UT is becoming the face of Texas’ higher education failures. That must change. The Daily Texan Editorial Board October 11, 2024

Friends,

I want to call attention to this important Daily Texan editorial, “UT is becoming the face of Texas’ higher education failures. That must change.” Though published in 2024, it reads today less like a warning than a record of a crisis already unfolding at The University of Texas at Austin.

The student editorial board rightly centered faculty concerns over academic freedom, tenure, shared governance, DEI, and the chilling effects of state legislation like SB 17 and SB 18. Their point was simple and powerful: a university cannot claim excellence while ignoring the conditions under which faculty teach, research, mentor, and serve. Faculty well-being is not a private employment matter. It is fundamental to the academic mission of the university.

In this context, former President Jay Hartzell’s stated goal of attracting “more elite faculty and students” raises an uncomfortable question: if this is not an indictment of, or even an insult to, the faculty and students already here, what exactly does it mean? UT Austin is already home to extraordinary faculty, staff, and students.

The crisis is not that they are insufficiently elite; it is that university and state leaders are undermining the very conditions that brought them here and would keep them here: academic freedom—the freedom to teach and the freedom to learn; tenure rights and protections; shared governance; the intellectual diversity that Ethnic and Women and Gender Studies brings; and respect for the communities that make Texas what it is.

Since then, these concerns have only deepened. UT Austin has witnessed layoffs, program consolidations, diminished shared governance, and an increasingly constrained environment for teaching and research on race, gender, inequality, and democracy itself. These are not isolated administrative decisions. They are part of a broader political project to narrow what can be studied, taught, debated, and imagined in public higher education.

At times, it feels like a slow-moving train headed toward disaster, or toward some dystopian vision that refuses to see the very diversity before our eyes, while authoritarian forms of censorship become increasingly normalized.

The Daily Texan editorial board understood what many leaders still refuse to acknowledge: students lose when faculty are silenced, intimidated, or driven away. Texas loses when its flagship university becomes a place where scholars must look over their shoulders before doing the work that public universities exist to do.

UT Austin should be a beacon of intellectual courage, democratic inquiry, and public purpose. Instead, it is being made into a cautionary tale. That must change.

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

UT is becoming the face of Texas’ higher education failures. That must change.

by The Daily Texan Editorial Board

October 11, 2024




The recent publication of a survey of Texas faculty is as clear-cut as it is concerning.

According to a Sept. 5 American Association of University Professors (AAUP) survey, Texas faculty are dissatisfied with the conditions and direction of higher education in Texas. 61% of those surveyed would not recommend Texas for a faculty position to out-of-state colleagues, and 26.3% plan to interview elsewhere next year. Top concerns for faculty include the state’s political climate, academic freedom, salary, and diversity, equity and inclusion issues.

As one of Texas’ flagship institutions and a top 10 public university, UT represents the Texas education system internationally. UT can’t afford to neglect its faculty without risking long-term damage to its reputation and academic standing. At the time of publication, UT did not respond to a request for comment.

In his Sept. 18 State of the University Address, President Jay Hartzell said he, the provost and the deans will be working on “how, across the entire academic enterprise, we attract more elite faculty and students.”

Faculty is essential to the success of any university. But as it stands, we are failing ours. If UT wants to recruit and retain top-tier faculty, UT must prioritize their satisfaction and address key issues impacting their success. UT has a responsibility to protect academic freedom, and this begins with protecting faculty well-being.

According to the AAUP survey, the failure to address faculty concerns may result in a decreased retention of faculty, loss of academic talent and damage to the quality of higher education.

“These findings serve as a wake-up call for policymakers, administrators, employers, and other concerned citizens, emphasizing the urgent need to address the concerns raised by faculty members,” the survey said.

Intellectual debate and dialogue allow students and faculty to build upon each other’s independent analysis and critical thinking. State legislation constantly challenges the boundaries of academic freedom. Increasing limitations on academic freedom can have hefty implications not just on our education but on our political structure.

“(Faculty) are worried that people outside the University are going to be telling us what we can and can’t teach, what we have to say and what we can’t say in the classroom,” said Daniel Brinks, a professor in the School of Law and chair of the government department. “That will be a problem for students’ ability to learn, faculty’s ability to teach and do research, and the University’s ability to be an authentic academic institution.”

