Friends:
What has happened to Professor Iván Chaar López at the University of Texas at Austin is profoundly unjust—and should alarm everyone who cares about academic freedom, fairness, and the integrity of our public universities.
By every meaningful measure, Professor Chaar López earned tenure. External experts unanimously endorsed his scholarship. His department unanimously recommended him. The college voted overwhelmingly in his favor. His dean concluded that he exceeded UT’s demanding standards in scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and service. Yet an unidentified tenure committee overturned this extensive faculty-led review without providing any explanation.
This is so incredibly disrespectful of Dr. López, a leading scholar in his field.
When the evidence of merit is this overwhelming and university leaders refuse to explain their decision, it is difficult to avoid the conclusion that political ideology—not academic excellence—was at play.
Professor Chaar López studies border surveillance, race, colonialism, technology, and state power. These are precisely the difficult and consequential subjects that tenure exists to protect. Scholars must be free to ask questions that unsettle those in power. Punishing them because their research is politically inconvenient is not academic leadership. It is censorship.
This decision also disregards faculty expertise, undermines shared governance, and denies Professor Chaar López meaningful transparency and due process. It sends a chilling message across the university: even extraordinary scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and service may not protect a faculty member whose research conflicts with the ideological preferences of political or institutional leaders.
UT should reverse this decision, grant Professor Chaar López tenure, and explain publicly how such a grave miscarriage of academic judgment was allowed to occur.
This is not only about one professor. It is about whether merit, truth-seeking, and academic freedom still matter at our state’s flagship public university.
—Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
By Lily Kepner, Staff Writer, Austin American-Statesman
July 20, 2026
Iván Chaar López, a University of Texas scholar on border surveillance, in his office in Austin, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Amid concerns UT is quieting controversial fields, Chaar López fears the president violated his academic freedom in denying him tenure.Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
By all performance measures, professor Iván Chaar López was a shoo-in for tenure at the University of Texas.
Tenure, a coveted status that protects professors' jobs so they can research freely without fear of retaliation, is only considered after faculty complete about six years of research, teaching, mentoring and service to a university.
The bar to achieve tenure is set intentionally high — professors must pass a year-long review led by faculty experts, who independently assess each professor’s work.
Chaar López, who investigates how border surveillance technologies are tied to history and race, was praised by the College of Liberal Arts dean, his colleagues in UT’s American Studies department and external reviewers from universities across the nation. When he went through tenure review last year, they said he exceeded the high bar for tenure and produced foundational work in his field, according to records obtained by the Statesman.
More than 30 scholars recommended him for tenure throughout the process, pending approval by UT President Jim Davis, a presidential committee and the UT System Board of Regents.
But in February, Davis’ tenure committee — whose members are not publicly listed — unexpectedly denied Chaar López’s application. When asked for clarification, Davis and the committee declined to give Chaar López a reason or change the decision.
Because of an “up-or-out” policy at UT with tenure-track professors, Chaar López must leave UT at the end of this school year, leaving him to restart his tenure journey somewhere else. It could take several more years to get to the same place at a different school.
The tenure denial bewildered the professor and colleagues who had touted his success in the field.
Chaar López said he fears the university decided not to give him tenure because of his area of study, which may be controversial among Texas conservatives. He is a professor in American Studies, a department that is being consolidated into a new Department of Cultural and Social Analysis, and his work is critical of border enforcement, colonialism and government surveillance.
Five scholars with expertise in tenure interviewed by the American-Statesman said it is very rare and unusual for a president to deny tenure applications after near-unanimous positive assessments. UT System’s own policy and the Texas Education Code give deference to these independent assessments in tenure decisions.
UT denied a request for an interview with Davis and did not answer questions about why Chaar López was denied tenure.
The decision comes as UT grapples with its identity under new leadership and faces pressure to limit instruction of “controversial topics.”
