Academic Freedom in Texas Higher Education is also a Latino Struggle, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. July 9, 2026

Academic Freedom in Texas Higher Education is also a Latino Struggle

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D. 

July 9, 2026

I am grateful to see attention given to this important lawsuit challenging censorship in the Texas Tech University System. I also want to thank Lily Kepner for her tireless coverage of Texas education politics. My concern here is not with the messenger—far from it. We need more journalists willing to cover these consequential struggles with care and persistence. May her kind multiply.

My concern is that the issues named here—academic freedom, faculty governance, classroom censorship, LGBTQ+ rights, and the teaching of race, gender, and inequality—are urgent and consequential not only for Texas Tech, but for all of higher education in Texas.

That said, I want to gently but critically note an omission that matters. Latino communities, scholars, students, and organizations have been deeply and tirelessly involved in these very struggles across Texas—shoulder-to-shoulder with Black communities, LGBTQ+ communities, faculty organizations, civil rights groups, students, and other allies. These fights are not new to us. They are the same fights over curriculum, representation, Ethnic Studies, DEI, academic freedom, and the right of students to receive a truthful and complete education.

Indeed, many of us have researched, documented, testified, organized, and published on these issues for years, including the harms produced by SB 17, attacks on DEI, the chilling of race- and gender-conscious scholarship, and the broader dismantling of democratic governance in Texas higher education. Latina/o students and faculty are not peripheral to this story. 

We are central to so much of it.

That is why it is disappointing to see the article frame the issue almost exclusively through Black communities and Black professors, without also naming the Latino communities and scholars who are likewise targeted by these policies and who have been in the struggle from the beginning. In Texas, this omission is especially consequential. 

Latina/o students make up a major share of the state’s public higher education population. Many of the programs, courses, histories, and pedagogies now under threat—Mexican American Studies, Latina/o Studies, Ethnic Studies, bilingual education, immigration studies, borderlands history, and critical policy research—speak directly to our communities’ lives and futures.

This is not a call to diminish the anti-Blackness at work in these attacks. Quite the opposite. Anti-Black racism must be named clearly and confronted directly. But in Texas, anti-Blackness, anti-Latino racism, anti-immigrant politics, anti-LGBTQ+ attacks, and hostility toward gender justice are intertwined in the same authoritarian project. The struggle for academic freedom is strongest when we name all of the communities whose knowledge, histories, and presence are being targeted.

So yes, this lawsuit matters. It deserves support. The chilling of faculty speech and the restriction of what students can learn should alarm everyone who cares about democracy.

But the public narrative should also reflect the full coalition of communities that has been fighting this fight. Latino communities are not bystanders. As reflected in this very blog, we are part of the intellectual, legal, pedagogical, and political resistance to censorship in Texas higher education—and have been for a long time.

And this is not about recognition for recognition’s sake. It is about accuracy, accountability, and coalition. When the state targets race, gender, sexuality, immigration, Ethnic Studies, and DEI, it is not targeting one community at a time. It is targeting the very conditions that allow for a multiethnic/multiracial democracy to exist in public higher education.

Professors' union sues Texas Tech System over LGBTQ, race teaching restrictions

By Lily Kepner,Staff WriterUpdated July 8, 2026 1:05 p.m.

Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, authored Senate Bill 26, which would invest more than $4 million in teacher pay increases.

Jay Janner/American-Statesman

A national professors' union and its Texas chapter are suing the Texas Tech University System’s chancellor and regents for restricting professors' ability to teach about LGBTQ identity, gender and race, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in federal court.

Brandon Creighton, chancellor of the Texas Tech University System and a former Republican state senator, announced last academic year that the five universities he oversees could not teach courses that advocate for race or gender “prejudice” or mention that more than two genders exist.

In April, he canceled all academic programs “centered on” sexual orientation and said professors “generally” cannot teach courses that include LGBTQ themes.

Wednesday’s lawsuit, filed by the American Association of University Professors and its Texas chapter, alleges that the decisions violate the First and 14th amendments and censor course discussion.

“This case presents an extraordinary system of censorship in higher education, in which professors in the Texas Tech University System are prohibited from teaching the most basic scholarship, while at the same time not fully comprehending the contours of prohibitions that place them under threat of losing their employment and livelihood,” lawyers for the professors' union wrote in the filing. “To make matters worse, professors cannot reasonably make sense of what is and is not prohibited, further chilling their classroom speech.”

Creighton said in a statement that the university system is confident its policies are “lawful and compliant.”

“Our commitment to academic integrity and the First Amendment rights of our students and faculty will not be distracted by lawsuits as we continue our mission to deliver rigorous academic programs, relevant coursework, and groundbreaking research,” Creighton said.

What do the policies restrict?

Creighton, who championed legislation restricting faculty input and diversity, equity and inclusion practices at universities during his time in the Texas Legislature, has said the restrictions ensure the Texas Tech University System provides “rigorous” and valuable degrees.


There is no law restricting what can be taught in Texas higher education. In 2023, Creighton authored Senate Bill 16, which would have restricted teaching that compels students to adopt beliefs that one race or sex is superior. The bill did not pass.

A higher education reform bill he authored, Senate Bill 37, succeeded in giving regents more power over curriculum and defanging faculty governance in 2025, but it did not include specific restrictions on race and gender. Initial drafts included those limitations.


Regardless, university systems have increasingly adopted policies to restrict what professors can teach after a Texas A&M University professor was fired at Gov. Greg Abbott’s urging for teaching about gender identity.

The viral fallout ultimately resulted in the president of Texas A&M stepping down, and the A&M System restricting courses that “advocate” for gender identity or race. Before Creighton was appointed, the Texas Tech University System banned teaching that there were more than two genders, and the University of Texas System also announced an audit of courses concerning gender identity.

