, H. A. (2022). Pedagogy of resistance: Against manufactured ignorance. Bloomsbury Academic.

Horkheimer, M., & Adorno, T. W. (2002). Dialectic of enlightenment: Philosophical fragments (G. S. Noerr, Ed.; E. Jephcott, Trans.). Stanford University Press. (Original work published 1944)

Marcuse, H. (1964). One-dimensional man: Studies in the ideology of advanced industrial society. Beacon Press.

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

I Was There: New College of Florida, Manufactured Narratives, and the Politics of Decline, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. March 23, 2026

I Was There: New College of Florida, Manufactured Narratives, and the Politics of Decline

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 23, 2026

I was there last week, meeting with students and faculty who tell a much different story than the one offered by Trustee Lance Karp—a story that Brian Cody now vehemently critiques with data.

What I encountered on the ground was not a campus experiencing renewal or “momentum,” but one grappling with dislocation, loss, and profound uncertainty. Students spoke of instability in housing, disrupted academic pathways, and a palpable sense that the institution they chose—or once knew—was slipping away. Faculty described conditions of constraint, attrition, and a steady erosion of shared governance. These are not abstract concerns. They are lived realities.

Against this backdrop, Karp’s recent defense of New College reads less like an account of institutional health and more like an attempt to manufacture it.

Cody’s analysis cuts through this narrative with empirical clarity. Since Richard Corcoran’s takeover in 2023, New College has experienced measurable declines across key indicators: falling SAT scores, lower incoming GPAs, a dramatic drop in national rankings, and stagnating—or declining—enrollment among first-time-in-college students. At the same time, the institution is facing what can only be described as a self-created housing crisis, with roughly 40 percent of students relegated to hotels and off-campus accommodations despite millions in state funding allocated for housing. These are not the markers of a thriving honors college. They are signs of institutional distress.

And yet, rather than addressing these issues, current proposals seek to expand New College’s footprint by absorbing the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee campus—effectively transferring resources and infrastructure to an institution that, by all available evidence, is struggling to sustain itself. That this proposal is moving forward in the face of opposition from elected officials and regional stakeholders only underscores the extent to which political priorities—not educational outcomes—are driving decision-making.

What we are witnessing here is not simply mismanagement. It is something more systemic: the fake production of manufactured momentum under conditions of decline.

This is where the story connects to a broader national pattern. As we have seen in Texas and Florida alike, governance interventions in higher education are increasingly accompanied by narrative interventions—claims of success, renewal, or correction that are not borne out by the data, but are nonetheless mobilized to justify further restructuring. 

The result is a kind of “policy theater,” if you will, in which institutional deterioration is reframed as transformation, echoing Nathan Allen's allegation of President Corcoran's "performative accounting" (Valenzuela, 2026). Expressed differently, policy theater, of which performative accounting is a part, functions as a mechanism of concealment—masking decline with carefully curated narratives that justify continued political control.

And importantly, this dynamic does not operate in isolation. It coexists with—and is reinforced by—what I have called shadow censorship. When faculty are marginalized, governance structures weakened, and institutional futures tied to political agendas, the space for dissent narrows. The ability to publicly challenge these narratives diminishes. Silence, in such contexts, is not accidental—it is produced.

That is why Cody’s intervention matters. It restores something that is increasingly under threat: accountability grounded in evidence.

Because without that, we are left with narratives untethered from reality—narratives that can justify not only the dismantling of institutions, but their reconfiguration in ways that may be far more difficult to undo.

Reference

Valenzuela, A. (2026, March 20). Institutional matricide beneath the banyans: The unmaking of an alma mater, the New College of Florida, Educational Equity, Politics, and Policy in Texas. 

Brian Cody: New College Failures vs. Manufactured Momentum

Brian Cody

Critics question New College performance amid push affecting USF Sarasota-Manatee

Last week, in response to the premiere of a new documentary about New College of Florida, Trustee Lance Karp offered a defense of the college that lacked any actual evidence. The timing of his response also suggests the college is trying to revive energy around a bill that would shut down the USF Sarasota-Manatee campus and transfer its property and debt to New College. Let’s look at some actual facts.

Since Richard Corcoran took over in early 2023, New College has seen a:

— Drastic decline in SAT scores for the incoming class, dropping from an average of 1233 the year before Corcoran arrived, down to 1153 in Fall 2024.