For a president to deny tenure without a stated reason is against common practices and “opens the gate to political interference in a way that is unprecedented in the last century,” said William Tierney, a professor of higher education at the University of Southern California.
Davis is not an academic; his background is as a lawyer. He was granted tenure by the Board of Regents as part of his employment contract despite never holding a teaching position at a university.
As Davis and UT Provost William Inboden have emphasized a commitment to academic excellence and balance in the past year, they have removed top leaders over differences in vision, evaded transparency about controversial decisions and eliminated procedures that would have guaranteed Chaar López an independent review to determine whether the university violated his academic freedom.
“Iván’s case is a warning for all faculty across the university,” said Lauren Gutterman, former chair of the American Studies department. “Because it suggests that achieving excellence in your field is no longer enough to secure tenure and promotion.”
What is the tenure process?
![]()
Iván Chaar López, a University of Texas scholar on border surveillance, in his office in Austin, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Amid concerns UT is quieting controversial fields, Chaar López fears the president violated his academic freedom in denying him tenure.Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Tenure is historically tied to academic freedom, or a professor’s ability to study a subject without interference. But functionally, it’s a job protection that has incentivized talented faculty to come to U.S. universities since the early 1900s, pitched as a way for the most talented professors to freely pursue knowledge without retaliation when the answers they find are unpopular to those paying their salaries.
Texas Republicans have openly criticized tenure in recent years, framing the job protection as a way professors can stick around without having to prove their worth. They argue it makes it easier for academics to inject their beliefs into teaching, leading to liberal indoctrination.
But experts say that argument lacks an understanding of the intense tenure review process, where faculty sometimes spend more than a decade curating research and typically six years under probation. Universities only grant tenure if professors can prove their intellectual merit and expertise to scholars within the field nationwide, the professor’s own department and their college.
The American Association of University Professors, a national organization representing university employees, estimates that the percentage of university faculty holding full-time tenured positions decreased from 39% in 1987 to 24% in 2021.
Though denials of tenure happen, it is rare for them to occur at the presidential level, because typically, a chair or dean would flag missing requirements or concerns about scholarship in advance, said Willis Jones, an associate dean in education at Southern Methodist University who oversees tenure cases.
The Texas Legislature recently expanded the ways a tenured professor can be fired, and some states have banned the status entirely for new hires. Without tenure, professors are less free to pursue controversial research questions, because they can be dismissed without the same due process if those in power opposed to their findings demand punishment, said Barrett Taylor, a University of North Texas researcher and co-author of a forthcoming book on conservative attacks on tenure.
“Most people probably don’t want the powerful to decide what gets taught,” but weakening tenure makes that more likely, Taylor said.
UT System policy states faculty expertise should be given “utmost” consideration in tenure awards. Tenure candidates must demonstrate excellence in research, teaching, service and mentoring, according to the policy. All but two of 32 reviewers determined Chaar López met all those standards.
'Exceeds our demanding standards'
![]()
An award for excellence in mentoring is displayed in Iván Chaar López’s office at the University of Texas in Austin, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Amid concerns UT is quieting controversial fields, Chaar López fears the president violated his academic freedom in denying him tenure.Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Chaar López grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Fascinated by borders and how they are maintained, defined and policed, he earned his doctorate in American Culture from the University of Michigan. He’s been preparing for tenure since 2015, hoping that securing employment protection would allow him to study more ambitious questions, he said.
In 2020, the University of Texas hired him as a tenure-track assistant professor, giving him six years to prove his scholarship and commitment to UT before being formally evaluated. During his six years at UT, he published a book, won four fellowships or grants and wrote seven peer-reviewed articles or book chapters.
After the pandemic, he started working with professors across UT, helping to connect the American Studies department with other fields across the College of Liberal Arts. He brought his Border Technologies Lab, created in 2018 at Cornell University, to UT. The lab employs undergraduate and graduate students to research everything from artificial intelligence to drone technology at the border.
