UT is becoming the face of Texas’ higher education failures. That must change, The Daily Texan Editorial Board

Friends:

I am glad that the Daily Texan Editorial Board is weighing in on findings from a recent survey conducted by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which shows that faculty are deeply concerned about the condition of higher education in Texas. 

The short of it is that while our institutions must comply with Texas legislative mandates, they must also heed the concerns of their faculty. Without either shared governance or ensuring basic protections, how can higher education institutions hope to attract and retain the very talent that upholds their prestige?

Failing to listen to its faculty risks making UT Austin and all Texas higher education a symbol of Texas' shortcomings and failures. I truly hope that this message reaches Texas universities statewide, including UT Austin, so that our leaders can grasp what is at stake.

My intention is to foster a constructive dialogue that leads to positive change. I believe that by working together in a spirit of shared governance, we can overcome these challenges and continue to thrive despite ongoing legislative animus.

-Angela Valenzuela

UT is becoming the face of Texas’ higher education failures. That must change.
The Daily Texan Editorial Board

October 10, 2024

The recent publication of a survey of Texas faculty is as clear-cut as it is concerning.

According to a Sept. 5 American Association of University Professors (AAUP) survey, Texas faculty are dissatisfied with the conditions and direction of higher education in Texas. 61% of those surveyed would not recommend Texas for a faculty position to out-of-state colleagues, and 26.3% plan to interview elsewhere next year. Top concerns for faculty include the state’s political climate, academic freedom, salary, and diversity, equity and inclusion issues.

As one of Texas’ flagship institutions and a top 10 public university, UT represents the Texas education system internationally. UT can’t afford to neglect its faculty without risking long-term damage to its reputation and academic standing. At the time of publication, UT did not respond to a request for comment.

In his Sept. 18 State of the University Address, President Jay Hartzell said he, the provost and the deans will be working on “how, across the entire academic enterprise, we attract more elite faculty and students.”

Faculty is essential to the success of any university. But as it stands, we are failing ours. If UT wants to recruit and retain top-tier faculty, UT must prioritize their satisfaction and address key issues impacting their success. UT has a responsibility to protect academic freedom, and this begins with protecting faculty well-being.

According to the AAUP survey, the failure to address faculty concerns may result in a decreased retention of faculty, loss of academic talent and damage to the quality of higher education.

“These findings serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, administrators, employers, and other concerned citizens, emphasizing the urgent need to address the concerns raised by faculty members,” the survey said.

Intellectual debate and dialogue allow students and faculty to build upon each other’s independent analysis and critical thinking. State legislation constantly challenges the boundaries of academic freedom. Increasing limitations on academic freedom can have hefty implications not just on our education but on our political structure.

“(Faculty) are worried that people outside the University are going to be telling us what we can and can’t teach, what we have to say and what we can’t say in the classroom,” said Daniel Brinks, a professor in the School of Law and chair of the government department. “That will be a problem for students’ ability to learn, faculty’s ability to teach and do research, and the University’s ability to be an authentic academic institution.”

Senate Bill 17 has had lasting impacts on faculty perceptions of academic freedom. The University’s over-compliance with SB 17, including firing certain staff members without justification, raises concerns about UT’s commitment to faculty well-being amid the enactment of legislative changes.

“There’s a chilling effect … with Senate Bill 17, which banned DEI programs and practices, but it also put in there some pretty severe penalties,” said Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of AAUP. “If you are a faculty member perceived to be giving a training on diversity, equity and inclusion, you can face disciplinary action, including being terminated or dismissed.”

Additionally, SB 18 was intended to ban tenure at Texas public universities. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick proposed the bill because he felt professors at UT use the stability their tenure provides to “poison the minds of our next generation,” as he wrote in a Feb. 18, 2022 statement.

“These professors claim ‘academic freedom’ and hide behind their tenure to continue blatantly advancing their agenda of societal division,” Patrick wrote in a statement released April 20, 2023.

The bill was modified to keep tenured professors — with caveats. However, they can still be let go at the University’s discretion.

SB 18 may disproportionately impact untenured faculty who speak publicly on identity-related issues. The bill instills fear, making professors weary that a progressive curriculum would get them fired. If UT wants professors to continue to foster discourse in their classrooms, they must actively seek to protect tenure and ensure the stability of faculty.

“(AAUP) felt that SB 18 would potentially erode the protections of tenure … the whole reason there’s tenure is to protect academic freedom,” said Andrea Gore, a professor in the College of Pharmacy and Vice President of UT Austin’s chapter of AAUP. “If we didn’t have something that told us our jobs are going to be secure if we tackle difficult topics, we might not tackle those topics, and that would be a huge disservice to the students of the state of Texas.”

Forums exist for faculty to air their grievances, including the Faculty Council, but rarely does faculty input result in actual change. For example, the Council released a July 12 report criticizing UT’s handling of pro-Palestian demonstrations, and the council openly condemned President Hartzell’s mass layoffs following SB 17, which they said were made “without consultation of Faculty Council Leadership or other faculty leaders, in violation of shared governance practices, and without due process.”

In neither case did UT change or reverse its course of action despite callouts from faculty. If faculty cannot make change at UT, they may look for employment somewhere they can.

“Faculty Council, to me, is mostly a propaganda machine … it gives a veneer of a democratically-run institution,” said Stuart Reichler, an associate professor of practice in the College of Natural Sciences. “The reality is that the President and the other top administrators at the University decide what does and doesn’t happen.”

UT does have a requirement to adjust its practices according to the Texas legislature, but it also has a responsibility to recognize and act on the pleas of those it employs. If we can’t provide the basic protections our faculty deserves, how can we expect to attract and retain faculty members who contribute so to the prestige of UT Austin?

The University will soon become the face of Texas’ higher education failures unless it starts truly listening to its faculty.

The editorial board is composed of associate editors Tenley Jackson, Tanya Narwekar, Ava Saunders and Anjali Shenoy and editor-in-chief McKenzie Henningsen.

The Right-Wingification of UT: Texas targets liberal enemies within one of the top U.S. schools by Brant Bingamon, Nov. 22, 2024

Friends,

Today's piece by Brant Bingamon of the Austin Chronicle is a gem. At the heart of the critique of how the attack on DEI and curriculum are playing out at the University of Texas at Austin regards the creation of the conservative School of Civic Leadership at UT that mirrors Stanford's Hoover Institute, Arizona State University's School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership, and Princeton's James Madison Program.

Faculty's opposition is rooted in the notion of how it undermines academia by enabling state lawmakers and wealthy donors to impose political agendas. They contend UT's academic structure—where programs evolve into institutes, departments, and schools—is organically built by professors and anchored in established disciplines and research and where schools exist for a reason. Schools aren’t meant to be top-down projects driven by political or financial interests without disfiguring the mission and purpose of academia.

"They aren’t top-down enterprises created in one legislative biennium by politicians and oligarchs," Bingamon notes.