Senate Bill 17 has had lasting impacts on faculty perceptions of academic freedom. The University’s over-compliance with SB 17, including firing certain staff members without justification, raises concerns about UT’s commitment to faculty well-being amid the enactment of legislative changes.

“There’s a chilling effect … with Senate Bill 17, which banned DEI programs and practices, but it also put in there some pretty severe penalties,” said Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of AAUP. “If you are a faculty member perceived to be giving a training on diversity, equity and inclusion, you can face disciplinary action, including being terminated or dismissed.”

Additionally, SB 18 was intended to ban tenure at Texas public universities. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick proposed the bill because he felt professors at UT use the stability their tenure provides to “poison the minds of our next generation,” as he wrote in a Feb. 18, 2022 statement.

“These professors claim ‘academic freedom’ and hide behind their tenure to continue blatantly advancing their agenda of societal division,” Patrick wrote in a statement released April 20, 2023.

The bill was modified to keep tenured professors — with caveats. However, they can still be let go at the University’s discretion.

SB 18 may disproportionately impact untenured faculty who speak publicly on identity-related issues. The bill instills fear, making professors weary that a progressive curriculum would get them fired. If UT wants professors to continue to foster discourse in their classrooms, they must actively seek to protect tenure and ensure the stability of faculty.

“(AAUP) felt that SB 18 would potentially erode the protections of tenure … the whole reason there’s tenure is to protect academic freedom,” said Andrea Gore, a professor in the College of Pharmacy and Vice President of UT Austin’s chapter of AAUP. “If we didn’t have something that told us our jobs are going to be secure if we tackle difficult topics, we might not tackle those topics, and that would be a huge disservice to the students of the state of Texas.”

Forums exist for faculty to air their grievances, including the Faculty Council, but rarely does faculty input result in actual change. For example, the Council released a July 12 report criticizing UT’s handling of pro-Palestian demonstrations, and the council openly condemned President Hartzell’s mass layoffs following SB 17, which they said were made “without consultation of Faculty Council Leadership or other faculty leaders, in violation of shared governance practices, and without due process.”

In neither case did UT change or reverse its course of action despite callouts from faculty. If faculty cannot make change at UT, they may look for employment somewhere they can.

“Faculty Council, to me, is mostly a propaganda machine … it gives a veneer of a democratically-run institution,” said Stuart Reichler, an associate professor of practice in the College of Natural Sciences. “The reality is that the President and the other top administrators at the University decide what does and doesn’t happen.”

UT does have a requirement to adjust its practices according to the Texas legislature, but it also has a responsibility to recognize and act on the pleas of those it employs. If we can’t provide the basic protections our faculty deserves, how can we expect to attract and retain faculty members who contribute so to the prestige of UT Austin?

The University will soon become the face of Texas’ higher education failures unless it starts truly listening to its faculty.

The editorial board is composed of associate editors Tenley Jackson, Tanya Narwekar, Ava Saunders and Anjali Shenoy and editor-in-chief McKenzie Henningsen.

The Theology of Power Behind the Anti-DEI Movement: What Katherine Stewart, Nancy MacLean, and Jane Mayer Help Us See, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Theology of Power Behind the Anti-DEI Movement:
What Katherine Stewart, Nancy MacLean, and Jane Mayer Help Us See          

by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

June 10, 2026

Today's anti-DEI movement does not merely invoke the language of neutrality; it weaponizes it. Its appeals to “colorblind equality,” “individual responsibility,” “viewpoint diversity,” and “freedom from coercion” provide moral cover for a coordinated effort to dismantle the institutional commitments that make multiracial and multiethnic democracy possible.

A Manhattan Institute (2023) policy brief by Christopher Rufo, Ilya Shapiro, and Matt Beienburg makes this clear. The document calls for state legislatures to abolish DEI offices, end mandatory diversity training, prohibit diversity statements, and eliminate identity-conscious policies in public universities. It even supplies model legislative language for states to adopt. In other words, it does not merely criticize DEI. It operationalizes a political project.