Last spring, he began the tenure review process, submitting his five strongest pieces of published research. Eight professors from his field at schools across the U.S. and Canada — including a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient — said he met or exceeded the bar for tenure. In September, they unanimously recommended him for approval.
After reviewing his work, teaching evaluations, a research statement and service statement, a committee of seven UT American Studies professors also recommended him for tenure unanimously that fall. Gutterman concurred. A committee in the college voted 19-2 to grant him tenure with the two dissenters voicing some concerns about the “critical severity of elements of his work,” according to the tenure evaluation from Interim Dean David Sosa.
But Sosa concluded that “even if one harbors reservations about the ultimate defensibility of some of Chaar López’s scholarly contributions, there is no denying that he is by the standards of the areas in which he works a distinguished figure,” and that his arguments are worthy of debate.
Sosa wrote in an email to the Davis’ tenure committee that he believed Chaar López “exceeds our demanding standards of scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and service.” Sosa described the professor as a leading scholar who advances “foundational debates” in multiple fields and reflects a “moving” commitment to the field.
In February, a committee overseen by Davis, whose members are not public, denied the application. When Sosa called Gutterman to tell him, she was shocked. When she and Chaar López asked Sosa for a reason, the liberal arts dean said he didn’t know why.
Can the president deny tenure?
Five tenure experts said it is rare for a president’s decision to conflict with the official recommendations of tenure reviewers, who are trained to evaluate the merit of a peer’s case.
It’s even more rare for a president to deny tenure without explaining the decision, said Michael DeCesare, senior program officer in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance at the American Association of University Professors.
Typically, if there is a problem, the president would go back to the dean or professor seeking tenure and ask for clarification or defer to other university processes to investigate the discrepancy. In an “extraordinary” case where a president does deny tenure, there would be back-and-forth discussions with the administrator and faculty experts to discuss concerns, DeCesare said.
“When no reason is given, any reason is possible, and that’s our concern,” DeCesare said.
UT’s policy states the tenure appointment “must be in the best interest” of the university — a phrase that gives administrators broad discretion.
Deepa Das Acevedo, a legal labor scholar and author of “The War on Tenure,” said that although a presidential veto is rare in tenure proceedings, it is not illegal.
“Universities, like most employers in most contexts, are entitled to make decisions about what they want to focus on and where they want to direct their resources,” she said.
Days after Chaar López received the decision, UT regents limited how professors can address controversial topics without defining what “controversial topics” means. A week before that, Davis announced that the American Studies department would be folded in with gender and ethnic studies departments into a new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.
'We’re trying to get at what is the truth'
![]()
Iván Chaar López, a University of Texas scholar on border surveillance, in his office in Austin, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Amid concerns UT is quieting controversial fields, Chaar López fears the president violated his academic freedom in denying him tenure.Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
National educational groups, including the AAUP, and colleagues privately wrote letters urging Davis to reconsider his decision.
Previously, Chaar López could have appealed the decision through the Faculty Council’s academic freedom committee, which was comprised of seven elected members. But after the UT System eliminated faculty councils in compliance with a new state law, Chaar López’s only recourse was the faculty committees appointed by Davis.
Chaar López submitted an appeal to the president’s procedural review committee, which denied his claim, and submitted final arguments to Davis. Both were denied, according to an email from Sosa.
When Chaar López received the denials, he felt every emotion. He had built a community at UT, relationships with students and colleagues. His peers had validated his work.
The rejection felt heavy and unjust, he said, as did the university’s glib denial, delivered in a short email from his college dean.
“I’ve done so much for its students, for its community, and there’s no recognition of that at all,” he said.
Chaar López is now pursuing a formal grievance arguing that Davis violated his academic freedom. His complaint will be heard by a panel of faculty appointed by Davis and UT’s chief academic officer.
Though he is not sure exactly what’s next, Chaar López is determined to stay in academia and continue his work researching how race, history and technology shape the government’s immigration enforcement at the border.