University of Texas Anthropology professor Craig Campbell argues that portraying most faculty as progressive activists is misleading, noting that professors are trained to think beyond simple left-right politics and "many are politically agnostic." He added that complaints about a lack of intellectual diversity are a "fake problem" that reflects a psychological projection from the right that works to provide "cover for ideologically committed, far-right faculty who are not intellectually honest,” he said. He adds, “Universities are a pain for extremist governments, because they’re full of people who are committed to careful exploration of the world and how things work and function – stuff that doesn’t jibe with the fantasies the politicians are trying to create or the policies they want to enact.”

Regarding faculty like Drs. Karma Chavez, Pauline Strong, Andrea Gore, Lauren Gutterman, Brian Evans, Emilio Zamora, myself, and others, I shudder to think of where we and our fellow faculty and students would be without their advocacy. It only makes our universities better. Thank God, as well, for a bold, free, and independent press—and for blogs, too! 😊

Still chewing on this piece and hope you will, too.

-Angela Valenzuela

P.S. I just donated to the Austin Chronicle. Especially for those of us in Austin, please consider it as part of your holiday giving.

The Right-Wingification of UT
Texas targets liberal enemies within one of the top U.S. schools
By Brant Bingamon, Fri., Nov. 22, 2024



Chris Rufo stood before an audience of 50 at the University of Texas in a dark suit, with a trimmed beard, appearing something like a tech bro, relaxed, faintly sneering. It was November of last year and Rufo had been invited to speak at the Salem Center, UT’s new right-wing think tank headquartered in Rowling Hall, an immaculate 458,000-square-foot building erected in 2018 at a cost of $172 million.

As he began, Rufo commanded his listeners to disbelieve their senses, to not see the wealth surrounding them, to not feel the safety of the bubble that is the University of Texas at Austin. He declared, instead, that UT and public universities throughout the country are frightening, dangerous places.

“I think people from across the political spectrum would acknowledge a sense of anxiety,” he said. “A sense of fear. A sense of foreboding. Something has gone quite wrong.”

Rufo isn’t the only right-wing culture warrior pushing this message, but he’s one of the most influential. An inspiration to Donald Trump, Ron DeSantis, and Texas Republicans Greg Abbott, Dan Patrick, and Ken Paxton, Rufo rose to prominence by innovating the campaign against critical race theory, a formerly obscure academic theory whipped into a message of white supremacy. He also fights against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and tenure.

At the Salem Center, Rufo unrolled a 30-minute attack on higher education, claiming that universities no longer prioritize the teaching of the classics, that professors no longer contemplate beauty and truth. He complained about African American studies, Latino studies, Asian American studies, Native American studies, and LGBTQ studies, saying, “If it’s got 'studies’ after it, it’s probably a pseudo-discipline.” He concluded by calling for a politically motivated assault, “a protracted siege,” of universities like the one in which he spoke.

Then he took questions. Pauline Strong, the director of UT’s Native American and Indigenous Studies Program, approached the microphone. Strong has taught at UT for 31 years. She is the president of the UT chapter of the American Association of University Professors, a national group founded in 1915 to support academic freedom, tenure, joint decision making between university faculty and administrators, and due process.

Strong told Rufo she believed in intellectual diversity but didn’t hear a commitment to the principle from him. She said her hero is John Dewey, the pragmatist philosopher who advocated for academic freedom and neutrality in higher learning. She asked if Rufo supported those values.

Rufo stiffened. The muscles in his face froze. He spoke and his words came fast, pitched a half-step higher. He said it would have been better if Dewey had never been born. He said that adhering to Dewey’s values creates “an academic life that drifts into witchcraft, into phrenology, into gender studies.” He said academics like Strong who believe in Dewey, “frankly, deserve what’s coming.”

Perhaps Rufo imagined he was being discreet by leaving “what’s coming” vague. But professors paying attention to Texas politics know exactly what it means. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has, over the last four years, called for the elimination of tenure, for restricting students’ free speech, and for mandating what professors can teach. Patrick has also pushed for the elimination of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs at Texas’ public universities. And, in the case of these programs, “what’s coming” is already here. Texas outlawed DEI in January.

The attacks against higher education have hurt faculty morale. There is anecdotal evidence that they are beginning to damage UT’s ability to attract high-quality professors. An August survey of 950 Texas faculty conducted by the AAUP revealed that two-thirds would not recommend Texas universities to their out-of-state colleagues. More than a quarter plan to interview for jobs elsewhere this year. A similar number have already done so. Half said they have noticed fewer, and less qualified, applicants for open positions. The top reason cited by those looking to leave is the state’s political climate. Anxieties about academic freedom, DEI attacks, access to reproductive care, LGBTQ+ issues, and tenure also made the list.

Strong told us that faculty who teach African American studies, Latina/o studies, Asian American studies, Native American and Indigenous studies, and LGBTQ studies are some of the most discouraged. Some have fought Dan Patrick’s attacks in previous legislative sessions and are doing so again, now that the Texas Senate is preparing to meet in January. But most faculty are staying silent, unaware of the threats or performing the equivalent of a tactical retreat. As one professor who didn’t want to be named said, “Jobs are on the line. Programs are on the line.”

So although Rufo’s speech last year was, at times, ridiculous, there was truth in his opener. There is fear at UT. There is foreboding. Something has gone quite wrong.

“There’s a great deal of anxiety among faculty, especially in the College of Liberal Arts,” Strong told us. “There is a great deal of pain. We feel that our research and teaching enterprises are under sustained attack.”

DEI & Pro-Palestinian Protests

Rufo’s talk was partly a victory lap. Six months earlier, Texas Republicans had borrowed model legislation he’d written to create Senate Bill 17, a bill abolishing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs in Texas’ public universities.

The SB 17 ban went into effect in January, prohibiting universities from considering diversity in hiring decisions and from conducting DEI training. At UT, administrators dismantled the Multicultural Engagement Center, the Gender and Sexuality Center, and the Fearless Leadership Institute (a professional development program for African American and Hispanic women). The university also moved dozens of employees, most of them in the Division of Diversity and Campus Engagement, to non-DEI work. “We’re going to respect the law,” UT System Chairman Kevin Eltife said at the time. “We’re not going to look for loopholes.”



Republicans weren’t satisfied. In March, SB 17’s author, state Sen. Brandon Creighton, threatened to withhold state funding from the university if administrators didn’t prove they had eradicated DEI. A week later, UT’s president, Jay Hartzell, announced that he had fired dozens of employees who had previously worked at the Division of Diversity and Campus Engagement. Most of them were people of color. He later implied that the administration had gone beyond the letter of the law to satisfy Republicans, saying the “legislative climate toward higher education” was “moving.”

Andrea Gore, a pharmacology professor who has taught at UT for 22 years, believes the fired staffers were sacrificial lambs. “They were not doing DEI jobs anymore,” Gore said. “They all had new job assignments that were documented in writing. They got fired because they had done DEI jobs.”

The firings shocked faculty, but three weeks later a different controversy broke out – the university’s crackdown on students protesting Israel’s war on Palestine.

Ashanté Reese, a professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, rushed to the campus on April 24 after learning that scores of state troopers, assisted by UT and Austin police, were confronting a group of about 200 students on the university’s South Lawn, in the shadow of the Tower. Reese spoke to the officers, trying to de-escalate the situation. It didn’t work. Officers in riot gear surrounded the protesters and repeatedly rammed into them, arresting 57.