What would Katherine Stewart, Nancy MacLean, and Jane Mayer help us see in this document and in the broader movement from which it emerges? At the risk of oversimplifying the work of these formidable researchers and thinkers—or failing to fully acknowledge the many conceptual overlaps among them—I offer the following reading. Each illuminates a different dimension of the same political project: Stewart helps us understand the religious-nationalist drive for power; MacLean reveals the anti-democratic political economy beneath it; and Mayer follows the money and institutional networks that make such ideas actionable.

Stewart, author of The Power Worshippers and Money, Lies, and God, would
likely urge us not to mistake this for a simple “culture war.” Christian nationalism, in her analysis, is not merely about religious belief. Nor is it reducible to debates over prayer, abortion, sexuality, or school curricula. It is a political movement seeking power over the institutions of democracy. Its aim is not pluralism, but control. From this perspective, attacks on DEI, Ethnic Studies, gender studies, and public education are not side issues. They are part of a larger attempt to define whose knowledge counts, whose histories matter, and whose presence in public institutions is legitimate.

Nancy MacLean, author of Democracy in Chains, would likely locate this effort within a longer history of anti-democratic political economy. Her work shows how radical-right, neoliberal thinkers and donors have sought to constrain majority rule, weaken public institutions, privatize public goods, and insulate concentrated wealth from democratic accountability. Seen through MacLean’s lens, anti-DEI legislation is not only a cultural backlash. It is also a governance strategy. It

narrows what public universities can do, what faculty can say, what students can learn, and what communities can demand of taxpayer-supported institutions.

Jane Mayer, author of Dark Money, would likely follow the money. She would ask: Who funds the think tanks, advocacy organizations, litigation networks, media campaigns, and policy shops that produce these “model bills”? Who benefits when public institutions are weakened? Who gains when democracy is recast as “coercion,” equity as “orthodoxy,” and civil rights as “preference”? 

Mayer’s work helps us see that ideas rarely move on their own. They are carried, amplified, and institutionalized through networks of wealth, influence, litigation, media, and policy advocacy. In higher education, this influence can become especially consequential when donor support comes with expectations—whether explicit or implicit—that shape curricula, research priorities, faculty appointments, or public-facing programs. When private wealth gains this kind of leverage over academic life, it does more than fund ideas; it helps determine which ideas become legitimate, visible, and powerful. The result is a serious threat to academic freedom, shared governance, and the integrity of universities as public-serving institutions.

Together, these three writers help us understand that the attack on DEI is not simply about administrative offices or training sessions. It is about the future of democracy itself.

John Oliver’s recent and timely Last Week Tonight segment on New College of Florida gives us a concrete glimpse of what this project looks like when theory becomes governance. New College was not merely criticized as “woke”; it was politically captured and remade through state power. 

Board appointments, administrative upheaval, the elimination of gender studies, numerous faculty departures, escalating costs, and an aggressive campaign to rebrand the institution all became part of a larger effort to transform a distinctive honors public liberal arts college into a showcase for ideological control. Put plainly, New College was not simply reformed; it was targeted. Its transformation should be understood as an intentional and orchestrated attack—one that other states, especially those already moving in this direction, should heed as a warning.

Oliver’s satire makes the story accessible, but the implications are grave: New College reveals how appeals to freedom, neutrality, and anti-indoctrination can become instruments for narrowing intellectual life and subordinating public education to political spectacle.

Link to John Oliver's show on New College

What happened at New College of Florida should therefore be read not as an isolated Florida story, but as a warning about a broader national strategy—one that has already taken legislative form in Texas through SB 17 and related efforts to discipline public higher education.

This is especially clear in higher education. Public universities are among the few institutions where young people can still encounter histories, literatures, theories, and communities that challenge inherited hierarchies. They are places where students learn that inequality is not natural, that democracy is unfinished, and that knowledge can serve justice. This is precisely why they have become targets.

The anti-DEI movement tells us that it seeks neutrality. But there is nothing neutral or apolitical about banning the vocabulary of race, gender, sexuality, colonialism, power, privilege, or structural inequality from public life. 

There is nothing neutral or apolitical about using state power to restrict how universities support historically excluded students. There is nothing neutral about turning “colorblindness” into a weapon against the very communities whose labor, taxes, cultures, and struggles built the state.