The professors' union lawsuit specifically targets two decisions from Creighton that go further. In one of his first acts as chancellor, Creighton banned advocacy or promotion of race or sex-based “prejudice.”

In April, when he announced the cancellation of programs that teach sexual orientation, or gender identity, Creighton instituted a “strict prohibition on (sexual orientation or gender identity) content in all core and lower-level undergraduate courses,” and on “instruction that advocates for concepts of inherent racial or sexual superiority, inherent bias, or collective guilt.” That order did not apply to teaching about historical events tied to LGBTQ and civil rights.

The legal filing states Creighton’s orders are too vague, “chilling” any speech that has to do with LGBTQ identity, gender or race. The Texas Tech System provided guidance on its restrictions, but the suit maintains that the orders suppressed professors' academic freedom.

TJ Geiger, the vice president of the Texas Tech University AAUP chapter, said that the policies have led to confusion across campus, leading to self-censorship and “inconsistent” directives to professors on what they can teach. The limits ultimately hurt students, who “are not getting a full, accurate, and complete education” if professors are censoring their teaching, he said.

“It’s just been a really tumultuous time leading to what I’ve characterized as intellectual and professional triage,” Geiger said. “Our otherwise good work and effort that would have gone into teaching and research has been directed toward trying to figure out where the lines are in terms of what we’re supposed to say or not say.”

What is the lawsuit seeking?

The 84-page court filing asks a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas to prevent Creighton’s directives from being enforced.


Antonio Ingram, senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, a legal organization focused on racial justice that is representing the professors' union, said the restrictions have prevented professors at Texas Tech University’s medical school from teaching about health disparities based on race, and left law professors unsure about how to teach about legal victories for racial equality.

A spokesperson for Creighton did not immediately respond to the claims.

“These are targeting Black communities, Black professors,” Ingram said. “We want the federal court in El Paso to declare the memorandums unconstitutional based on First Amendment violations, based on vagueness, and based on its racial discrimination.”

This is a breaking story that will be updated.


July 8, 2026|Updated July 8, 2026 1:05 p.m.

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.

PRESS RELEASE: Students to Stage Funeral for Academic Freedom at Texas Tech Regents Meeting

 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

May 4, 2026

Contact: Cameron Samuels

press@studentsengaged.org

Students to Stage Funeral for Academic Freedom

at Texas Tech Regents Meeting

LUBBOCK, TX — On Thursday, May 7 at the Board of Regents meeting, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas

(SEAT) and Raiders Against Censorship will stage a funeral at the Texas Tech University System Board of Regents meeting, marking what organizers describe as the "death by a thousand cuts" to academic freedom and higher education in Texas.

Academic freedom, long considered a cornerstone of higher education, has succumbed after what can only be described as a slow and deliberate erosion. Its decline was not sudden. There was no single moment of collapse, no dramatic final breath. Instead, it endured a death by increments — policy by policy, decision by decision — until the thing itself became unrecognizable.

"In lieu of flowers, we ask participants to bring objects representing the blessed memory of academic freedom," said James Snoddy (he/him), a SEAT member and founder of Raiders Against Censorship. "This is not symbolic exaggeration; this is a serious response to a year of decisions that threaten the integrity of our universities."

Many have pointed to leadership decisions by Chancellor Brandon Creighton as part of this decline, describing a shift toward constraint rather than curiosity. Policies affecting marginalized groups — particularly transgender students — became flashpoints, interpreted by many as signals about who belonged and who did not.

The event will feature a memorial wake, press remarks, and a staged procession across campus. Visual elements will include funeral attire and a horse-drawn carriage carrying an urn and books, photographs, and other markers of academic life.

WHEN:

• Thursday, May 7, 2026

• 8 AM - Memorial Wake

• 9 AM - Testimony at the Regents Meeting

• 11 AM - Eulogy Press Conference

• 11:30 AM - Funeral Procession

• 1 PM - "The clock strikes thirteen"

WHERE:

• System Administration Building, 1508 Knoxville Avenue, Lubbock, Texas.

WHO:

• James Snoddy (he/him), Texas Tech freshman and Raiders Against Censorship

• Tara Findley (she/her), Texas Tech junior and Democrats for Texas

• Andrew Martin (he/him), professor of art and president of AAUP-Texas Tech

• T J Geiger, AAUP-Texas Tech

• Matthew Pehl, AAUP-Texas Tech

• Sumya Paruchuri (they/them), SEAT

• Cameron Samuels (they/them), SEAT

• And more

The university and its spirit of academic freedom is survived by those who still insist on asking difficult questions — and by those who believe universities should remain places where such questions are not only allowed, but exalted. May she rest in peace.

###

About Students Engaged in Advancing Texas

SEAT is a movement of young people developing transferable skills and demonstrating youth visibility in policymaking. Advocating for a seat at the table, SEAT is normalizing the presence of students in educational policymaking – nothing about us, without us.

Policing Knowledge, Misrepresenting Scholarship: A Response to Brandon Creighton’s Latest Intervention in Texas Higher Education, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Policing Knowledge, Misrepresenting Scholarship: A Response to Brandon Creighton’s Latest Intervention in Texas Higher Education

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 16, 2026

Something troubling is happening in Texas higher education—not simply at the level of legislation, but at the level of logic.

According to a recent report in The Chronicle of Higher Education, policies— formerly advanced by former legislator Brandon Creighton who is now the President of Texas Tech University are getting operationalized systemwide. 