Reese felt she came near being arrested herself. “I was doing, in the moment, what I thought was the right thing, and I still believe was the right thing,” she said. “But it was a really traumatic experience. It was traumatic to know that the people on the campus that pay you to do your job then also call the police on you for doing your job.”

A week later, a group calling itself Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine held a silent vigil on the steps of the Tower to support the students and protest Israel’s killing of Palestinian professors and its destruction of universities. As the vigil ended, students formed again on the South Lawn. Again, they were surrounded by police in riot gear. Another 79 were arrested.

The charges against the protesters – trespassing on their campus – were dropped by Travis County officials. UT took the opposite approach. Members of the Palestine Solidarity Committee, which had organized the first protest, were threatened with suspension. One of the PSC’s leaders, Ammer Qaddumi, was suspended for a year. The group itself was banned from campus.

This summer, UT drafted new rules allowing its staff to shut down demonstrations in public areas like the South Mall “in some instances.” It also rewrote its free speech policy to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, a logical fallacy that silences anyone who would speak out on Israel’s war.

As Karma Chávez, the chair of the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, said, “it’s very clear who is being targeted.” Chávez co-authored a summation of the DEI and protest controversies in October, urging professors to continue speaking out about the university’s actions and teaching what they deem relevant in their classes.

“We are in the fight of our lives,” she concluded. “Anything less than a principled, full-frontal response will inevitably fail.”

Faculty Lose Faith in the Administration

Many faculty denounced the firings and crackdowns: 650 of UT’s approximately 3,700 faculty signed a letter drafted by the UT chapter of the American Association of University Professors expressing no confidence in President Jay Hartzell. “He has violated our trust,” the letter stated. “The University is no longer a safe and welcoming place.”

The Faculty Council also weighed in. The Faculty Council is a group of about four dozen professors elected by staff and instructors from the colleges and schools within UT. Andrea Gore, the 22-year professor at the School of Pharmacy, chaired the council from 2015-2016. Gore said that historically it has partnered with administrators to jointly make decisions on hiring and policy, a practice known as shared governance.

“We talk to them: 'Here’s what’s on our mind,’” Gore said. “They listen to us. We’ve been able to talk about important and often difficult things, and we’ve also always been involved in choosing the leaders of the university.”

The Faculty Council condemned the DEI firings as politically motivated. It passed a resolution asking the administration why it invited state troopers onto campus. It demanded UT grant amnesty to the arrested students. But some, like Gore, think the Council’s responses were too restrained.

Gore believes the restraint can be traced back to an erosion in shared governance that began with Jay Hartzell’s appointment as president by the Board of Regents in 2020. “There was no faculty input or an opportunity for due diligence,” Gore said of the appointment. “It’s unlikely the outcome would have been different, but the process of exclusion set a dangerous precedent.”



The professors we spoke with said that since Hartzell’s appointment there have been a number of poorly explained retirements and replacements in top leadership positions, from provost – basically a second-in-command to the president – to vice presidents and deans.

Soncia Reagins-Lilly resigned as the head of student affairs in January, after the DEI ban went into effect. Reagins-Lilly is one of three Black VPs who have left UT since Hartzell assumed office. No Black VPs remain.

Emily Reagan, VP of marketing and communications, resigned in August, after more than 20 communications staffers were laid off in a reorganization which Reagan described as necessary for the university to focus on “managing reputational issues and crises” – a seeming reference to negative publicity from the Palestinian protests.

Provost Sharon Wood also resigned in August, with just a week’s notice. Resignations in positions like provost are typically announced a year in advance, our sources told us, to let faculty weigh in on a replacement and provide time for a smooth transition. The professors assume that Wood was pressured into resigning and that her decision to leave immediately was a form of protest. Her departure came days after she and Hartzell were named as defendants in a lawsuit by Ammer Qaddumi.

Eve Stephens, UT’s chief of police, resigned in September. Stephens had been sworn in just a year earlier following a highly successful 24-year career at the Austin Police Department. A to Z Sports reporter Brian Davis, a former UT communications employee, reported that Stephens was pressured into resigning. Faculty speculate that her response to the Palestinian protests was not aggressive enough for UT administrators.

But for professors like Karma Chávez, the most troubling change has been that of Ann Stevens, who was told in September that she would not be allowed to serve a second term as dean of the College of Liberal Arts. COLA is the heart of UT-Austin, as liberal arts programs are at universities throughout the world. It is UT’s largest college, with 800 faculty serving a fifth of the university’s students. Its professors teach subjects that right-wingers like Chris Rufo champion – economics, English literature, European history – and it houses the centers and study programs they despise – African diaspora studies, LGBTQ studies, Mexican American and Latina/o studies, women’s studies, Native American and Indigenous studies.

Stevens is one of UT’s most highly regarded leaders. “She is a very, very, very successful dean,” Chávez said. “She’s someone that I disagreed with on the regular – we have locked horns in all sorts of ways. But she’s also a very principled leader, and I really respected her work as dean. And I think all of the department chairs felt that way.”

Stevens’ firing – which is what it’s being called – was announced by letter, something that professors say is unprecedented. Her response was equally unprecedented. Stevens explained in an email to faculty that Hartzell told her she “did not have a grand enough vision for the college,” something she disputed. Despite her restrained language and refusal to talk to the press, faculty view Stevens’ message as a protest against the university’s top-down decision making.

The recent firings and resignations have professors wondering if Texas’ right-wing politicians are dictating to Hartzell who to hire and fire. “Our understanding is basically there’s no firewall between Jay Hartzell and the governor and the chancellors,” said Craig Campbell, an anthropology professor who’s taught at UT for 15 years. “I think he’s on board with them. I think he sees himself as a part of that mission.”

As resignations and replacements have increased, a less-understood personnel change has occurred at UT’s Legal Affairs division, which handles litigation for the university and consults on policy. Since 2018, Legal Affairs has hired the majority of its attorneys straight out of the office of Attorney General Ken Paxton, regarded as the most corrupt and partisan AG in the nation.

The change began with Jim Davis, who worked as Paxton’s deputy for three years before taking the helm of Legal Affairs in 2018. Last year, Davis was promoted to senior vice president and chief operating officer, one of the top positions in the university. Amanda Cochran-McCall, who served Paxton for four years, rising to become his chief of general litigation, replaced Davis at Legal Affairs. Cochran-McCall’s second-in-command, Adam Biggs, previously worked as Paxton’s deputy for over four years. Of the 10 other employees featured on UT’s Legal Affairs web page, internet searches reveal that at least six formerly worked for Paxton.

The Trouble With Tenure

The DEI ban was one of three attacks on Texas public universities in the 2023 legislative session. Another, SB 16, was essentially a gag order prohibiting professors from teaching critical race theory. It died in the House of Representatives. The third attack, SB 18, was originally a bill to end tenure for professors at Texas universities. The version of SB 18 that got passed didn’t abolish tenure but expanded the grounds for which tenured faculty can be fired.