— Sharp downturn in high school GPA for the entering class: before Corcoran, 55% of FTIC students had a 4.0 or higher; after Corcoran, only 41% had a 4.0 GPA or higher. This is a major problem, given that New College is“the legislatively designated Honors College of Florida,” yet it seems to be struggling to recruit honors students.

— Nosedive in the U.S. News & World Report’s college rankings, dropping 59 spots, so New College is no longer even in the top 100.

— Drop in FTIC (first time in college) students this year, reporting only 183 FTIC students in Fall 2025 compared to 188 the year before Corcoran arrived, a decrease likely due to the focus on recruiting out-of-state transfer athletes rather than academically excellent FTIC Florida students.

— Self-perpetuated housing crisis with 40% of the student body living in hotels and off-campus housing — despite receiving $20 million in taxpayer money for student housing. Karp, along with most of the New College trustees, has not voted to construct new permanent dorms at any time in the last three years. He has been content with approving payment for hotels and temporary housing rather than actually fixing the problem. This is a self-created housing crisis, and stealing dorms from USF Sarasota-Manatee doesn’t solve it.

Elected officials, including House Rep. James Buchanan and U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan, as well as the Manatee County Chamber of Commerce, have all raised concerns about the bill, which would result in USF Sarasota-Manatee being shut down. New College is a school being run poorly, and its leadership should not be rewarded, especially not in ways that hurt USF and the Sarasota-Manatee region.

It is notable that Karp and the rest of the New College trustees have met half as often as their counterparts at USF (11 Board and Committee meetings at New College this academic year compared to 21 at USF). This absentee trusteeism means the Legislature needs to step in to keep the wheels from coming off at New College, not penalize USF and the entire Sarasota-Manatee region to reward New College’s self-created problems.

Brian Cody is an alum of New College of Florida, a former New College trustee (2004-2006), and a current Board member of the Novo Collegian Alliance.

All Eyes on Utah: Conscience, Control, and the Expansion of Shadow Censorship, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

All Eyes on Utah: Conscience, Control, and the Expansion of Shadow Censorship

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

What is happening in Utah may appear, at first glance, to be about protecting student conscience (Weissman, 2026). But look more closely, and it reveals something far more consequential: the continued expansion of state power into the classroom—and the next phase in the governance of higher education.

A newly passed bill would allow students to opt out of course assignments that conflict with their “sincerely held” moral, religious, or ideological beliefs. On its face, this may sound reasonable—even humane. Who could object to protecting conscience? But in practice, the bill introduces a mechanism through which academic content itself becomes negotiable, subject not to disciplinary standards or faculty expertise, but to individualized moral veto backed by state authority. Faculty who deny such requests must justify themselves to a “neutral arbiter.” Assignments that ask students to engage perspectives they disagree with—long a cornerstone of higher education—now risk being recast as coercion.

This is not simply accommodation. It is a restructuring of authority.

And importantly, it does not operate through outright bans. Instead, it produces what I have called shadow censorship—a form of anticipatory self-regulation in which institutions and faculty adjust their behavior in response to perceived political risk. As critics note, the law’s ambiguity—what counts as a “sincerely held belief”? what constitutes a “fundamental alteration”?—is precisely what gives it power. Under such conditions, faculty may begin to avoid assigning controversial material altogether. Why risk a complaint? Why invite scrutiny? The likely result is not a wave of formal opt-outs, but a quiet narrowing of what gets taught in the first place.

This is how governance becomes pedagogy.

Utah is not alone. This bill follows a familiar pattern seen across states like Texas and Florida, where governance overhauls, DEI bans, and curricular interventions have steadily redefined the boundaries of academic freedom. What is new here is the mechanism: rather than removing content directly, the state empowers individuals—backed by institutional review processes—to contest it from within. It is a subtler form of control, but no less effective.

And like so many recent policies, it is likely to travel.

As we have seen with book bans, DEI legislation, and curriculum mandates, once a model is established in one state, it quickly becomes a template for others. Utah’s “conscientious objection” framework may well become the next export in the growing policy ecosystem reshaping higher education nationwide.