Specifically, they seek to prohibit faculty from teaching that a person can be “inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive,” that individuals should feel guilt for the actions of others because of their race or sex, or from acknowledging that gender identity might exist beyond a rigid binary.

Let us pause here.

Not because the issue is complicated—but because the framing is so profoundly misleading.

The premise underlying these policies is that universities are indoctrinating students into believing that individuals are inherently racist or oppressive and that professors are somehow in the business of assigning moral guilt based on race or sex.

This is a caricature. And it's offensive.

In logic, this is termed a "straw man" that resides at the center of the policy.

It bears little, if any, resemblance to what scholars in sociology, history, Ethnic Studies, gender studies, education, political science, or law actually teach. Across these fields, faculty engage students in rigorous inquiry into systems, institutions, structures of power, and historical processes—not as ideological exercises, but as empirically grounded and theoretically informed modes of analysis. 

This begs the question: what, exactly, are policymakers reacting to—actual classroom practice, or a politically constructed narrative that bears little relation to the intellectual work taking place in universities?

These frameworks, developed over decades of interdisciplinary scholarship, equip students to examine how policies are made, how categories like race and gender are socially constructed and operationalized, how law and governance distribute resources and rights, how knowledge itself is produced and legitimized, and how inequality is reproduced, resisted, and transformed over time. 

Students learn to interpret evidence, evaluate competing claims, and situate contemporary issues within longer historical arcs. In other words, the aim is not to assign blame or fix identities, but to cultivate intellectual curiousity, develop analytical capacity, promote epistemic humility, and foster a deeper understanding of the complex social worlds they inhabit.

What we teach is that systems can generate inequality even when individuals do not consciously intend it. That insight—central to modern social science—is not a moral accusation. It is an analytical observation.

Indeed, suggesting that universities teach students that they are inherently racist or oppressive misunderstands both the scholarship and the pedagogy. 

Unlike scholars of earlier eras—who often took for granted the inheritability of IQ and other deeply flawed, biologically determinist assumptions—contemporary scholarship overwhelmingly rejects essentialist claims about race or moral character. The study of racism and sexism today proceeds from a robust interdisciplinary consensus that these are historically produced, socially organized, and institutionally mediated phenomena—not fixed traits lodged within individuals. 

Indeed, the purpose of this work is to denaturalize inequality: to show how ideas once presented as “common sense” or “scientific truth” were constructed, contested, and sustained over time. That such outdated ways of knowing continue to circulate in public discourse only underscores the importance of this scholarship, not its excess.

Ironically, the policy bans the teaching of an idea that universities themselves overwhelmingly reject.

The Texas Tech memo to faculty reportedly encourages them to consult a flow chart to determine whether course content is “relevant” and “necessary.”

This is surreal.

In a research university—whose mission is the open pursuit of knowledge—faculty are now being invited to filter intellectual inquiry through an administrative decision tree designed to anticipate political scrutiny.

This is not how universities function.

Universities exist precisely because knowledge is complex, contested, evolving, and often uncomfortable. The study of race, gender, colonialism, power, and inequality has always generated debate. But debate is not a reason to suppress inquiry. It is the reason universities exist.

Reducing scholarship to bureaucratic compliance mechanisms does not protect students. It narrows the range of questions they are allowed to ask.

The broader political narrative surrounding these policies suggests that universities are “turning people gay” or confusing students about gender.

This claim is not only inaccurate—it reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the research on human development and identity.

Universities do not manufacture sexual orientation or gender identity. Scholars study them. Students learn about them. Social science, psychology, history, anthropology, and public health research have long examined the complexity of human identity, culture, and embodiment.

Teaching about something is not the same as producing it.

If that logic were sound, teaching about capitalism would make students capitalists, teaching about war would turn them into soldiers, and teaching about religion would convert them into believers. At most, education shapes how students understand the world—it does not deterministically produce who they are. 

Human development is far more complex, shaped by family, community, peer networks, media environments, and, in the case of sexuality, a growing body of research indicating that orientation is not something one is taught into being. To suggest otherwise is to confuse exposure with causation, and learning with indoctrination.

The argument collapses under the weight of its own absurdity and, in doing so, exposes the deeper agenda at work: not the protection of students, but the regulation of thought itself and with it—a coordinated legislative effort to restructure higher education governance, limit diversity and equity programs, and increased political oversight of curriculum and institutional decision-making. 

The pattern is clear.

Programs that study race, gender, colonialism, inequality, or social justice are framed as ideological threats. Meanwhile, the policies themselves are explicitly ideological interventions into what faculty are allowed to teach and research.

The irony would be amusing if the consequences were not so serious.

So here is the question that Senator Creighton and others advancing these policies should answer plainly:

What exactly do you believe universities are teaching?

Because the picture presented in these policy justifications—a professor standing at the front of a classroom declaring that students are inherently racist or oppressive—is a fabrication. There may be outliers, for sure, but these are far and few between.

What actually happens in classrooms is something far more ordinary and far more valuable: students encounter history, data, frameworks, arguments, and evidence. They wrestle with competing interpretations. They learn to analyze institutions and power. In short, they develop the intellectual tools necessary for democratic citizenship.

One more thing. Senator Creighton has suggested that universities should focus primarily on careers and salaries rather than “contested ideas.”

But higher education has never been only about job training.

Universities prepare engineers and nurses, yes. But they also educate historians, journalists, teachers, lawyers, communications specialists, and public servants. They cultivate critical thinking, ethical reasoning, and democratic literacy.

A society that insists universities avoid contested ideas is not strengthening higher education.

It is hollowing it out.

The stakes here are not abstract debates about curriculum.

They concern whether public universities in Texas will remain places where scholars can pursue knowledge without political interference—and where students can engage complex social questions without state officials deciding in advance which conclusions are permissible.