Nor is there anything Christian, in the deepest moral sense, about denying the dignity of the vulnerable, erasing histories of suffering and resistance, or consolidating power in the hands of the already powerful. The Christianity rooted in justice that many of us recognize speaks to humility, justice, love, mercy, and care for the stranger. Christian nationalism, by contrast, cloaks hierarchy in sacred authority. It baptizes domination. It transforms—and disfigures—a faith tradition into an instrument of political control.

This is why Stewart’s analysis matters. She helps us see how religious language can be marshaled to justify anti-democratic power. This is why MacLean’s analysis matters. She helps us see how democracy is weakened not always by dramatic coups, but by slow institutional redesign. And this is why Mayer’s analysis matters. She helps us see how concentrated wealth builds the infrastructure that makes these transformations possible.

The struggle over DEI, then, is not a narrow dispute over campus bureaucracy. It is a struggle over whether public institutions will continue to serve a multiracial democracy or whether they will be remade to protect hierarchy under the banner of freedom.

For those of us in Texas, this is not abstract. Under SB 17, we have seen how anti-DEI laws chill speech, restructure universities, eliminate offices, threaten programs, and place entire fields of study under suspicion. We have seen how Mexican American Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and other knowledge traditions become vulnerable when political leaders decide that democracy itself has become too diverse, too demanding, and too honest.

The answer is not despair. It is clarity.

We should name the movement accurately. We should refuse the false innocence of its language. We should defend academic freedom, shared governance, Ethnic Studies, gender studies, civil rights, and public education as essential democratic goods. 

And we should insist that pluralism is not a threat to democracy. Pluralism is democracy.

The future being offered by Christian nationalism and its allied political networks is a narrowed one: fewer rights, fewer histories, fewer voices, fewer protections, fewer public goods. The future we must defend is broader, deeper, and more humane: a democracy capacious enough to tell the truth, educate all children, honor all communities, and build institutions worthy of the public trust.

That is the real choice before us.

Reference

Last Week Tonight. (2026, June 8). New College of Florida: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO) [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFMc07F1UUU

Manhattan Institute. (2023, January 18). New issue brief: Abolish DEI bureaucracies and restore colorblind equality in public universities [Press release]. https://manhattan.institute/article/new-issue-brief-abolish-dei-bureaucracies-and-restore-colorblind-equality-in-public-universities

MacLean, N. (2017). Democracy in chains: The deep history of the radical right’s stealth plan for America. Penguin Press.

Mayer, J. (2016). Dark money: The hidden history of the billionaires behind the rise of the radical right. Anchor.

Stewart, K. (2020). The power worshippers: Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Stewart, K. (2025). Money, lies, and God: Inside the movement to destroy American democracy. Bloomsbury Publishing.

Civil Rights, Reversed: When “Equality” Masks Inequality, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

 Civil Rights, Reversed: When “Equality” Masks Inequality

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 28, 2026

There is a through line connecting two arguments that, at first glance, may appear distinct but are in fact deeply aligned. One, advanced by Christopher Rufo, calls for a “colorblind” reinterpretation of civil rights law—one that would prohibit any consideration of race, even for remedial purposes. The other, emerging from more radical libertarian circles, goes further: it claims that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 itself is an illegitimate infringement on freedom of association and suggests it should be dismantled altogether. 

What links these positions is not merely their skepticism of race-conscious policy, but a shared project of narrowing—if not undoing—the legal architecture of civil rights itself. For a revealing articulation of this trajectory, see Ross Douthat’s interview with Rufo in The New York Times (Douthat, 2025).

Taken together, these positions mark not a debate over policy nuance, but a coordinated redefinition of civil rights. One narrows its meaning to the point of inversion. The other seeks its outright elimination. Both rest on the same premise: that efforts to address inequality are themselves the problem.

Let us begin with the “colorblind” argument. Its appeal lies in its simplicity: no advantages or disadvantages based on ancestry; no consideration of race in admissions, hiring, or public policy. Equality, in this view, is achieved by ignoring history and the politics of difference altogether.

Digital graphic by Angela Valenzuela

But this formulation depends on a false premise—that we are operating on a level playing field. We are not. 