The deeper issue, then, is not conscience. It is power—who decides what counts as legitimate knowledge, and under what conditions it can be taught. When that authority shifts away from educators and toward political frameworks of acceptability, the consequences are profound. Students are no longer asked to grapple with difference; they are permitted to opt out of it. Faculty are no longer empowered to challenge; they are incentivized to avoid.

Even if the bill does not become law, shadow censorship means that the university, once again, is quietly transformed.

Reference

Weissman, S. (2026, March 16). Utah could allow conscientious objection to class assignments, Inside Higher Education.

Utah Could Allow Conscientious Objection to Class Assignments

If signed into law, a bill recently passed by the State Legislature would permit students to opt out of coursework that goes against their conscience or religious beliefs.


Utah students will be able to ask to waive assignments based on their moral convictions if a recently passed bill is signed into law. Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Михаил Руденко, David Schaffer and NikonShutterman/iStock/Getty Images

By Sara Weissman

Utah representative Mike Petersen was inspired to introduce new legislation after receiving a call from his daughter, a master’s student in social work in Louisiana. She was disturbed that a professor had asked the class to write to a local lawmaker in favor of LGBTQ rights.

“She … said, ‘Dad, I just got told I needed to write a letter to my legislator advocating for some policies that don’t align with me,’” Peterson said. She didn’t raise her concerns to the instructor “because she was afraid.”

Petersen has since sponsored a bill, passed by the Utah Legislature this month, that would allow students in the state to opt out of some coursework that conflicts with their religious beliefs. The legislation now awaits the governor’s signature.

The bill creates a process by which students at Utah public colleges and universities could request to skip upcoming assignments for a mandatory class or major requirement that go against a “sincerely held religious or conscience belief.” For example, a student could ask in advance to opt out of watching a sexually explicit film required on a course syllabus. A professor who denies a student’s request would have to explain the decision to a “neutral arbiter” assigned by the university, according to the bill. That person would assess whether nixing the assignment—or subbing in an alternative—counts as a “fundamental alteration” to the class’s learning objectives.

The bill also states that professors can’t “compel a student to publicly take or communicate a specified position,” such as requiring them to write a letter to a lawmaker or publish an article espousing a particular viewpoint.

The bill leaves it to the Utah Higher Education Board to come up with more specific guidance on how these policies should be applied and requires the board to report back to the Legislature on how implementation goes.

The legislation would be the first of its kind to extend conscientious objection to higher education, though Petersen sees the bill as an extension of a previous law he advanced in 2024 that allows state government employees to abstain from work activities they object to on moral grounds. He emphasized that Utah’s state Constitution includes a provision that “the rights of conscience will never be infringed.”

“I think we have to live up to that promise,” he said.
Academic Freedom Concerns

Laura Benitez, state manager for U.S. free expression programs at PEN America, a free speech advocacy organization, worries the law could compel professors to change the assignments they give their students, out of fear of heightened scrutiny from university leaders and state lawmakers. She also argued the bill chips away at professors’ authority to decide what materials and activities they use to teach based on their expertise.

“We consider this bill to be an infringement on academic freedom, having sincere, significant consequences on professors’ ability to make decisions about what they can teach and assign in the classroom,” Benitez said. “A professor’s choices about how to achieve the learning outcomes of the course is part of what academic freedom is.”

Robin Wilson, a law professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who helped craft and present the bill, said she believes academic freedom should be “balanced off” by the needs of students “trapped” in a course—and if that makes faculty reconsider certain assignments, so be it. She compared students with conscientious objections to students with post-traumatic stress disorder who might want an alternative to violent material.

As faculty, “I think it’s OK for us to be checked sometimes,” she said. “This is a mechanism for faculty to kind of stop for a moment and consider what the experience of their students might be.”


She also believes the law can prevent conflicts over course material from blowing up. She cited a recent incident at Texas A&M University, in which a student filmed an argument with a professor over reading material related to gender identity, resulting in the firing of the professor and two administrators. Wilson argued that a public battle—or a student quietly suffering moral discomfort—is less likely if there’s a process in place to handle these types of student objections.

“You’re going to have parties work things out” because “they’re going to have someone in the room that can lower the temperature of that conversation”—the neutral arbiter, she said. “We don’t need that in the newspapers.”
‘Disservice’ or Safeguard?