Tenure is essentially a lifetime appointment for a professor. It protects those who achieve it from being fired except for cause. It was introduced in U.S. universities in the early 1900s and is considered integral to academic freedom, because it allows professors to teach controversial subjects and pursue controversial research without fear of losing their jobs.

“In an ideal world, every job would have tenure attached to it, so that you were hard to fire as long as you’re doing your job,” Karma Chávez said. “In the university context, tenure means you can chase the data wherever it takes you, you can chase the primary sources wherever that takes you. You don’t have to worry about being pressured by political forces, whether that’s your department chair, your university president, or your governor.”

Research is the raw material that, when properly processed, produces facts, knowledge. The creation and transmission of knowledge is the reason universities exist. Some research creates money, the professors we spoke with said, and some creates controversy. But even controversial research is useful. For example, after each legislative session, researchers collect data on newly enacted laws – in Texas, that could be bans on abortion, or books, or health care for trans kids – to find how the laws have impacted people’s lives. The facts that are gathered hopefully inform future policymaking.

Of course, some of that research, when processed and taught, offends Republicans. “A lot of the stuff that I teach is inherently controversial,” Chávez told us, “and it inherently ruptures what students have been taught to think about themselves, about their state, about U.S. history. But I teach from peer-reviewed scholarship. I also teach thought pieces that I may or may not agree with, but that are designed to get students thinking. And with tenure, I don’t worry that some student who disagrees with the politics of a particular piece is going to be able to come after my job. So, really, tenure is integral to being able to do teaching and researching.”

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has repeatedly criticized tenure. In announcing the passage of SB 18 in 2023, he wrote that tenured Texas professors “feel immune to oversight from the legislature” and “hide behind their tenure to continue blatantly advancing their agenda.” This year, Patrick has once again instructed Republicans to study the issue. With DEI already outlawed and critical race theory not getting as much attention as in the past, some professors believe Republicans will try to end tenure in this year’s legislative session.

Lauren Gutterman, an associate professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, doubts that UT’s leaders will be able to effectively push back against any such attack. Gutterman lost faith in the administration’s lobbying efforts in 2023, as Republicans prepared to pass the DEI ban. “SB 16, 17, and 18 were so upsetting, so frightening, and a direct attack on us,” Gutterman said. “And I felt like the message that we were getting from the administration was, 'We have it under control and everything’s gonna be fine.’ That’s part of the reason a lot of faculty chose not to really freak out about this legislation. And the president’s silence, his refusal to communicate directly with us, was really distressing.”

Andrea Gore warns that any changes to tenure will hurt the recruitment of first-class instructors, saying she has personally heard of two candidates who turned down job offers from UT in the last year because of the changes Texas Republicans have already made to tenure, which are minor compared with what they may do in 2025.

“It will take some time to see that we’re not getting the top scholars anymore,” Gore said. “Maybe we’re getting the next tier of scholars who are willing to accept working someplace where there’s a little bit more risk, because maybe they don’t have as many options. It’s not only the scholars who are in the area of ethnic studies. We’re also going to lose the scholars who are going to the business school or the law school or the engineering school.”

Gore said that threats to tenure have already begun to lower the quality of teaching, by persuading professors to skip controversial subjects. “I have a colleague who teaches a course that doesn’t sound very controversial at all, and she said, 'I’m not going to teach these lectures anymore, because I’m wondering if they’re going to trigger some sort of reaction that is going to cause somebody to report me.’ It’s shades of the McCarthy era.”

School of Civic Leadership

“There’s lots of rumors swirling at the moment because people are scared and we have a total lack of communication from the president,” Lauren Gutterman told us. “It just breeds all these different theories.”

One of the theories we heard is that the Legislature will seek to carve up the College of Liberal Arts in the upcoming session, starve some of its programs of funding, and feed others to the Red McCombs School of Business and its School of Civic Leadership.

The School of Civic Leadership is brand-new; it began offering classes this semester. The college was created in May of 2023 to house the Civitas Institute, which, in turn, was created the year before at the behest of Dan Patrick and several far-right billionaires, including Robert Rowling and Harlan Crow, the Dallas businessman who has helped corrupt Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.

Patrick and others have said the School of Civic Leadership is necessary to remedy UT’s lack of “intellectual diversity” – that is, its lack of right-wing professors and programs. It’s a claim conservatives are making across the country, one that has led to the creation of the Hoover Institution at Stanford, the James Madison Program at Princeton, and the School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership at Arizona State University, among others.

Faculty protested the creation of the new school, arguing that it violates the core tenets of academia by allowing state lawmakers and rich donors to spew their political agendas onto the campus. They say that UT’s hierarchy of instruction – its studies programs, which become institutes, which become departments, which become schools and colleges – is built from the ground up by professors, course by course, and represents identifiable disciplines and bodies of research. In other words, the schools are there for a reason. They aren’t top-down enterprises created in one legislative biennium by politicians and oligarchs.

The new dean of the School of Civic Leadership, Justin Dyer, denies the school is politically motivated and stresses it will focus on the country’s founding principles and the importance of free enterprise. A recent UT press release said it will teach the “intellectual inheritance of Western Civilization.”

“This is the way they frame it to make it palatable,” Campbell said, “which is to say, 'These are the classics. These are the great traditions. What can anyone say about Plato or Aristotle? These great thinkers have worked for us, so we need to hear them.’ That’s the bullshit candy coating. But the company they keep is damning. I mean, they’ve got John Yoo as a fellow. They’re in bed with some really fucking hideous, hideous people.”

Yoo is notorious as the attorney who wrote the so-called “Torture Memos” in 2002, providing the George W. Bush administration legal cover to torture people captured in Afghanistan and Iraq during the War on Terror. Other notorious figures associated with the School of Civic Leadership include Richard Hanania, who was employed by the school’s Salem Center in 2022 but was quietly let go after reports surfaced that he’d written extensively for white supremacist groups under a pen name. Chris Rufo is another controversial figure connected to Salem. Professor Mark Regnerus, a senior scholar at Salem, has published research arguing that gay people make poor parents. (Following one of Regnerus’ reports, 200 sociologists signed a letter questioning the integrity of the peer review process for his paper.)

Regnerus also teaches at UT’s school of sociology, which is part of the College of Liberal Arts. The faculty we spoke with say this is another problem with the School of Civic Leadership – it is redundant and will reduce funding for other schools which teach the same subjects, like economics, philosophy, and pretty much anything associated with “Western Civilization.”

“We have a classics department,” Karma Chávez said of COLA. “We have a government department that teaches classical liberalism, that teaches all of the Founding Fathers. We have a Thomas Jefferson Center. That material is already taught widely on this campus. And in fact, the original Civitas Institute was basically all populated by College of Liberal Arts faculty. Now the school is hiring its own folks, but many of them could easily be hired into the College of Liberal Arts.”

Chávez, paradoxically, teaches Chris Rufo’s material. “I think it’s important for students to see where this stuff is coming from,” she said. “If you look at Rufo’s reports, they don’t cite any peer-reviewed academic scholarship. They cite 'institute reports,’ they cite news articles, they cite himself, over and over. How’s that scholarship? How is anyone to take that seriously? So, sure, you want to bring in a controversial speaker as a conversation piece – okay. But what is the motivation behind that? Rufo has no credentials whatsoever. He is a pure ideologue. How is that a part of a university which is invested in the pursuit of knowledge?”

