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Below is the letter I just sent to the UT System Board of Regents that is scheduled to meet tomorrow and Thursday with a few concerning items. You have until 1 PM today to submit your own letter to bor@utsystem.edu. Also consider attending tomorrow's "Rest in Peace UT" funeral procession/demonstration happening tomorrow per yesterday's blog post.
Here is the link to tomorrow's BOR meeting if you're unable to make it: https://www.utsystem.edu/board-of-regents/meetings/board-meeting-2026-05-20
Best,
Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
Subject: Protect Mexican American and Latino Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Gender Studies at UT Austin
Best,
Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
Subject: Protect Mexican American and Latino Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Gender Studies at UT Austin
Dear Members of the University of Texas System Board of Regents:
I write to express my profound concern regarding the reported plans to consolidate Mexican American and Latino Studies (MALS) and related Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies programs into a broader Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at The University of Texas at Austin.
Let me be direct: these units should not be consolidated. They should be restored, protected, and strengthened.
I respectfully urge the Board of Regents to:
I write to express my profound concern regarding the reported plans to consolidate Mexican American and Latino Studies (MALS) and related Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies programs into a broader Department of Social and Cultural Analysis at The University of Texas at Austin.
Let me be direct: these units should not be consolidated. They should be restored, protected, and strengthened.
I respectfully urge the Board of Regents to:
1. Reinstate the Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies units immediately;
2. Preserve the majors and minors in these fields; and
3. Preserve the graduate programs in these fields.
2. Preserve the majors and minors in these fields; and
3. Preserve the graduate programs in these fields.
This proposal should not be understood as a simple administrative restructuring. It represents the dismantling of intellectual, historical, and community-based projects that generations of students, scholars, organizers, and families fought to establish at this university. Programs like Mexican American and Latino Studies did not emerge by administrative convenience.
They were built through decades of struggle to ensure that the histories, cultures, intellectual traditions, and lived realities of Mexican-origin, Black, Indigenous, Asian American, and other historically marginalized communities—as well as Gender and Sexuality Studies perspectives—would finally be recognized as legitimate and necessary fields of inquiry within public higher education. To learn more about this history, visit this timely and authoritative blog by Dr. Christopher Carmona titled, “We Bled for This: The Ongoing Assault on Mexican American and Ethnic Studies.”
At a flagship public university in a state where a very diverse Latino community constitutes nearly 40 percent of the population—and where Mexican-origin communities are foundational to Texas history, culture, labor, economy, and civic life—the weakening of Mexican American and Latino Studies sends a troubling message. It suggests that these histories and perspectives are peripheral rather than central to the mission of the university.
Absorbing these programs into a generalized framework of “Social and Cultural Analysis” risks stripping them of the institutional autonomy necessary to sustain intellectual coherence, curricular direction, faculty development, student mentorship, and long-term viability. Once fields lose departmental status, they inevitably lose decision-making authority, hiring capacity, budgetary leverage, and symbolic recognition. History shows that such consolidations are rarely neutral. They often function as forms of institutional neutralization that gradually erode the visibility and sustainability of historically marginalized fields.
This proposal must also be understood within the broader political climate currently shaping higher education in Texas and nationally. In recent years, we have witnessed escalating attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; increased regulation of curriculum related to race, gender, and systemic inequality; and growing political intervention into university governance. Against this backdrop, the consolidation of Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies raises serious concerns about academic freedom, institutional integrity, and the future of critical inquiry within public higher education.
The irony is difficult to ignore. At precisely the moment when Texas faces profound demographic, cultural, educational, and political transformations, the state’s flagship university appears poised to weaken some of the very academic fields best equipped to help society understand and navigate these realities. These programs have made extraordinary contributions to scholarship, teacher preparation, public policy, educational equity, immigration studies, history, literature, public health, and community-engaged research. They have also provided intellectual affirmation and opportunity to generations of students, many of whom are first-generation college students seeking to see their communities reflected within the university curriculum.
Interdisciplinarity has never been absent from these fields. Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies are already deeply interdisciplinary. The issue before the Board is not whether collaboration across disciplines should occur. The issue is whether these programs retain the institutional capacity to define their own scholarly agendas, hire faculty grounded in their traditions, mentor students effectively, and sustain vibrant intellectual communities with autonomy and integrity.
Public universities should not retreat from difficult histories or politically contested knowledge. They should cultivate rigorous inquiry, democratic engagement, and historical understanding. Universities strengthen themselves not by dissolving critical fields of study, but by supporting them.
I respectfully urge the Board of Regents to reject any effort that would diminish the institutional standing, autonomy, visibility, majors, minors, or graduate programs of Mexican American and Latino Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at UT Austin.
The future of the university should not be built through the weakening of the very fields that have helped democratize it.
Respectfully,
Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., Professor
Educational Leadership and Policy
The University of Texas at Austin
At a flagship public university in a state where a very diverse Latino community constitutes nearly 40 percent of the population—and where Mexican-origin communities are foundational to Texas history, culture, labor, economy, and civic life—the weakening of Mexican American and Latino Studies sends a troubling message. It suggests that these histories and perspectives are peripheral rather than central to the mission of the university.
Absorbing these programs into a generalized framework of “Social and Cultural Analysis” risks stripping them of the institutional autonomy necessary to sustain intellectual coherence, curricular direction, faculty development, student mentorship, and long-term viability. Once fields lose departmental status, they inevitably lose decision-making authority, hiring capacity, budgetary leverage, and symbolic recognition. History shows that such consolidations are rarely neutral. They often function as forms of institutional neutralization that gradually erode the visibility and sustainability of historically marginalized fields.
This proposal must also be understood within the broader political climate currently shaping higher education in Texas and nationally. In recent years, we have witnessed escalating attacks on diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives; increased regulation of curriculum related to race, gender, and systemic inequality; and growing political intervention into university governance. Against this backdrop, the consolidation of Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies raises serious concerns about academic freedom, institutional integrity, and the future of critical inquiry within public higher education.
The irony is difficult to ignore. At precisely the moment when Texas faces profound demographic, cultural, educational, and political transformations, the state’s flagship university appears poised to weaken some of the very academic fields best equipped to help society understand and navigate these realities. These programs have made extraordinary contributions to scholarship, teacher preparation, public policy, educational equity, immigration studies, history, literature, public health, and community-engaged research. They have also provided intellectual affirmation and opportunity to generations of students, many of whom are first-generation college students seeking to see their communities reflected within the university curriculum.
Interdisciplinarity has never been absent from these fields. Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies are already deeply interdisciplinary. The issue before the Board is not whether collaboration across disciplines should occur. The issue is whether these programs retain the institutional capacity to define their own scholarly agendas, hire faculty grounded in their traditions, mentor students effectively, and sustain vibrant intellectual communities with autonomy and integrity.
Public universities should not retreat from difficult histories or politically contested knowledge. They should cultivate rigorous inquiry, democratic engagement, and historical understanding. Universities strengthen themselves not by dissolving critical fields of study, but by supporting them.
I respectfully urge the Board of Regents to reject any effort that would diminish the institutional standing, autonomy, visibility, majors, minors, or graduate programs of Mexican American and Latino Studies, Ethnic Studies, and Women and Gender Studies at UT Austin.
The future of the university should not be built through the weakening of the very fields that have helped democratize it.
Respectfully,
Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D., Professor
Educational Leadership and Policy
The University of Texas at Austin
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