If we care about intellectual integrity, democratic inquiry, and the future of higher education in Texas, we should be able to say clearly:

Misrepresenting scholarship is not a foundation for sound policy.

And governing universities through ideological caricatures will not strengthen them.

It will only diminish them.

The Man Behind Texas Tech's Controversial

Brandon Creighton believes colleges should focus on careers and salaries—not contested ideas about race, gender and sexuality.

By Jasper Smith, December 16, 2025

In a sweeping memo sent earlier this month, the Texas Tech University system sharply limited how faculty members can teach about race and sex. The policy bans faculty from teaching that a person can be inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive; a person should “bear responsibility or guilt for actions of others of the same race or sex”; or that there are more than two sexes when discussing gender identity.

The university system encouraged faculty to consult a flow chart to help determine if their course content is both “relevant” and “necessary” to classroom instruction. Many faculty members have criticized the policy and its guidelines as vague and a violation of academic freedom.

Continue reading here.

UT’s Gender and Ethnic Studies Shake-Up: Name the Pressures. Name the Politicians. Name the Agenda. by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

UT’s Gender and Ethnic Studies Shake-Up: Name the Pressures. Name the Politicians. Name the Agenda.

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Feb. 22, 2026

Austin American-Statesman reporter Lily Kepner’s article on the University of Texas’s decision to consolidate its ethnic and gender studies departments repeatedly invokes “pressure,” “politically unpopular programs,” and unnamed “conservative politicians.” Yet it never identifies who is applying this pressure, what specific actions they have taken, or how these programs have been deemed unpopular. That omission is not incidental—it is the central issue.

The story claims UT’s decision follows “months of pressure from conservative politicians to eliminate ‘liberal’ education and ‘gender ideology.’” Which politicians? What letters, hearings, budget threats, regent directives, or formal communications substantiate this assertion? If such evidence exists, it should be documented. This is not a reference to Senate Bill 37 or its author, former Senator Brandon Creighton, now president of Texas Tech University. He is one actor. The question concerns the broader agenda the article implies but does not name.

The characterization of these departments as “politically unpopular programs” is equally unsupported. By what measure? The article reports 307 undergraduate majors across the affected departments, notes national rankings placing UT at the top in Latin American History, and references decades of student demand dating to the 1970s. Faculty describe strong interdisciplinary enrollment from engineering, pre-med, and other colleges. These are indicators of institutional vitality, not marginality.

Meanwhile, departments unrelated to race, ethnicity, or gender remain structurally intact. If this were a neutral effort to address administrative “fragmentation,” consolidation would be evenly distributed. It is not. The selective restructuring of African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latino Studies, and Women and Gender Studies warrants scrutiny the article gestures toward but does not pursue.

The piece references Governor Greg Abbott’s intervention at Texas A&M, system-level restrictions on race or "gender ideology,” course audits on gender identity, and SB 37’s restructuring of faculty governance. Yet it stops short of connecting these developments to UT’s decision in a sustained way. The result is a narrative of diffuse cultural tension rather than a clear account of political and structural mechanisms.

Those mechanisms are concrete: SB 17’s dismantling of DEI infrastructure, SB 37’s weakening of faculty governance, and sustained public criticism of race and gender scholarship by state leadership. And now there is an additional layer. 

Last week, the UT System Board of Regents adopted new guidance regarding the teaching of so-called “controversial topics,” directing institutions to ensure such material is “germane” to course objectives and framed in ways that avoid perceived ideological advocacy. While presented as a reaffirmation of academic neutrality, the policy introduces new ambiguity: Who determines what is “germane”? How is ideological advocacy defined? And what mechanisms will be used to monitor compliance?

For faculty in fields already publicly targeted, this creates policy-induced precarity. When governance structures have been weakened, DEI offices dismantled, and course content subjected to heightened scrutiny, consolidation cannot be viewed in isolation. The cumulative effect is an environment in which academic decisions are made under the shadow of legislative intervention and board-level oversight.

University administrators invoke “balance,” “efficiency,” and “fractured fields”—whatever the heck this means. If anything, the administration is actively doing the fracturing in which case this must reflect a level of psychological projection at work. Go figure.

If consolidation is driven by enrollment metrics or financial concerns, comparable data across all departments should be released. Transparency would clarify whether this is pedagogical recalibration or politically shaped reorganization.

Instead, “pressure” functions as an unnamed force—shaping outcomes without accountability. Universities evolve. Units merge. Priorities shift. But when programs centered on race, ethnicity, and gender are restructured amid weakened faculty governance, legislative hostility, and new board directives on “controversial topics,” skepticism is not ideological; it is an analytical inference from the institutional and political conditions surrounding these decisions.

The public deserves clarity. If elected officials, regents, or donors are influencing curricular structures, that influence should be reported. If this is an internal decision grounded in measurable criteria, the data should be made public.

When actors remain unnamed and evidence unstated, “pressure” becomes a placeholder for power no one is required to own. In moments like this, clarity is not optional. It is the responsibility of both institutions—and those who report on them.

After anti-liberal pressure, University of Texas to consolidate gender and ethnic studies

Affected departments include those that focus on African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American Studies, Women and Gender Studies and American Studies.

By Lily Kepner, Staff WriterFeb 12, 2026 | Austin American-Statesman

A demonstrator holds up a sign at the base of the UT Tower during a protest at the University of
Texas at Austin on Monday, October. 13, 2025. About 150 people gathered to protest Trump's
compact and potential cuts to ethnic and gender studies programs in UT's College of Liberal Arts.
Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman

The University of Texas’s College of Liberal Arts will consolidate its long-standing ethnic and gender studies programs into one new department.

