by
Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
November 15, 2025
I spent Thursday morning at the Texas Capitol for a public hearing convened by the Committee on Civil Discourse and Freedom of Speech—covered only briefly by CBS Austin but deserving of far more attention. I arrived wary; “free speech” hearings at the Legislature often serve as vehicles for protecting only conservative speech. But I was struck by how many witnesses, including UT-Austin President Jim Davis, returned repeatedly to the democratic values that make universities vital: free expression, the right to protest, and our responsibilities to one another. What emerged—whether intended or not—was a both a genuine defense of free speech and academic freedom together with an implicit defense of Ethnic and Women and Gender Studies.
The irony, of course, is that while the committee frames its mission as promoting “civil discourse,” its political subtext often privileges conservative voices. Yet Thursday’s testimony revealed something deeper: an acknowledgment that universities cannot fulfill their mission without safeguarding the very fields some lawmakers want to undermine—Mexican American Studies, African American Studies, Asian American Studies, Native American and Indigenous Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies. When witnesses described the world students must be prepared to navigate—a world comprised of diverse publics, where history is taught fully, and identity understood in context—they were describing the intellectual terrain these disciplines provide.
President Davis emphasized the need to cultivate “a culture of trust” as a solemn public obligation: trust between students and faculty, between universities and communities, and trust that difficult conversations can happen without political retaliation. That framing matters deeply at a time when Texas universities face intensifying scrutiny and intrusion into academic life, especially in the shadow of SB 37’s elimination of faculty governance statewide.
And then came the day’s most striking contradiction. While lawmakers at the Capitol extolled free expression, the Texas A&M University System—our other flagship institution—voted to restrict “any course that advocates race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.” The contrast was sharp: a public celebration of free speech in Austin and a simultaneous move toward censorship in College Station.
This simultaneous embrace and suppression of speech reveals a deeper truth: free speech is being defended selectively, championed only when it aligns with certain political preferences. Yet even within that contradiction, the hearing surfaced an important consensus. It made clear, at least as I heard it, that universities cannot possibly prepare students for the world as it is while silencing the study of race, gender, power, or identity—most especially through crucial fields like Ethnic Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, and other threatened fields that promote both intellectual rigor and democratic life.
In the midst of legislative pressure, institutional fear, and now A&M’s sweeping restrictions, Thursday’s testimony served as a reminder that free speech is not a partisan possession and academic freedom is not a negotiable privilege. They are the bedrock of higher education—principles exemplified by the very fields currently under attack.
Even in fraught political spaces, the values we fight for can still be spoken aloud. That matters—for our students, for our institutions, and for the democratic possibilities we must continue to defend and imagine. As always, these views are mine and mine only. I do encourage you to hear the hearing yourselves to see if you hear what I did.
'We have to get it right': Texas lawmakers host hearing on free speech at universities
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