Campbell said it’s true there are few far-right professors at UT or on college campuses anywhere, but the idea that most are progressive activists is mistaken because professors are trained to think in more complex terms than right versus left and many are politically agnostic. Campbell added that the right’s complaint about intellectual diversity is a case of projection.

“Intellectual diversity is essentially a fake problem that is used to create cover for ideologically committed, far-right faculty who are not intellectually honest,” he said. “Universities are a pain for extremist governments, because they’re full of people who are committed to careful exploration of the world and how things work and function – stuff that doesn’t jibe with the fantasies the politicians are trying to create or the policies they want to enact.”

The End Game

Campbell has been hearing threats against the university by state Republicans ever since he arrived on campus in 2009. But this is the worst it’s ever felt.

“I remember my colleagues, the older colleagues, were always like, 'They rattle their sabers and then it all sort of works out.’ But it’s like boiling frogs. It’s been this slow degradation of programs and funding. The faculty is very unhappy, suspicious, looking to get out, disinvesting. It makes it a terrible environment. We’re not program-building, we’re just constantly trying to keep people calm.”

Campbell said the anthropology department has lost several of its top scholars in the last two years and others want to leave. But tenure has been ebbing across the country, while universities continue to churn out Ph.D.s. So the job market is tight. Tenure-track positions at good universities can attract hundreds of applicants. It’s not as easy to leave as it once was.

For faculty who aren’t leaving, it should be a simple decision to get politically active, to speak out against the attacks, even if they aren’t directly affected by them. But there are good reasons not to. Some younger professors have crushing student debt and can’t afford to endanger their jobs. Others want to protect the research they’re doing or the programs they’ve built. Many aren’t from Texas and aren’t invested. For those who don’t already have tenure it’s very risky to speak out.

And then there are the professors who love the university and love their students. And among them are some, like Lauren Gutterman, who couldn’t fade into the background if they wanted to.

“I don’t feel that I have the luxury of retreating because I do queer history, right?” Gutterman said. “And so it doesn’t matter if I’m loud or not, or visible or not. I will always be a target. So I don’t think I have anything to gain from silence.”

Gutterman is planning to once again testify at committee hearings in the Capitol. She hopes to have colleagues at her side. “We now know what SB 17 did to our campus, so we understand how this incredibly broad and vague legislation can enact real harm on our students and our campus and our peers,” she said. “So I hope and I expect that more people will be mobilized. But at the same time, fear is really powerful and I’m sure that some people will continue to feel that the best way to protect themselves is to be quiet.”

Reese told us she will testify before lawmakers this session and believes other faculty will too. “We’re trying to be in solidarity and community with as many people as possible, even if we don’t all think the same and don’t all have the same objectives or approaches to activism. At some point, at the heart of things, it’s like, 'Do I believe that what is happening is unjust? And if the answer is yes, then people are like, 'We just have to do something about it.’”

The professors we spoke with are some of the top scholars at UT. They’ve published influential papers in peer-reviewed journals, they speak at international conferences, they have secured multimillion-dollar grants for research, they are leaders in their respective departments. They have built careers and programs here and don’t want to abandon what they’ve created. “Take Karma [Chávez], you know?” Campbell said. “She’s been doing so much institution-building. So the idea that you’re gonna let the state take this over, they can fuck right off, you know?”

This fall, Chávez is celebrating the 10th anniversary of the Latina/o studies department that she has put together piece by piece. The department is regarded as one of the best of its kind, if not the best, in the nation. With its recognized success, Chávez could find a job elsewhere but wants to stay in Texas. “I love it here,” she said. “I want to build my life here. I think there’s so much history and culture here. And the politics are hard, but I’m learning to live with that. And the weather, I actually love. People shit on Texas all the time, but I’m definitely not one of those.”

Chávez said her father was a union worker and she thinks of the current struggle as a labor battle. As a queer person of mixed race and a feminist, she believes she has to fight. “People like me are explicitly or implicitly the targets of a lot of these attacks, and the kind of research and teaching that I do is explicitly at the center of this. So I feel it’s important to fight. But I also feel like it starts here, and then it’s going to go elsewhere. And so it’s not just a personal investment. It’s a bigger investment into this thing called Higher Education.”

Chávez has been quoted in other publications frequently over the last couple of years. She said she speaks out because other professors won’t. “Somebody has to talk about what’s happening. Somebody has to be willing to say it out loud and not worry so much about what it’s going to mean for their job,” she said. “I’ve decided that I’ll be one of those people.”

Book Announcement: "Achieving Equal Educational Opportunity for Students of Color," by Dr. Richard R. Valencia

Friends:

So glad to see my colleague, Dr. Richard Valencia, coming out with this book titled Achieving Equal Educational Opportunity for Students of Color published by Teachers College Press. Hot off the press.

No matter what happens in politics, structural racism, forces of exclusion, and educational opportunity drive educational outcomes in America. I look forward to reading it.

-Angela Valenzuela

Dear America: My immigrant mother 'stole' American jobs: A 'confession' from a child of Mexican immigrants

Friends:

I appreciate Dr. Alvaro Huerta's "confession" and it should provide a helpful perspective on how his mother never stole an American job. Hence, no confession is necessary, but I appreciate the satire (see below).

What folks need to know, however, is that when his mother crossed the border, it was no more a "crime" than running a red light. Yes, it was more like a traffic violation as opposed to a criminal offense at least until Bill Clinton came along. 

So disgraceful, President Clinton for signing the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996 (IIRIRA) that criminalized immigration with changes that took place on April 1, 1997. 

I remember 1997 well. It was a tough year for those in the know and, most especially, for those directly affected by it—a regime that continues through to the present.

For those that want to research this, the IIRIRA was enacted as Division C of the Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act of 1997, introducing significant amendments to the Immigration and Nationality Act passed in 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson. Immigration historians notwithstanding, I found Wikipedia's discussion of the IIRIRA to be quite informative.

My grandmother was U.S.-born and grew up in Bisbee, Arizona, right on the U.S.-Mexico border. In her era, the border was called "la linea," because it was little more than a line in the sand with people moving freely back and forth not unlike our ancestors who moved freely up and down the continent. 

Knowing this is why I often think that we didn't cross the border at all, but rather the border crossed us. As Mexican Americans from the Southwest, like my grandmother whose ancestors were Indigenous, there was never anywhere "to go back to"—as we're often told—because they were always home.

Borders are thusly powerful and historic fictions and social creations that get codified in statute. 

That said, social creations like Greg Abbott's $4 Billion biennium expenditure of troops and his militarizing of the border termed "Operation Lonestar" (2022 numbers) are insanely costly creations that are and should be the onus of the federal, as opposed to state, government. All of that money could have funded the entirety of K-12 public and higher education and still leave some change for health care, and investments in clean energy. Not being prudent with these dollars is costly, too, as we know. Symbolically, it signifies not wanting to empower our low-income Black and Brown communities.