What this argument ultimately masks is not neutrality, but grievance politics reframed as principle. Under the banner of “colorblind equality,” what is being advanced is a narrative of injury—that white Americans, and particularly those aligned with dominant institutional power, are now the true victims of discrimination. This is not a legal argument so much as a political one. It converts historically grounded efforts at remedy into perceived acts of injustice, recasting inclusion as exclusion and equity as unfairness. 

Digital graphic by Angela Valenzuela

In doing so, it mobilizes resentment while disavowing it, presenting grievance as constitutional fidelity. But grievance politics, however carefully dressed in the language of rights, does not resolve inequality—it obscures it. And in the current Texas context, it provides the affective fuel for policies like anti-DEI Senate Bill 17 and Senate Bill 37 where the rhetoric of neutrality legitimates the restructuring of institutions in ways that ultimately consolidate, rather than challenge, existing hierarchies.

The United States did not arrive at inequality by accident. It was produced through centuries of law and policy: enslavement, segregation, exclusion from housing and employment, and systematic disinvestment. The Jim Crow laws were not merely social customs; they were legal regimes that structured access to opportunity. The Civil Rights Act was enacted precisely to dismantle those regimes and, crucially, to enable remedies where their effects persisted.

To collapse race-conscious remedies into “racial favoritism,” as Rufo does, is to erase this history. It is to treat corrective measures as equivalent to the harms they were designed to address. This is not legal reasoning; it is what I would call policy theater—a reframing of institutional retrenchment as moral clarity.

We see the consequences of this reframing most clearly in Texas.

With SB 17, the state has effectively banned DEI initiatives across public universities, invoking the language of neutrality while triggering widespread anticipatory compliance. Programs have been dismantled, trainings canceled, and academic units reorganized in ways that extend well beyond the statute’s text. At the University of Texas at Austin, the consolidation of departments focused on race, ethnicity, and gender signals not simply administrative efficiency, but a reorientation of institutional priorities.

SB 37 builds on this foundation by weakening faculty governance and centralizing authority, reducing the capacity of academic communities to respond collectively to these changes. The result is not a neutral landscape, but a managed one—where the boundaries of permissible knowledge are increasingly shaped by political directives.

This is the paradox of the “colorblind” project: in the name of limiting the role of the state, it invites a different kind of state intervention—one that withdraws protections while actively restructuring institutions.

Digital graphic by Angela Valenzuela

The libertarian argument takes this logic to its endpoint. If any government mandate for nondiscrimination is an infringement on liberty, then civil rights law itself must be dismantled. Businesses, employers, and institutions should be free to associate—or refuse to associate—on any basis, including race.

At first glance, this may appear as a principled defense of freedom. In reality, it rests on a deeply flawed understanding of both freedom and history.

Freedom of association has never been absolute, particularly in the public sphere. Once an entity opens itself to the public—whether a restaurant, a university, or an employer—it becomes part of a broader civic infrastructure. The rules that govern that space are not arbitrary constraints; they are conditions that make participation possible.

Without such protections, “freedom” becomes asymmetrical. Those with power retain the freedom to exclude, while those without it bear the consequences.

This is not a hypothetical concern. It is a historical fact.

Prior to the Civil Rights Act, discrimination in public accommodations, employment, and education was not episodic—it was systemic. Entire populations were excluded from the basic institutions of public life. To suggest that market forces alone would have corrected these injustices is to ignore the depth and durability of structural inequality.

Here, the libertarian argument converges with the “colorblind” one. Both assume that inequality is either no longer significant or irrelevant to the question of justice. Both prioritize formal neutrality over substantive fairness. And both, in doing so, risk entrenching the very inequalities they claim to transcend.

As Eduardo Bonilla-Silva has argued, colorblind ideology functions by masking structural inequality, allowing it to persist under the guise of neutrality (Bonilla-Silva, 2018). And as Kimberlé Crenshaw reminds us, civil rights law has always been contested terrain—expanded through struggle, and vulnerable to retrenchment (Crenshaw, 1988).

What we are witnessing now is a moment of such retrenchment.

The language of civil rights is being repurposed to constrain remedy. The concept of freedom is being narrowed to exclude considerations of equity. And the institutions tasked with fostering knowledge and opportunity are being reshaped accordingly.