“I ask questions that maybe someone in a position of power might disagree with. … We ask these questions because we’re trying to get at what is the truth,” Chaar López said. “I did all of that work — 11 years of work — trying to achieve the security of tenure so that I can maybe ask even more difficult questions.”
July 20, 2026
![]()
Lily Kepner
Iván Chaar López, a University of Texas scholar on border surveillance, in his office in Austin, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Amid concerns UT is quieting controversial fields, Chaar López fears the president violated his academic freedom in denying him tenure.Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
By all performance measures, professor Iván Chaar López was a shoo-in for tenure at the University of Texas.
Tenure, a coveted status that protects professors' jobs so they can research freely without fear of retaliation, is only considered after faculty complete about six years of research, teaching, mentoring and service to a university.
The bar to achieve tenure is set intentionally high — professors must pass a year-long review led by faculty experts, who independently assess each professor’s work.
Chaar López, who investigates how border surveillance technologies are tied to history and race, was praised by the College of Liberal Arts dean, his colleagues in UT’s American Studies department and external reviewers from universities across the nation. When he went through tenure review last year, they said he exceeded the high bar for tenure and produced foundational work in his field, according to records obtained by the Statesman.
More than 30 scholars recommended him for tenure throughout the process, pending approval by UT President Jim Davis, a presidential committee and the UT System Board of Regents.
But in February, Davis’ tenure committee — whose members are not publicly listed — unexpectedly denied Chaar López’s application. When asked for clarification, Davis and the committee declined to give Chaar López a reason or change the decision.
Because of an “up-or-out” policy at UT with tenure-track professors, Chaar López must leave UT at the end of this school year, leaving him to restart his tenure journey somewhere else. It could take several more years to get to the same place at a different school.
The tenure denial bewildered the professor and colleagues who had touted his success in the field.
Chaar López said he fears the university decided not to give him tenure because of his area of study, which may be controversial among Texas conservatives. He is a professor in American Studies, a department that is being consolidated into a new Department of Cultural and Social Analysis, and his work is critical of border enforcement, colonialism and government surveillance.
Five scholars with expertise in tenure interviewed by the American-Statesman said it is very rare and unusual for a president to deny tenure applications after near-unanimous positive assessments. UT System’s own policy and the Texas Education Code give deference to these independent assessments in tenure decisions.
UT denied a request for an interview with Davis and did not answer questions about why Chaar López was denied tenure.
The decision comes as UT grapples with its identity under new leadership and faces pressure to limit instruction of “controversial topics.”
For a president to deny tenure without a stated reason is against common practices and “opens the gate to political interference in a way that is unprecedented in the last century,” said William Tierney, a professor of higher education at the University of Southern California.
Davis is not an academic; his background is as a lawyer. He was granted tenure by the Board of Regents as part of his employment contract despite never holding a teaching position at a university.
As Davis and UT Provost William Inboden have emphasized a commitment to academic excellence and balance in the past year, they have removed top leaders over differences in vision, evaded transparency about controversial decisions and eliminated procedures that would have guaranteed Chaar López an independent review to determine whether the university violated his academic freedom.
“Iván’s case is a warning for all faculty across the university,” said Lauren Gutterman, former chair of the American Studies department. “Because it suggests that achieving excellence in your field is no longer enough to secure tenure and promotion.”
What is the tenure process?
Iván Chaar López, a University of Texas scholar on border surveillance, in his office in Austin, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Amid concerns UT is quieting controversial fields, Chaar López fears the president violated his academic freedom in denying him tenure.Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Tenure is historically tied to academic freedom, or a professor’s ability to study a subject without interference. But functionally, it’s a job protection that has incentivized talented faculty to come to U.S. universities since the early 1900s, pitched as a way for the most talented professors to freely pursue knowledge without retaliation when the answers they find are unpopular to those paying their salaries.