The university will immediately begin the process of creating the new Department for Social and Cultural Analysis Studies after months of pressure from conservative politicians to eliminate “liberal” education and “gender ideology” from the state’s flagship. There is no target date for the change to go fully into effect.

UT’s decision follows Texas A&M University move to close its Women and Gender Studies Department earlier this year. In a 9 a.m. meeting with department chairs Thursday, Interim Dean David Sosa said curriculum and degree programs in the departments are being reviewed.


The future of the centers and programs within the existing departments is not yet clear, two faculty in the meeting confirmed. It is also unclear if layoffs will eventually accompany the consolidations, but Sosa did not announce any immediate firings, two faculty said.

The college launched a committee last fall to explore the consolidation of overly “fractured” departments, prompting student protests to protect the programs.

Affected departments include those that focus on African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latino Studies, Women and Gender Studies and American Studies, which have a combined 307 undergraduate majors, according to UT data.

The Asian Studies department, which was not included in Thursday’s meeting, has 185 majors. Middle Eastern Studies, also not included in the call, has 80. Department chairs from Germanic Studies, Slavic and Eurasian Studies, French and Italian will be combined into a new department of European and Eurasian Studies. The departments teach foreign languages — a course requirement for COLA graduates.

Having an official designation as a UT department matters — it allows programs to receive funding for events, faculty and a greater voice in tenure and promotion decisions. Consolidating the programs effectively eliminates any institutional support for the politically unpopular programs, and further curtails faculty input in university decisions.

“There can be no reason for this decision other than an authoritarian takeover of Texas’ flagship university,” Lauren Gutterman, associate professor of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, said. “If this was about too much fragmentation or small majors, then why are departments like Religious Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and Classics unaffected?”

UT Spokesperson Mike Rosen declined to comment by press time. Two hours after the meeting, UT President Jim Davis announced the changes in an email to campus. He confirmed that as the university reviews what majors, minors and certificates the new departments will offer, all students currently in the programs will be allowed to continue.

Davis said he asked the College of Liberal Arts to analyze what fields make sense to stand alone or come together based on student-to-faculty ratio, program size, student demand and resources. The consolidation doesn’t mean the subjects aren’t “worthy” of research and teaching, but allows them to be “researched and taught in the broader context of other fields, classes, disciplines, and departments,” he wrote.

“These two new departments reflect our ongoing commitment to academic excellence and our responsibility to ensure that every student at UT Austin has access to a balanced and challenging educational experience,” Davis said.

Sydney Jael Wilson, a women and gender studies graduate student, speaks at a protest at the University of Texas at Austin on Monday, October. 13, 2025. About 150 people gathered to protest Trump's compact and potential cuts to ethnic and gender studies programs in UT's College of Liberal Arts. Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman

Women and Gender Studies officially became a department at UT in 2023, but gender and ethnic studies classes have been taught at the university for decades. The centers that house the faculty and classes started in the 1970s and 1980s after students pushed for courses that better reflected their personal backgrounds.

Faculty say the decision is misguided and will gut departments that have brought UT prestige for decades. U.S. News and World Reports listed UT as the top program in the country for graduate studies in Latin American History. College Factual, an online data-driven college ranking site, listed UT as the top school in Texas to get an undergraduate degree in ethnic studies.

“We no longer seem to be a place where we value knowledge for the sake of knowledge,” Alison Kafer, director of LGBTQ studies in the women’s and gender studies department, said in an interview earlier this month. “If we close this department, we are closing it for political reasons, because our numbers are great.”

What does consolidation mean?

The university will begin preparing for the new departments immediately, though they will not officially consolidate until September, faculty said. Curriculum and degree programs are still being reviewed.

A new UT policy revised this September requires the school’s president to direct an “efficient in-depth and judicious review process” before deciding to abandon or reduce academic programs and positions. The president is not bound by the recommendation of the provost or a committee, according to the policy. The policy strongly recommends the preservation of existing degree programs until all current students can complete them.

A previous policy required UT’s president to consult with Faculty Council leadership before eliminating any academic program or position. UT System ended faculty senates and councils to comply with Senate Bill 37 this September.

Why is this happening?

While no law restricts what can be taught at public universities, conservative politicians have put pressure on universities to eliminate programs deemed too liberal.

Political pressure intensified last fall when Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that Texas A&M University fire a children’s literature professor who taught about gender identity in one of her courses. Since then, university systems across the state have scrutinized programs deemed overly political.

In January, Texas A&M University closed its Women and Gender Studies department. Regents also approved a new policy that bans courses that “advocate” for race or gender ideology without prior approval. Texas Tech University System also banned such courses and issued a directive to only teach that there are two genders.

Both policies have been criticized by civil rights groups who equate the measures to censorship, stifling academic freedom. Others insist academic freedom has limits, and the fields have gone too far.

The UT System confirmed last fall that it would audit classes for mentions of gender identity. Officials have since remained quiet on how the system will handle increasing pressure to police instruction related to gender and sexuality. UT Regents will meet next week at a planned quarterly meeting.

At the flagship, Provost William Inboden has openly critiqued education related to race and gender as fields of study “often accompanied by partisan activism.” He has said the fields “must be studied,” but suggested the studying leaves students with an “imbalanced view of the United States.”

UT President Jim Davis, who is not an academic, said in a university address last year that UT would look to broaden overly “fractured” fields and bring “balance” to curriculum.

But all the cut programs are known for being interdisciplinary and skills-based, attracting students across the university from engineering to pre-medicine, faculty said. Faculty in the departments each have different specialties, allowing for innovative and collaborative research.