Critics of the bill also worry that students may opt out of readings and assignments that force them to engage with alternative perspectives in a way that could hamper their education.

Students benefit from “assignments that really require you to engage in critical thinking and grapple with perspectives and opinions that are different from your own—and sometimes that involves putting yourselves in the shoes of someone who you disagree with,” Benitez said. “To take away the professor’s ability to put students in that situation [is] a disservice” and a “betrayal and a mistrust of students’ … ability to actually grapple with things that they are going to grapple with out in the world.”

Petersen believes the provision that an accommodation can’t be a “fundamental alteration” to a course will prevent students from getting out of assignments that would benefit them. Universities have veto power.

“You can’t say, ‘I’m going to be a climatologist, but I don’t want to take a class on climate change,’ or ‘I’m going to study nursing, but I don’t want to learn about how to give a shot because I’m an antivaxxer,” he said. “It doesn’t work for that.” In a similar vein, “I don’t think learning about evolution is going to violate someone’s conscience.”

But in some cases, there’s more than “one way for a student to learn the information, and maybe we could be just a little more creative, a little more thoughtful about that,” he added.

Charles Russo, Joseph Panzer Chair in Education and research professor of law at the University of Dayton, said he disagrees with the bill and doesn’t think it should become law because it limits faculty’s control over teaching and isn’t specific enough about valid requests or alternative assignments. Still, he believes it raises some valid concerns.

“I think it infringes on academic freedom, but I think it’s a reaction,” Russo said. “More often than not, it would be the liberal perspective trying to get a kid who disagrees to write these kind of assignments, and I would like to get some ideological balance in there. I think educators have to be sensitive to the beliefs of their students … Respect needs to go both ways.”

He’d prefer state lawmakers stay out of it and stressed that, especially in law school, assignments that force students to engage with multiple sides of an issue are important. But he hopes that colleges and universities have internal conversations about how to accommodate students’ conscientious objections to coursework.

“Mandating that a student write a paper that’s antithetical to one’s deeply held religious beliefs, I think, can be problematic,” he said. “I’m not saying drop the assignment, but maybe come up with an alternative assignment for people who have such strongly held feelings,” as long as the alternative is “in keeping with the spirit, the goal.”
The Broader Impact

The bill offers a broad definition of conscience: “a sincerely held belief as to the rightness or wrongness of an action or inaction.”

That means the legislation extends beyond religious beliefs—which was intentional, Wilson noted. She believes the law could accommodate a wide range of objections, including political, philosophical and other ideological concerns about coursework.

“You’re just allowing everybody—believers, nonbelievers … to all say, ‘Wait a minute, I have a moral center, and my moral center matters to me,’” she said.

Russo said, ostensibly, a pacifist could argue they don’t want to do an assignment focused on studying war. He believes that complaint is unlikely to succeed if challenged in court, but it raises questions about how the bill could be applied.

Despite its broad nature, Petersen foresees the legislation as having “very little impact” on the state’s universities, because they can weed out unreasonable requests; in any case, only a “handful” of professors are likely to run into these issues with their students, he said.

But Benitez believes the bill could have more serious ripple effects.

She acknowledged there are ways to implement the bill that “wouldn’t be catastrophic”; for example, a law professor could ask a student to write an opposing argument on a less personal or sensitive topic if they conscientiously object to the original assignment. But in a heated political climate where higher ed leaders already feel pressure to “overcomply” with policymakers’ laws and guidance, she fears the consequences of the bill “will go further than what the bill text actually says.” And while the law could protect all kinds of objections in theory, she believes in practice it “will be used to target specific viewpoints,” like content related to LGBTQ+ issues, which “we ultimately see as censorship.”

She noted that while students opting out of coursework is a new concept for higher ed, it’s been a contentious issue in K–12 schools. Notably, the U.S. Supreme Court last year sided with religious families seeking to opt their children out of readings with LGBTQ+ themes in Mahmoud et al. v. Taylor.

She worries that Utah’s bill, which she expects the governor to sign, could become a model for other states, following the way such conflicts have spread in the K–12 sector.

“This is the first time we are seeing this particular kind of measure, but we have seen with every kind of censorship that we have tracked since 2021 that it might start in one state, but it will absolutely be copy-pasted in another state,” she said.