Texas Republicans have openly criticized tenure in recent years, framing the job protection as a way professors can stick around without having to prove their worth. They argue it makes it easier for academics to inject their beliefs into teaching, leading to liberal indoctrination.
But experts say that argument lacks an understanding of the intense tenure review process, where faculty sometimes spend more than a decade curating research and typically six years under probation. Universities only grant tenure if professors can prove their intellectual merit and expertise to scholars within the field nationwide, the professor’s own department and their college.
The American Association of University Professors, a national organization representing university employees, estimates that the percentage of university faculty holding full-time tenured positions decreased from 39% in 1987 to 24% in 2021.
Though denials of tenure happen, it is rare for them to occur at the presidential level, because typically, a chair or dean would flag missing requirements or concerns about scholarship in advance, said Willis Jones, an associate dean in education at Southern Methodist University who oversees tenure cases.
The Texas Legislature recently expanded the ways a tenured professor can be fired, and some states have banned the status entirely for new hires. Without tenure, professors are less free to pursue controversial research questions, because they can be dismissed without the same due process if those in power opposed to their findings demand punishment, said Barrett Taylor, a University of North Texas researcher and co-author of a forthcoming book on conservative attacks on tenure.
“Most people probably don’t want the powerful to decide what gets taught,” but weakening tenure makes that more likely, Taylor said.
UT System policy states faculty expertise should be given “utmost” consideration in tenure awards. Tenure candidates must demonstrate excellence in research, teaching, service and mentoring, according to the policy. All but two of 32 reviewers determined Chaar López met all those standards.
'Exceeds our demanding standards'
An award for excellence in mentoring is displayed in Iván Chaar López’s office at the University of Texas in Austin, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Amid concerns UT is quieting controversial fields, Chaar López fears the president violated his academic freedom in denying him tenure.Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Chaar López grew up in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Fascinated by borders and how they are maintained, defined and policed, he earned his doctorate in American Culture from the University of Michigan. He’s been preparing for tenure since 2015, hoping that securing employment protection would allow him to study more ambitious questions, he said.
In 2020, the University of Texas hired him as a tenure-track assistant professor, giving him six years to prove his scholarship and commitment to UT before being formally evaluated. During his six years at UT, he published a book, won four fellowships or grants and wrote seven peer-reviewed articles or book chapters.
After the pandemic, he started working with professors across UT, helping to connect the American Studies department with other fields across the College of Liberal Arts. He brought his Border Technologies Lab, created in 2018 at Cornell University, to UT. The lab employs undergraduate and graduate students to research everything from artificial intelligence to drone technology at the border.
Last spring, he began the tenure review process, submitting his five strongest pieces of published research. Eight professors from his field at schools across the U.S. and Canada — including a MacArthur Genius Grant recipient — said he met or exceeded the bar for tenure. In September, they unanimously recommended him for approval.
After reviewing his work, teaching evaluations, a research statement and service statement, a committee of seven UT American Studies professors also recommended him for tenure unanimously that fall. Gutterman concurred. A committee in the college voted 19-2 to grant him tenure with the two dissenters voicing some concerns about the “critical severity of elements of his work,” according to the tenure evaluation from Interim Dean David Sosa.
But Sosa concluded that “even if one harbors reservations about the ultimate defensibility of some of Chaar López’s scholarly contributions, there is no denying that he is by the standards of the areas in which he works a distinguished figure,” and that his arguments are worthy of debate.
Sosa wrote in an email to the Davis’ tenure committee that he believed Chaar López “exceeds our demanding standards of scholarship, teaching, mentoring, and service.” Sosa described the professor as a leading scholar who advances “foundational debates” in multiple fields and reflects a “moving” commitment to the field.
In February, a committee overseen by Davis, whose members are not public, denied the application. When Sosa called Gutterman to tell him, she was shocked. When she and Chaar López asked Sosa for a reason, the liberal arts dean said he didn’t know why.
Can the president deny tenure?