UT’s African and African Diaspora Studies became a department in 2010. It offers a major, minor, certificate, graduate and PhD programs. American Studies, which became a department in 1998, focuses on cultural, intellectual and social life in the United States. Mexican American and Latina/o Studies became a department in 2014.

“Gender and ethnic studies have transformed the study of the humanities and social sciences, and now they are what they are,” said Lisa Moore, UT’s Chair of Women and Gender Studies, in an interview before the consolidation announcement. “We can’t unknow what we know… It’s just not the case that we can believe that only a small slice of human beings are responsible for everything that’s good about the world.”

The cuts come as UT expands its academic offerings in other humanities fields.

UT offers more than 170 fields of undergraduate study and 230 graduate programs. The university has added about a dozen more in the past five years. The School of Civic Leadership just announced a new donor-funded program in Western Civilization and Jewish Studies. The school plans to open two more majors focused on increasing civic education.

Meanwhile, UT is also exploring consolidation in the School of Information and College of Natural Sciences. UT System regents will vote next week on UT's plans to establish a new School of Computing within the College of Natural Sciences. The organizational change would turn the School of Information into a Department of Information. The new school would also hold the Department of Computer Science and Department of Statistics and Data Sciences, and offer the same degrees, according to the agenda released Thursday afternoon.

Faculty insist the consolidated fields at UT are being targeted and defunded for political reasons, not because of waning student interest, funding restrictions or the value of the scholarship. They fear it will hurt the future reputation of the university and students' freedom to learn.

“The changes that are happening are going to, and already have created damage that will last for, I don’t know, decades,” Moore said. “I’ve never seen the forces that want to break down higher education (be) so successful as now.”

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Stamped “DO NOT READ”: When a University like Texas Tech Tells Its Students What Not to Learn, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Stamped “DO NOT READ”: When a University like Texas Tech Tells Its Students What Not to Learn

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

February 11, 2026

Three weeks into the spring semester at Texas Tech University, students are opening syllabi stamped “DO NOT READ.” Assigned textbooks are withdrawn days after being listed. Required courses are canceled. Some readings are labeled “censored.” According to reporting by Jessica Priest with theTexas Tribune, this disruption follows a December 1, 2025 memo from new system chancellor Brandon Creighton restricting how race, gender, and sexuality may be discussed in classrooms. 

Faculty were instructed not to “advocate or promote” certain ideas, to recognize only two sexes, and to submit course materials for administrative review, with final authority resting in a governor-appointed board of regents. Failure to comply could result in disciplinary action.

The most consequential feature of this directive is less the fact of a single canceled class, but the vagueness of the policy. Faculty sought clarification and were told they would have to rely on their “professional judgment,” even as the threat of discipline loomed. When rules are unclear but penalties are real, institutions shift toward self-censorship. 

Administrators do not need to issue outright bans; a quiet warning—“If I were you, I wouldn’t teach this”—is enough. Within days, upper-level psychology courses were canceled, an honors class was withdrawn because topics of race and gender were woven throughout, and professors began stripping syllabi of readings they assumed regents might reject. Students nearing graduation were rerouted into less relevant coursework.

Let’s be clear about what this is. This is censorship, plain and simple. It does not matter whether it arrives through a formal prohibition or through administrative ambiguity that chills speech in advance. When readings must be routed through political appointees for approval, when faculty are warned away from certain topics, when students find whole areas of inquiry quietly disappearing, the effect is the same. Knowledge is being narrowed by executive directive rather than shaped through scholarly debate.

These developments do not exist in isolation. They follow the passage of Senate Bill 37, authored by Brandon Creighton during the 89th Texas Legislative Session before he became chancellor. That law expanded regental authority over curriculum and required academic programs to justify their workforce value. Now, as chancellor, Creighton is in a position to interpret and operationalize the very statute he authored. 

The December memo goes beyond the statutory language itself, reflecting his policy preferences and consolidating executive influence over curriculum. When the author of a law later assumes executive authority to interpret and implement it in ways that exceed its text, the line between legislation and administrative expansion blurs. That is not neutral compliance with state law; it is the extension of personal policy vision through institutional power.

Chancellor Creighton has framed these changes as ensuring “clarity, accountability and alignment” and emphasized the importance of delivering “degrees of value” tied to workforce demand. But reducing higher education to labor-market utility narrows its public mission. 

Texas Tech has housed a women and gender studies program since 1981. History, gender studies, immigration studies, and related fields are not ideological luxuries; they cultivate historical understanding, analytical reasoning, and democratic literacy. When a student asks the chancellor whether he should transfer because his field of study is implicitly devalued, that is not partisan drama. It is institutional destabilization.

Public universities were not designed to shield students from complexity. They exist to deepen inquiry, expand knowledge, and prepare graduates for democratic participation. When syllabi must flag knowledge as forbidden and professors must second-guess whether discussion is permissible, the university shifts from a space of intellectual exploration to one of administrative compliance. 

The real question facing Texas Tech is not whether it will produce degrees of value, but whether it will preserve the conditions that make higher education valuable in the first place.

Texas Tech struggles with new rules that changed what students learn about race, gender, sexuality
The system’s chancellor said he meant to instill clarity and accountability, but three weeks into the spring semester, some instructors say the standards are vague and have led to censorship.

Jessica Priest | Feb. 4, 2026, 5:00 a.m. Central | Texas tribune

When Henry Carter opened the syllabus for a spring class at Texas Tech University, he found “DO NOT READ” stamped next to page numbers in the middle of a required text. Another professor assigned a new textbook, then days later told students not to buy it. The syllabus for a third class labeled some readings as “censored.”