Posturing represents an enormous cost to taxpayers. It provides great fodder for campaigns and builds a Republican constituency in South Texas by giving people jobs. 

Families simply can’t live on an annual salary of $40k or less, especially in this economy. Not all benefitted equally, if at all for many, from Biden’s post-pandemic economic stimulants. Hence, the Biden Administration and Kamala Harris, directly associated with it, could not compete with the living wage that "migra jobs" provide, especially for folks with a high school diploma.

Sadly, though, folks have been hoodwinked into believing that Trump’s economy will be better for them as his impetus is to bilk the economic purse—our precious taxpayer dollars—for payback to the billionaire class that supported him and to which he identifies. These are concerning times. Still, we must organize and call for unity in the face of this consolidation of power.Dr. Huerta, I do agree that migration is a human right and, most especially, to seek asylum to escape persecution as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that the U.S. still has not signed for reasons that are probably obvious. Never mind that Eleanor Roosevelt played a major role in its development.

Álvaro, God bless your dear mother's memory, and keep doing what you're doing!

-Angela Valenzuela

Opinion: My immigrant mother 'stole' American jobs: A 'confession' from a child of Mexican immigrants

Nov 14, 2024 Updated Nov 14, 2024

Dr. Álvaro Huerta

Dear America,

I have a confession to make, just like when I was a good Catholic boy at Santa Teresita Church in East Los Angeles. My late immigrant mother “stole” American jobs. Yes, my mother Mejía Huerta was a “criminal.” While she was never convicted of 34 felonies in New York, she was a “Mexican immigrant criminal,” nevertheless!

As a U.S.-born citizen, I was in denial about my mother’s “thievery” for many years. It’s time that I come clean about how she “robbed” hard-working Americans of their precious jobs for several decades. Since “all” Americans aspire to engage in hard work, as part of the Protestant work ethic that the sociologist Max Weber wrote about over 100 years ago, it’s only “fair” that they reclaim these “immigrant jobs” from these “brown criminals.”

When my extended Huerta clan migrated in the early 1960s from a small rancho, Zajo Grande—located in the beautiful state of Michoacán—to Tijuana, Baja California, they experienced abject poverty in this Mexican border city. It was in Tijuana that my mother first worked in el norte as a transborder domestic worker. Securing a U.S. visa, she worked in San Diego, California, for days or weeks at a time, cleaning the homes of affluent White Americans. She would then return to Tijuana for a few days and then repeat the brutal work schedule for several years.

During one of her many work trips to el norte, when she was pregnant with me, she planned for me to be born in Sacramento, California. When I eventually joined my familia in Tijuana, as my mother continued her rigorous work schedule in el norte, my older sisters, who were in their teens, helped with childcare duties. That included working as minors in Mexico and the U.S.

As my memory is fuzzy during my first four years in Tijuana, I sometimes wonder how my mother “stole” her first American home to clean. Did she break into their home in the middle of the night and start to clean when the middle-class, White family was asleep? Did she help feed little Brad and Jenny breakfast while their parents were enjoying their beauty sleep? Or did she enter the house through the chimney, like Santa Claus, and leave the house sparkling without a trace? While I hold a Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in City and Regional Planning, I have yet to resolve this conundrum.

Now that America will “miraculously” be “great again,” especially with expected draconian measures against immigrants, where millions of hard-working immigrants (like my late mother) will be targeted, I’m sure that countless of MAGA parents will raise their children to forgo college and reclaim these “immigrant jobs.” While there’s no shame in cleaning houses for a living or working as farmworkers, like my late father Salomón ChávezHuerta, I’m wondering how they will enjoy (or enter) the American Dream that “immigrant jobs” offer in terms of financial compensation, benefits (or lack thereof) and upward mobility opportunities?

As for all the American-born workers who delusionally think they will replace and compete against workers with the “Mexican immigrant work ethic,” like we say in East Los Angeles, no te rajes / don’t quit!

A Texas University Tells Professors Their Teaching and Research Will Be Under ‘Intense Scrutiny’

Friends:

With an important exception, this post is similar to the following related ones from last week:

• Guidance on research and teaching aimed at SB 17 compliance announced, North Texas Daily
• College of Education alters 78 courses to comply with Senate Bill 17 and protect faculty from public backlash following Lieutenant Governor’s memo

What’s important here is that the story below on what is happening right now at the University of North Texas Denton is that it appears in the Chronicle of Higher Education, widely recognized as one of the most authoritative resources for those of us in higher education. Thankfully, it exposes Texas to a national audience for being authoritarian. Glad that this issue is getting the attention it deserves.

-Angela Valenzuela

 

A Texas University Tells Professors Their Teaching and Research Will Be Under ‘Intense Scrutiny’ 

By Megan Zahneis November 13, 2024 | Chronicle of Higher Education

Faculty 

Faculty members at the University of North Texas at Denton fear their teaching and research on topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion will be curtailed by their own university’s interpretation of a state law targeting DEI efforts — and, in one college, they say it already has.

Texas attracted national attention last year by passing Senate Bill 17, which went into effect in January and bans diversity, equity, and inclusion offices, training, and statements at the state’s public universities. While the bill’s text carves out exemptions for teaching and research, faculty members on the Denton campus were surprised to find out last month that the university’s Integrity & Compliance offices would, in fact, be monitoring those areas to ensure they didn’t run afoul of the law. It’s a striking development in a state where legislative attacks on DEI have already resulted in widespread uncertainty about what teaching and scholarship is and is not permissible, and created a chilling effect for some faculty members who fear professional repercussions.

The news at North Texas came in an October presentation to the Faculty Senate by Clay Simmons, the university’s chief integrity officer, who said his office was in turn relying on the University of North Texas system’s general counsel’s interpretation of Senate Bill 17. With state funding at risk if the university is seen as breaking the law, Simmons explained, extra scrutiny was necessary. But several faculty members told The Chronicle that they saw the university’s interpretation of the law’s language as overly broad, and as guided by the “spirit” of the law as opposed to its actual language.

In his presentation, Simmons said that the university’s “tolerance for violations” of Senate Bill 17 “is pretty low, mainly because of that intense scrutiny that we’re receiving by the legislature.” He added: “There are also interest groups that are out there going around with hidden cameras trying to catch people doing things that they’re not supposed to do anymore underneath that law.” (This year, administrators at multiple Texas institutions landed in hot water after being captured on undercover video by a right-wing news group.) Then, Simmons added, there was the question of state funding. Losing that money, he said, “would be an existential issue for the university.” (In the 2024 fiscal year, 21 percent of the Denton campus’s revenue came from state appropriations.)

‘A Very Stringent Read’

Given those threats, Simmons said at the meeting, “we’re very cautious about how we approach these topics, and we’re trying to take a very stringent read of the law.” Teaching and research, he acknowledged, were not restricted under Senate Bill 17. “However, in true legal fashion, there are exceptions to the exception,” he said, explaining that classroom lessons on DEI-related topics “must be limited to the elements of the course” and that activities listed on a syllabus must be linked to a course objective.