The stakes are not abstract.

They are visible in classrooms where faculty hesitate to engage certain topics. In departments that are merged or dissolved. In students who find fewer spaces where their histories and experiences are taken seriously as objects of study. In a broader climate where the line between policy and politics grows increasingly difficult to discern.

The question before us is not whether we believe in equality. It is what kind of equality we are willing to defend.

Digital graphic by Angela Valenzuela

Is it an equality that ignores history, overlooks power, and quietly reproduces existing hierarchies? It is an equality that recognizes the unfinished work of democracy—one that understands that justice requires more than neutrality—one that requires attending to the conditions that make inequality endure?

In Texas, this question is no longer theoretical. It is legislative. It is institutional. And it is unfolding in real time.

The answer we choose will determine not only the future of civil rights law, but the meaning of freedom itself.

References

Bonilla-Silva, E. (2018). Racism without racists: Color-blind racism and the persistence of racial inequality in the United States (5th ed.). Rowman & Littlefield.

Crenshaw, K. (1988). Race, reform, and retrenchment: Transformation and legitimation in antidiscrimination law. Harvard Law Review, 101(7), 1331–1387.

Douthat, R. (2025, March 7). The anti-D.E.I. crusader who wants to dismantle the Department of Education. The New York Times.

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 Austin Is Dismantling Its Academic Core—And Calling It “Optimization,” by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

UT Austin Is Dismantling Its Academic Core—And Calling It “Optimization”

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

January 26, 2026

The University of Texas at Austin has announced that it is closing its Center for Teaching and Learning, along with the Office of Community Engagement, the Vick Advising Excellence Center, and the Office of Undergraduate Research.

Geez, that's a lot to come down, to get dismantled, that is.

The decision—communicated quietly, with no meaningful consultation and almost no explanation—has left faculty stunned, confused, and rightly alarmed.

According to Provost William Inboden, these closures are part of an effort to “optimize” and “streamline” operations. But stripped of administrative jargon, the reality is this: UT is eliminating the very structures that support teaching excellence, interdisciplinary collaboration, student mentoring, undergraduate research, and community engagement—at a time when faculty and students need those supports now more than ever.

As American Association of University Professors campus president Dr. Karma Chávez put it, there is no pedagogical or institutional logic for dismantling a centralized teaching center. For many faculty, the Center for Teaching and Learning was not a luxury—it was transformative. It created cross-college dialogue, supported innovative pedagogy, strengthened student learning, and allowed faculty to adapt to a rapidly changing classroom environment. For some, it was the single most meaningful professional development experience of their careers.

The administration’s claim that these functions are “rooted in colleges and schools” collapses under even minimal scrutiny. Many colleges—including the College of Liberal Arts, UT’s largest—have no teaching center at all. What this decision actually does is fragment support, deepen inequities across units, and eliminate the very spaces where interdisciplinary exchange and shared governance can occur.

Even more troubling is the broader pattern this decision fits into. The Office of Community Engagement—now being shuttered—was the last remaining remnant of UT’s once-robust Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, dismantled after Texas passed its anti-DEI law, Senate Bill 17. While these offices were not labeled “DEI,” they were grounded in the best research on how to support students, particularly those historically underserved, through advising, teaching, research access, and community connection. 

Eliminating them does not create neutrality. It creates a gaping void. And absence is not accidental. It's by design. And it's about more people losing their jobs when this is not about budgetary imperatives. Pointedly, UT Austin is not facing a financial crisis, and the provost’s email cited none. 

Nor does it make sense as cost-saving if the work is merely “redistributed” across colleges—duplicated, diluted, and stripped of the coherence it had. What is being optimized here is not efficiency, but control. What is being streamlined is not bureaucracy, but the university’s public mission.

This pattern is not unique to UT. Across the country, state laws and political pressures are eroding the capacity of universities to support students and faculty in substantive ways, not by accident but as part of a broader governance agenda that conflates equity-related work with political ideology (Sachs & Young, 2024).

At a moment when faculty are navigating political interference, curricular surveillance, and the chilling effects of state power, UT has chosen to remove the very institutions that help educators weather those storms. 

Teaching centers do not impose ideology; they defend pedagogical integrity.