This is Carter’s fourth semester at Texas Tech but the first under restrictions set by the system’s new chancellor, Brandon Creighton, limiting how race, gender and sexuality can be discussed in classrooms.

Twelve days after starting as chancellor, Creighton issued a Dec. 1 memo directing faculty across the system’s five universities to refrain from advocating or promoting a belief that individuals are inherently racist or sexist by virtue of their identity, or that meritocracy or a strong work ethic are constructs of oppression. The memo also instructed faculty to recognize only two sexes, male and female, and to disclose course content related to race, gender identity or sexual orientation for review.

Creighton warned that failure to comply could result in “disciplinary action.”

When faculty sought clarification, administrators said they could offer little guidance, according to two internal emails reviewed by The Texas Tribune. One recounted unsuccessful attempts to get more information from the system. “Unfortunately, we only have the information provided in the memo,” said an email from an associate dean who suggested faculty will have to rely on their “professional judgment” in interpreting the restrictions.

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The second email said the university system had not provided information on what constitutes prohibited topics such as gender identity and sexual orientation. If a student asks about such “implicated content,” faculty were told they could provide answers one-on-one, “just not in class.”

The uncertainty had immediate consequences.

Two upper-level psychological sciences courses, Ethnic Minority Psychology and Close Relationships, with a combined enrollment of 139 students, were canceled within days of the memo’s release, according to another internal email reviewed by the Tribune.

“When they say faculty aren’t allowed to advocate for something, what we read that as is, they aren’t allowed to mention it,” said one academic adviser, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliatory discipline.

The adviser said some of the students affected by the cancellations were set to graduate in May.

“We were able to find solutions to get them enrolled in something else, but the classes they got into are not as relevant to what they’re hoping to do post-graduation,” the adviser said.

Texas Tech officials declined to discuss how many courses have been changed or canceled under the memo’s restrictions, saying the review process is still underway.

In a statement to the Tribune, Creighton said his memo was designed to ensure “clarity, accountability and alignment” across the system and that he has “full confidence in our campus leaders — presidents, provosts and deans — to carry out this directive appropriately and consistently,” with oversight from the board of regents.


Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton speaks at a Turning Point USA event in Lubbock on Oct. 7, 2025. Trace Thomas for The Texas Tribune


For the spring semester that began Jan. 14, faculty were directed to submit potentially affected course content for review by department and campus administrators. If administrators recommend that flagged material remain in the course, those recommendations are forwarded to the system’s nine regents, appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, who have final authority.

Unfortunately for instructors as well as students like Carter, the regents are not scheduled to meet until late February.
Consequences in the classroom

Carter is a history major with a minor in women’s and gender studies. He said he chose his courseload because the classes were required for his degree, leaving him frustrated over the series of late changes.

Removing a planned textbook left his feminist theory course relying on PDFs and more fiction-based works. The class also doesn’t have in-depth discussions of sexuality or transgender topics like he thought it would.

Carter said he feels parts of his education are missing.

“A lot of students sign up for these classes because this is what they want to learn and what they want to know, and now they’re unable to do that,” he said.

In the memo, Creighton defined advocacy or promotion as presenting certain beliefs as required or correct and pressuring students to affirm them, rather than analyzing or critiquing them as one viewpoint among others. But the memo did not specify how faculty or administrators should distinguish between the two concepts.

The Tribune spoke with more than a dozen faculty members over the past eight weeks who said they were uncertain where the lines were and worried about crossing them.

“I can find very few examples of any faculty member — and I’m in touch with many of them — who have, like, in writing an administrator saying, ‘You cannot teach this,’” a humanities professor said. “But I’ve encountered many examples of administrators saying, ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t teach this, because that might cause a problem.’”

The professor, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, responded by removing a book about historical trans experiences from a required reading list, assuming regents would not approve the book.

In a process created after the memo’s release, faculty on Dec. 19 received a link to an online submission form — derided by some professors as a “censorship portal” — to disclose instructional materials for review. That was after fall grades were due and instructors had gone off duty. Several said they felt pressured to work over the holiday to comply.

Will Crescioni’s honors-level psychology course was canceled two days before the semester began. Crescioni, a lecturer, selected a submission form option to have the entire course reviewed because topics of race, sex and gender were woven throughout the class. Under the process outlined in Creighton’s memo, only material required for professional licensure and patient care could remain without review, and the lecturer said the course did not meet that standard.

In late December, the department chair responded by requesting specific content to review, according to emails reviewed by the Tribune. In a follow-up exchange in January, the chair asked Crescioni whether he was willing to postpone “implicated content” while awaiting approval. Crescioni replied that doing so would not be “feasible or ethical,” so the chair canceled the course without forwarding the matter to the dean, provost or board of regents.

“I think our most important job as college educators is to teach people to be comfortable with uncertainty and to confront ideas that are challenging or uncomfortable,” Crescioni said. “If we’re not allowed to do that, if we’re muzzled in that way, then we can’t actually give our students a full education.”

The course, required for psychology majors, also fulfills a core curriculum requirement and was fully enrolled with 25 students.
Listing course work as “censored”

Matthew Pehl, a history professor, also filled out the submission form. His class was allowed to proceed after he signed a statement agreeing not to teach certain content unless approved by the board of regents.

Pehl disclosed two readings for review. One, assigned in a graduate history course, examines wage labor in 19th-century Baltimore. Pehl said he uses the book to teach historical methodology rather than ideology, showing students how scholars can work with limited primary evidence. He said the reading could violate restrictions because it compares enslaved and free workers, as well as men and women.

The second reading, assigned in an upper-level undergraduate immigration history course, focuses on immigrant women working in California canneries in the early 20th century.