Five tenure experts said it is rare for a president’s decision to conflict with the official recommendations of tenure reviewers, who are trained to evaluate the merit of a peer’s case.
It’s even more rare for a president to deny tenure without explaining the decision, said Michael DeCesare, senior program officer in the Department of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance at the American Association of University Professors.
Typically, if there is a problem, the president would go back to the dean or professor seeking tenure and ask for clarification or defer to other university processes to investigate the discrepancy. In an “extraordinary” case where a president does deny tenure, there would be back-and-forth discussions with the administrator and faculty experts to discuss concerns, DeCesare said.
“When no reason is given, any reason is possible, and that’s our concern,” DeCesare said.
UT’s policy states the tenure appointment “must be in the best interest” of the university — a phrase that gives administrators broad discretion.
Deepa Das Acevedo, a legal labor scholar and author of “The War on Tenure,” said that although a presidential veto is rare in tenure proceedings, it is not illegal.
“Universities, like most employers in most contexts, are entitled to make decisions about what they want to focus on and where they want to direct their resources,” she said.
Days after Chaar López received the decision, UT regents limited how professors can address controversial topics without defining what “controversial topics” means. A week before that, Davis announced that the American Studies department would be folded in with gender and ethnic studies departments into a new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.
'We’re trying to get at what is the truth'
Iván Chaar López, a University of Texas scholar on border surveillance, in his office in Austin, Wednesday, July 15, 2026. Amid concerns UT is quieting controversial fields, Chaar López fears the president violated his academic freedom in denying him tenure.Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
National educational groups, including the AAUP, and colleagues privately wrote letters urging Davis to reconsider his decision.
Previously, Chaar López could have appealed the decision through the Faculty Council’s academic freedom committee, which was comprised of seven elected members. But after the UT System eliminated faculty councils in compliance with a new state law, Chaar López’s only recourse was the faculty committees appointed by Davis.
Chaar López submitted an appeal to the president’s procedural review committee, which denied his claim, and submitted final arguments to Davis. Both were denied, according to an email from Sosa.
When Chaar López received the denials, he felt every emotion. He had built a community at UT, relationships with students and colleagues. His peers had validated his work.
The rejection felt heavy and unjust, he said, as did the university’s glib denial, delivered in a short email from his college dean.
“I’ve done so much for its students, for its community, and there’s no recognition of that at all,” he said.
Chaar López is now pursuing a formal grievance arguing that Davis violated his academic freedom. His complaint will be heard by a panel of faculty appointed by Davis and UT’s chief academic officer.
Though he is not sure exactly what’s next, Chaar López is determined to stay in academia and continue his work researching how race, history and technology shape the government’s immigration enforcement at the border.
“I ask questions that maybe someone in a position of power might disagree with. … We ask these questions because we’re trying to get at what is the truth,” Chaar López said. “I did all of that work — 11 years of work — trying to achieve the security of tenure so that I can maybe ask even more difficult questions.”
July 20, 2026
Lily Kepner
HIGHER EDUCATION REPORTER
Lily Kepner started at the American-Statesman in October 2023. She has appeared on BBC, NPR and Texas Standard to talk about her coverage, which has spanned the impact of state laws and politics on the University of Texas, pro-Palestinian protests, free speech, the anti-DEI ban, LGBTQ student belonging and more. Kepner graduated with honors from Boston University's College of Communication in 2023, where she received the college's highest awards for writing and journalism leadership and led the award-winning student newspaper as Editor-in-Chief. In her time with the American-Statesman, she contributed to reporting that won an Edward R Murrow Award for breaking news, won the School Bell Award for Outstanding Feature from Texas State Teachers Association, and Critics Choice for Best of Austin in the Austin Chronicle. Previously, she has been published in USA Today, The Boston Globe, The National Catholic Reporter and GBH. Kepner is passionate about accountability and service journalism and encourages anyone to reach out to her to tell their story or share a tip.
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