Friends,
Texas higher education is being rapidly transformed—mostly without meaningful public consultation, transparent academic review, or adequate consideration of the consequences for students, faculty, families, and communities across our state.
That is why I urge you to join us on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., for the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus People’s Hearing on Higher Education at the Robert Johnson Legislative Office Building, 1501 N. Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas.
The hearing is being convened by Texas State Representative Lulu Flores and the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus, in partnership with the Latino Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education and our broader coalition of higher education advocates.
The hearing will address the weakening or dismantling of:
Ethnic Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies;
academic freedom and shared governance;
the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; and
community-based knowledge, cultural memory, and the intellectual heritage of the people of Texas.
These are not private institutional matters. Our colleges and universities are public institutions, supported in part by the taxes that all of us pay. Texans contribute to higher education through property taxes, sales taxes, state revenues, tuition, public bonds, philanthropy, and generations of labor and civic investment. These institutions therefore carry obligations not only to administrators, governing boards, or elected officials, but also to the people of Texas.
Taxpayers have a right to know how decisions affecting public universities are being made. We have a right to ask what programs are being eliminated or consolidated, whose voices are being excluded, how public resources are being used, and whether decisions are serving the educational needs of the entire state.
The children and grandchildren of working families should be able to attend universities where they can study the histories, cultures, struggles, and contributions of the communities from which they come. Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian American, LGBTQ+, women, immigrant, rural, and working-class Texans should not be treated as peripheral to the mission of public higher education—particularly when their families help sustain these institutions through taxes, tuition, employment, research, and public service.
The urgency could not be greater. Texas has enacted sweeping restrictions on diversity, equity, and inclusion; expanded political control over curricula and university governance; weakened faculty participation in institutional decision-making; and created conditions in which academic programs may be eliminated, consolidated, or redefined before the public fully understands what is happening.
Universities are not the private property of political leaders, governing boards, donors, or administrators. They are public trusts. Their responsibility is to educate the people, advance knowledge, prepare future generations, and serve the public good.
Decisions of this magnitude should not take place behind closed doors or be announced only after they have become accomplished facts. The people who fund public higher education deserve transparency, accountability, and a meaningful voice in determining its future.
The August 12 People’s Hearing will help create a public record by bringing together students, faculty members, staff, educational leaders, alumni, advocates, community organizations, taxpayers, and concerned Texans. It will provide an opportunity for those most affected by recent policies to speak in their own voices—and for legislators and the wider public to hear what is at stake.
Your presence matters.
A hearing filled with students, educators, parents, families, elders, alumni, and community members sends a powerful message: We pay taxes. We support these institutions. They belong to the public, and the public has a right to be heard.
Please join us on August 12. Come to listen, bear witness, offer testimony, and stand in solidarity with all those defending educational freedom, academic integrity, democratic accountability, and the right of every community to see its knowledge, history, and experiences respected within our public universities.
Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus People’s Hearing on Higher Education
Wednesday, August 12, 2026
9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.
Robert Johnson Legislative Office Building
1501 N. Congress Avenue
Austin, Texas 78701
Please share this announcement with all your networks.
We are likely to have a press conference on this day. Details forthcoming.
We are not without power. The future of public higher education in Texas is being decided now. As taxpayers, educators, students, families, and members of the public, we must be present, organized, and heard.
-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
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