Rather than quietly removing the material while awaiting the board of regents, Pehl labeled the readings as “censored” in the syllabi and emailed students explaining why the books could not be taught.

“I wanted the paper showing that I’ve been censored,” he said. “And I wanted students to understand this is happening.”

Carter is a student in Pehl’s immigration history class.

Zoe Wittekiend, a sophomore history and political science major and student senator, said professors are increasingly using disclaimer-style language when discussing topics that could be seen as controversial. In a class discussion about the relationship between health insurance and health outcomes, she said, a professor paused to stress that the idea being presented was “one viewpoint” and repeatedly urged students to consider alternate viewpoints.

Wittekiend said she is working on a student government resolution to raise awareness of the restrictions and formally oppose them. She said she has collected 35 responses so far to a short survey asking whether students were aware of the review process and whether they believed it would have a positive or negative impact. Most respondents, she said, viewed the changes negatively.

She said she was especially alarmed by the memo’s description of the policy as a “first step.”

“If this is the first step,” Wittekiend said, “how much further are you going to go in step two?”
From the Capitol to campus

Texas Tech University System’s restrictions took shape amid intensifying political scrutiny over classroom instruction across Texas.

During the spring and summer, professors traveled to Austin to oppose Senate Bill 37, one of Creighton’s final pieces of legislation after nearly two decades as a Republican in the Texas Senate and House.

The law expands regents’ authority over curriculum and requires academic programs to justify their value in preparing students to join the workforce.

The instructors argued the measure would weaken academic freedom and faculty governance. Republicans countered that universities had drifted from their core mission and should prioritize workforce preparation over ideological instruction.

SB 37 passed along party lines. Earlier versions of Creighton’s bill included language barring general education courses from “advocating or promoting the idea that any race, sex, ethnicity or religion is inherently superior to another,” but the language was removed during last-minute negotiations.

Within days of the law taking effect in September, a student’s recording of her professor teaching about gender identity at Texas A&M University went viral on social media, turning an abstract debate into a public test case.

The professor was fired, the university’s president resigned, and campuses across Texas began reviewing their course offerings.

That same month, Angelo State University, part of the Texas Tech University System, was the first to impose classroom restrictions. Before any systemwide directive was issued, faculty were told not to discuss transgender or nonbinary identities in the classroom, a move administrators said was meant to prevent a controversy like the one at Texas A&M.

Days later, then-Chancellor Tedd Mitchell issued a memo telling Texas Tech System faculty to comply with presidential and gubernatorial executive orders and a state law recognizing only male and female sexes. Faculty said the guidance was confusing because the orders and the law did not directly apply to classroom instruction.

Creighton, who left the Texas Senate to replace Mitchell in mid-November, said the restrictions listed in his Dec. 1 memo were to take effect immediately, with no formal faculty input, public vote or appeals process laid out.

That approach differed from the Texas A&M University System, where leaders initially focused on making sure instruction outlined in professors’ syllabi matched course descriptions. After a public meeting with comments from faculty and community members, the board of regents approved a policy prohibiting professors from advocating for race and gender ideologies or discussing topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity. The policy included a limited appeals process for non-core and graduate courses deemed to have a necessary educational purpose.

In previous statements, Creighton said public universities have an obligation to comply with state law and should focus on providing what he has described as “degrees of value,” rather than ideological or political debates.

Creighton reiterated that message in a January interview with NBC 5 / Lone Star Politics. Asked whether it was fair to say Texas Tech was “probably not the place to go” for students interested in gender studies, Creighton said undergraduate students would not find that kind of instruction in Texas Tech’s curriculum. He said Texas Tech instead focuses on providing a “degree of value,” one that allows students to fill high-demand jobs with strong pay. When asked whether he considered gender studies a degree of value, Creighton said he had not seen data supporting that conclusion.

Texas Tech has had a women’s and gender studies program since 1981. The interdisciplinary program offers an undergraduate minor and a graduate certificate.

In later interviews, Creighton has said he was referring specifically to stand-alone undergraduate majors in women’s and gender studies.
“Should I drop out?”

For some students, Creighton’s comments felt like a dismissal of the degrees they had already invested time and money to pursue.

“I’m dedicating my life to learning this material and teaching it,” said a graduate student whose literature course was converted to independent study shortly before the semester began.

An email reviewed by the Tribune shows administrators approved the change, allowing the course to proceed largely as planned outside of the formal course content review process.

But the student, who is in the English department and requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the workaround felt temporary and worried similar options would not exist when teaching undergraduate courses next semester.

As a part-time instructor, the student said the policy has raised questions about whether to limit student research topics in advance; how to handle classroom discussions involving race, gender or sexuality; and how much feedback instructors can safely provide on that work.

The student described the degree as professional training and an opportunity to perform socially and intellectually valuable work.

“I think he’s talking about business degrees, STEM degrees, money-making degrees — degrees that are of value to the university,” the student said. “Just because Chancellor Creighton doesn’t care about my degree does not make it any more or less valuable than anybody else’s.”

Carter, who is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, said he chose Texas Tech because his parents met there.

“I like to say I was indoctrinated from a very young age to attend Texas Tech,” he said.

Carter, who is cisgender and white, said he is minoring in women’s and gender studies because he believes it will be relevant to his planned career in public labor policy.

He said if granted the chance to speak directly with the chancellor, he knew what he’d ask Creighton.

“I would like to look him in the eye and be like, ‘Should I drop out and change universities? Is that your opinion?’”

Student Henry Carter walks down the steps outside the library on the Texas Tech campus

in Lubbock on Jan. 29, 2025. Jacob Lujan for The Texas Tribune


The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University System, Texas Tech University and Texas Tech University System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.