Research, meanwhile, “must meet the definition of true research,” as described in the university’s research-misconduct policy, Simmons said. “The identity-based aspects must be essential to the research,” he said. “So if you’re doing research on homelessness, you have to be very careful if you’re going to focus on a certain identity within homelessness. So if you’re looking at LGBTQ homeless individuals, then you’ll have to make sure that that is narrowly tailored within the scope of work.” (Kelley Reese, a university spokesperson, said that Simmons and other university administrators were unavailable to speak to The Chronicle. “Faculty members are entitled to full freedom in research and in the publication or presentation of the results, subject to the adequate performance of their other academic duties and the requirements of UNT policy,” Reese said in a statement to The Chronicle. They are also, she said, “entitled to freedom in teaching and discussing their subject and in the selection of textbooks and other materials for their courses, and as noted in the UNT academic freedom and responsibility policy, they should not introduce controversial matter that has no relation to their subject into the curriculum.”)

Adam Briggle, a professor and director of graduate studies in the philosophy department, asked in the October meeting whether a paper on the rights of transgender people, published in a peer-reviewed journal, would be permissible. His work is often flagged by the university’s Institutional Review Board, Briggle explained, for not contributing to “generalizable knowledge,” as dictated by federal guidelines on human-subjects research. For the same reason, Simmons responded, such work would not be exempt from Senate Bill 17.

“If this gets to a point where an entire discipline isn’t free to publish stuff,” Briggle said, “then we need the university to have our back.”

“That is above my pay grade,” Simmons replied. “I’m the chief compliance officer, and so my job is to ensure compliance with the law. If the university would like to push back on legislation that’s been enacted, that would be a decision for, probably, the board to make.”

Later that month, Simmons sent an email to the Faculty Senate clarifying that policy. Senate Bill 17, he wrote, does not apply to research that meets the university’s definition:

“a systematic investigation, including development, testing, evaluation, or publication to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge,” including scholarly activities and creative works. But Briggle told The Chronicle that he and other faculty members found Simmons’s memo only compounded their confusion, in part because it was not clear how “generalizable knowledge” would be defined, or by whom. In Reese’s statement to The Chronicle, she said the bill “does not apply to research, scholarly activity, creative works, and course instruction.

“There is no review of generalizable knowledge.”

Briggle and his colleagues condemn what they see as a too-cautious interpretation of the law. “This is precisely what the Texas Legislature wanted,” he told The Chronicle, “to scare people so much that they will be hesitant to do the sorts of things, or talk about the sorts of ideas, that the legislature doesn’t like.” The result, Briggle added, has been “intentional silencing” on campus. “You look around at faculty meetings now and people are wondering, What can we put in the syllabus? Where can I publish my stuff?”

Briggle said he’d like his institution to “draw a very clear line and just make it abundantly clear that academic freedom means that we’re allowed to teach and research whatever we want.” Instead, “we just keep retreating.”

Changes Underway

In the College of Education, changes to courses are already underway, according to documents shared with The Chronicle. Administrators in that college have, this semester, made 130 changes to undergraduate courses and 78 to graduate courses — including to course titles, descriptions, and syllabi — to bring them into compliance. For example, an associate dean suggested changing one graduate course’s title from “Race, Class and Gender Issues in Education” to “Critical Inquiry in Education,” and removing references to race, class, and gender in the course’s description.

The changes were initiated when College of Education administrators learned in early October of a set of legislative charges from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, among them a mandate for the state Subcommittee on Higher Education to “examine programs and certificates at higher education institutions that maintain discriminatory diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies,” according to the North Texas Daily, the student newspaper. The college’s interim dean and associate dean then conferred with Simmons’s office and decided to modify course names and descriptions because they are “public-facing,” as a professor described it in an email to colleagues that the North Texas Daily obtained.

Brian McFarlin, the associate dean for undergraduate studies and research, who made the course changes, indicated that he was sympathetic to faculty concerns about them, according to an email sent by Lok-Sze Wong, an assistant professor of teacher education, to her colleagues. “He would feel similarly [upset] if he were in [faculty members’] shoes,” she wrote. (McFarlin was not made available for an interview with The Chronicle.)

To date, none of the university’s other colleges and schools have been subject to such changes. Reese, the university spokesperson, denied any connection between Senate Bill 17 and the changes in the College of Education, which she said were the result of a state- mandated review to align with state teacher-education standards.

Check out The Chronicle’s latest diversity, equity, and inclusion coverage

The course changes, faculty members told The Chronicle, were based on reviews of content posted to the Canvas learning-management system for each course, though it was not clear to them who was conducting those reviews. And because of the shifting standards for compliance, “the dean asked people to change things in their courses well into the semester,” said one faculty member, who requested anonymity for fear of professional repercussions. One colleague, the faculty member said, had to remove optional readings from their Canvas site.

Thus far, the faculty member said, all of their colleagues have agreed to the changes, if not happily. “In a couple of meetings,” they said, “it has been made clear that if we do not comply, we will face disciplinary action, including termination.” (Reese said that the law “does not establish consequences for individual noncompliance,” and that the university plans to respond to violations of Senate Bill 17 as it does any other law, “with additional education and training and the appropriate policies.”)

Meanwhile, the impacts on research are already being felt. According to the faculty member in the College of Education, one prestigious grant from the Spencer Foundation has been delayed until it’s determined to be in compliance with Senate Bill 17. As a result, they said, “we’re already putting in jeopardy relationships with major funders across the nation.” Those in the College of Education were also told that they will not receive travel funds to present research at conferences that deal with race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation. If scholars choose to pay out-of-pocket to attend such conferences, the faculty member added, they must say that they are not representing the university. (Reese, meanwhile, said that faculty members can get travel funding to engage in activities “whereby scholarly and professional stature are demonstrated and may be appraised.” She denied any delay concerning the Spencer Foundation grant.)

“The stars aligned” for the university to make the College of Education a guinea pig of sorts, the faculty member said. The teacher-education program was recently placed on probation for the second straight year, after too many students failed to pass their examinations. Faculty members have speculated that this made the college especially leery of crossing the line. Syllabi from the college have also been posted online by Parents Defending Education, which describes itself as “a national grassroots organization working to reclaim our schools from activists promoting harmful agendas.”

Also criticizing the administration’s actions was Brian L. Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors. That body, Evans said in an emailed statement, “expresses utmost concern” over North Texas’ “censoring course

content,” given what he called a “clear exception for academic course instruction” in Senate Bill 17. The course changes, he said, violate the university’s academic-freedom and shared-governance policies.

Determining Compliance

Simmons, the chief integrity officer, said at the Faculty Senate meeting last month that faculty members with questions about whether their course material or research complies with the law should consult with their departmental and school leaders. “The reason for that is that not only are we looking at legal risks that are presented with some of these activities, but we’re also looking at the political risk that comes along with a lot of these,” he said. “Sometimes things will be legal, but a dean just isn’t comfortable going quite that far into that territory, and will be more prone to want to change it or modify it, or rethink the whole idea. It just depends on your particular chain of command as to what they’re comfortable with.” Those concerns, Simmons said, would then be forwarded to his office by the dean. (Reese, though, said that if individual faculty members had questions about how the system’s guidance on Senate Bill 17 applied to their work, they should turn to Simmons’s office.)