Advising centers do not indoctrinate; they catch students before they fall through the cracks. 

Offices of undergraduate research do not politicize learning. They democratize access to knowledge production.

Calling this “optimization” or "streamlining" insults the intelligence of the faculty and students who know better. This is institutional subtraction masquerading as reform. And it should concern anyone who believes that a flagship public university ought to lead—not capitulate—when higher education itself is under attack.

Flagships do not hollow themselves out from the inside. When they allow it to happen, they surrender their public mission. And to whose benefit? And toward what ends? Their silence is deafening.

Reference

Sachs, J. A., & Young, J. C. (2024). America’s censored classrooms 2024: Refining the art of censorship (Report). PEN America. https://pen.org/report/americas-censored-classrooms-2024/?utm_source=chatgpt.com


UT-Austin Is Closing Its Teaching Center. Faculty Members Ask: Why?

The U. of Texas at Austin campusSergio Flores for The Washington Post, Getty Images

By Beth McMurtrieJanuary 22, 2026

The U. of Texas at Austin campusSergio Flores for The Washington Post, Getty Images

The University of Texas at Austin is shuttering its longstanding Center for Teaching and Learning at the end of the semester, part of a wave of changes announced last Friday that include the closure of the Office of Community Engagement, a campus advising center, and the Office of Undergraduate Research.

The news, which came in an email from William Inboden, the university’s provost, presented these moves as part of an effort to “optimize” and “streamline” academic operations. He wrote that resources provided by the programs would be repurposed, but offered no details.

Faculty members were stunned by the news.

“I literally cannot think of any reason why you would dismantle a centralized center for teaching and learning,” said Karma Chávez, president of the campus chapter of the American Association of University Professors, and a professor of Mexican American and Latina/o studies. “It absolutely baffles me.”

Chávez said she had scant information — the email was sent to a small number of people on campus, including deans, she heard — but learned through conversations with colleagues who are directly affected that the “vast majority” of the staff will be laid off, more than 20 people. The teaching center is the largest of the four operations, and lists 13 staff members, along with 11 student workers, on its website.

In the email, Inboden said the changes “are designed to enhance collaboration, create new pathways for partnerships, prudently steward our resources, and strengthen existing units within our colleges and schools.”

Mike Rosen, senior director of media strategy, said in an email that the university’s commitment to undergraduate research, faculty support, advising, and student programming is unchanged. “Those functions are rooted in our colleges and schools, which are best equipped to meet their needs,” he wrote. ”Closing those particular offices will allow us to focus resources for these programs where they are most needed and most effective.”

Mary Neuburger, a history professor and chair of Slavic and Eurasian studies, said the argument that those functions are rooted in colleges and schools made little sense to her. The College of Liberal Arts, where she teaches, doesn’t even have a teaching center. “We have nothing,” she said. “And we’re one of the biggest colleges.”

Neuburger, who has taught at the university for almost 30 years, said her time working on a project with the Center for Teaching and Learning was “the single most transformative experience I’ve had at UT.” She was a Provost’s Teaching Fellow, she said, and was able to discuss teaching issues with faculty members from across the university. Now she worries that interdisciplinary collaboration and exchange of ideas will be lost.

Nina Telang, a professor of instruction in the department of electrical and computer engineering, was also a teaching fellow. The support she received at the center allowed her to build supplemental instruction into many courses in her department — not just her own — with the help of the campus tutoring center. She also developed wellness workshops for engineering students in collaboration with the campus wellness center. “Every single CTL initiative has ultimately benefited the students,” she said. “It’s all about the student.”

Josh Eyler, senior director of the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning at the University of Mississippi, who is active nationally on teaching issues, said he was surprised that UT-Austin would shutter a distinguished center with a long history, particularly at a time when the challenges facing faculty members in the classroom are growing.

“At their best,” he said, “teaching centers provide a place to advocate for faculty and to help them make it through the storm of constant changes and new technologies and new fads and new approaches that are coming down the pike.”

Professors also mourned the closure of the other offices, saying they provided special services. Every college on campus has its own advising center but the Vick Advising Excellence Center “was for students who were slipping through the cracks to get extra help,” Neuburger said. “That was part of a huge initiative to increase our graduation rates, and it was working.”