Simmons’s presentation also pointed to a “Trust Line” run through the risk-and-compliance software company OneTrust, through which people could report potential violations. Reese did not respond to a question about whether any such complaints have yet been lodged.

In the meantime, several faculty members told The Chronicle, they’re left to question whether the university’s interpretation of the law will continue to shift, and whether their work will be implicated. Tracy Everbach, a professor of journalism, said she’s particularly concerned about a course she teaches called “Race, Gender, and the Media,” which draws on her 20 years of scholarship in those areas.“Am I going to be told, ‘None of your work counts anymore. You can’t teach that class. Your research is obliterated’?” Everbach said. “My mind leaps there. I haven’t been told anything like that, but I know that these kinds of fears and discussions are going on among faculty, and no one really can tell us.”

Read other items in this The Assault on DEI package.

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.

DEI Attacks Are Widening the Racial Wealth Gap | Bloomberg

Friends:

An expanding middle class is so obviously important to our economy and society. And this is what DEI helps accomplish. This is an excellent opinion piece by Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman that relies on research. I have actually read the research on California that she cites and Opoku-Agyeman is spot on. Please read.

I came across it on BlueSky, a new app that folks are using as an alternative to Twitter. I just joined. My handle is @vlnzl in case you're joining. For lots of progressives, X (or Twitter) has gotten too toxic. I hope this becomes a platform and space for productive conversations.

-Angela Valenzuela

DEI Attacks Are Widening the Racial Wealth Gap

Taking away policies that help qualified Black and Latino people secure economic gains through selective colleges and high-paying jobs is counter-productive.



DEI and affirmative action initiatives shouldn’t be controversial.Photographer: Chip
Somodevilla/Getty Images North America

November 14, 2024 at 7:00 AM CST

By Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman

Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a doctoral candidate in public policy and economics at Harvard Kennedy School. She is the editor of “The Black Agenda” and the author of the forthcoming book “The Double Tax.”

Voters have given Donald Trump a second chance and put diversity, equity and inclusion programs in further danger.

The DEI backlash was strong even before Trump won the 2024 presidential election, and he is clearly hostile to most programs that seek to create an even playing field. That’s a shame, and not simply on moral or social grounds. DEI offers a path to real, lasting wealth generation, helps create a bigger consumer class, and it’s good for the economy.

Wealth creation in the US is typically rooted in three factors: education, well-paying jobs and profitable investments. Historically, White people have had disproportionate access to all three of those things, yet opponents of DEI and affirmative action insist, despite abundant evidence to the contrary, that it was all achieved through merit.

Again, studies and history books tell us that’s a farce. But the myth persists. That’s not to discount the gains people make through hard work and talent or the financial and social rewards they deserve for their skills. DEI isn’t meant to come at the expense of either of those virtues. In fact, when DEI is thoughtfully implemented, it complements — and doesn’t overshadow — industrious, creative work.

Still, we hear it endlessly: Merit should be the only deciding factor when it comes to college admissions and hiring practices. It’s a compelling sales pitch on the surface. But look a little closer. At its core, attacks on race-conscious policies are a Trojan Horse.

In practice, those biases can push Black and Latino people into career pathways that are divorced from wealth-building. As a result, underrepresented minorities remain a substantial part of America’s permanent economic underclass, even as they comprise an increasingly larger part of the US population.

Opponents of diversity initiatives are surely aware that selective colleges and universities have often served as vital pathways for closing socioeconomic gaps and building wealth through high-paying jobs. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be fighting so hard against the strategic expansion of who gets access to those institutions — and using “merit” as a cover.

It may take several years to see the full trickle-down effects of the Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to dismantle affirmative action, but data following bans at the state level years prior have already painted a devastating picture.

California, for example, voted to end the measure in its public universities in 1996 with Proposition 209. Princeton economics professor Zachary Bleemer found that it led to a 7.6-percentage-point decline in the likelihood that qualified minority applicants enrolled in selective University of California campuses. Perhaps feeling deterred, these high school students were much more likely to apply and enroll in less selective state schools. Over time, minority applicants, mostly Hispanic, experienced a 5% average annual decline in wages. The pay decrease worsened overall inequality by reducing the number of early-career minority Californians earning over $100,000 by at least 3%. This, in a state where 40% of the population is Latino.

What Bleemer found is further corroborated by the work of economists Raj Chetty, David Deming and John Friedman. They discovered that attending highly selective or Ivy Plus institutions triples a student’s chances of securing jobs at prestigious firms and increases their chances of joining the top 1% of earners. The work of Ellora Derenoncourt, a Princeton economics professor and director of the Program for Research on Inequality, further underscores why this access matters.

Her research shows that, between 1980 and 2020, capital gains on investments — one of the primary drivers of wealth accumulation — have disproportionately benefited White households. Those in high-paying professions usually have access to corporate stock awards, which add to those gains.

This is why legal challenges against programs that create pathways for families from historically disadvantaged backgrounds could have lasting economic repercussions for future generations of Black and Latino individuals. Those populations already have, on average, less wealth than White families. In 2022, the Urban Institute reported that White families had an average wealth of $1.4 million as compared to Hispanic ($227,544) and Black families($211,596).

While much of the racial wealth gap can be attributed to White Americans benefiting from what Michelle Obama has called “affirmative action of generational wealth,” the pervasive attacks on DEI only exacerbate the problem.

Currently, the Meltzer Center for Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging at the New York University School of Law is tracking lawsuits against companies and schools related to DEI efforts. In every region that the program analyzes, at least one lawsuit has been filed involving anti-DEI initiatives — resulting in more than 100 lawsuits.

Despite widespread calls to shutter DEI efforts across corporate America and higher education, evidence clearly shows that they are needed. They offer counterweights to biases that have led to hiring discrimination and increased turnover and lower promotion rates of qualified non-White individuals. One Harvard University study that analyzed new hires from a professional services firm found that Black employees were 32% more likely to leave positions within two years. The largest gap in that cohort — 51% — existed between Black and White women.


If this was all about “merit,” such findings would likely be less racially stark. The data also raise a question: Who benefits when qualified minorities are systemically shut out from entering academic and career pathways that facilitate wealth-building?

It’s wildly counter-productive. Consumers generate two-thirds of the gross domestic product in the US. An expanding consumer class — the foundation of America’s middle class — has always supercharged the economy and the lives of all Americans, regardless of their gender or the color of their skin. Sabotaging programs that help create wealth sabotages the economy as well.

The ban on affirmative action and the decline of DEI efforts represent a cold and calculated attack on what economic prosperity, well-being and opportunity could look like for all Americans, undermining the very fabric of equity and justice in our society.


More From Bloomberg Opinion:White Men Are Still Kings of the Job Market. Here’s Proof: Sarah Green Carmichael
An Exodus of Black Women in Academia Hurts the Workforce: Anna Branch
‘DEI Hires’ Don’t Lower the Bar. We Raise It: Laura Morgan Roberts

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Anna Gifty Opoku-Agyeman is a doctoral candidate in public policy and economics at Harvard Kennedy School. She is the editor of “The Black Agenda” and the author of the forthcoming book “The Double Tax.”