She was also confused as to why the university would eliminate the Office of Undergraduate Research when engaging students in research has been an administrative priority. That office, in particular, has helped students find opportunities to do interdisciplinary work, Chávez said.

Rosen said he did not have information on any positions eliminated. He said that Inboden was not available for an interview. Neither Molly Hatcher, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, nor Jeff Handy, director of the Vick Advising Excellence Center, responded to email requests for interviews.

Not UniqueStaffing cuts to student-facing services are certainly not unusual given the tough financial situation many colleges now find themselves in. Last year Catholic University of America eliminated 16 positions in its Center for Academic and Career Success to help address a $30-million structural deficit. And Emerson College, which has been dealing with enrollment declines, cut half of its eight full-time staff in the Office of Student Success.

But UT-Austin doesn’t have financial woes, faculty members said, and the provost’s email said nothing about needing to trim costs. Chávez said that eliminating central offices doesn’t make financial sense to her if, in fact, the administration will just be moving that work to schools and colleges, duplicating it several times over. “I’m not sure how that would be a streamlining or a cost-cutting mechanism.”

Rather, she worries that this is more about eliminating the last traces of diversity, equity, and inclusion on campus. The offices being shuttered are not practicing DEI, she said. But the best scholarship on advising, teaching, community engagement, and supporting diverse students in undergraduate research relies on that framework. She noted, too, that the Office of Community Engagement is the “last vestige” of what was once the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, which was shuttered after the state passed a law banning DEI activities. That went from a division with dozens of people to an office with two staff, doing outreach work in the community. “That’ll be gone now, too.”

We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.

The Courage to Imagine Anew: Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and the Defense of Higher Learning, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Courage to Imagine Anew: Milton's 'Paradise Lost' and the Defense of Higher Learning

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

October 29, 2025

In these uncertain times, I find myself returning to the classics—not for comfort, but for clarity. They remind me that turmoil is not new, that every age must wrestle with its own angels and demons. As an English literature major and Spanish minor, I learned to live among these voices of the past and to listen for the echoes of our present in their words.

John Milton’s Paradise Lost (1968) is one such companion. Written in the wake of England’s failed republican experiment—after the execution of King Charles I, through the brief, flickering hope of the Commonwealth and Protectorate, and on the threshold of the restoration of the Stuart monarchy—it speaks to the ache of disillusionment and the stubborn endurance of faith. An anguished Milton wrote in the ruins of a republic that had promised liberty but delivered repression.

The poem’s power lies not just in its Biblical scope but in its political imagination: a meditation on what happens when institutions of knowledge, justice, and conscience are corrupted by ambition and fear. Satan’s rebellion against Heaven becomes a haunting allegory for power unmoored from morality—a warning about how even noble ideals can be twisted into tyranny when pride replaces principle.

We are living through a similar unraveling. Across the United States, and acutely here in Texas, the assault on higher education feels like a slow-motion reenactment of Milton’s epic fall. Legislation like Senate Bill 17 and Senate Bill 37 strip universities of their moral and intellectual autonomy—erasing diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and eliminating faculty governance under the guise of “neutrality.” In truth, these policies are not about neutrality at all; they are about control. They mirror Satan’s own delusion in Paradise Lost: the belief that power justifies itself, that domination can masquerade as Divine order.

The recent waves of faculty dismissals in Texas, the silencing of critical inquiry, censorship campaigns, and the hollow rhetoric of “viewpoint diversity”—about which I have blogged (Valenzuela, 2025)—all echo Milton’s vision of a paradise undone by deceit. Yet Milton also reminds us that knowledge cannot be banished, nor truth extinguished; even in exile, the spirit of inquiry endures. It is in that spirit that we must resist—not with despair, but with the steadfast conviction that education itself is an act of freedom.

Our universities—once sanctuaries, however imperfect—for the free exchange of ideas are being recast as instruments of ideological conformity. Project 2025, with its blueprint for dismantling public institutions, bears the same logic as Milton’s fallen angels—an architecture of chaos disguised as reform, where destruction is framed as renewal and submission is sold as freedom.

And yet Paradise Lost does not end in despair, but in a quiet, hard-won grace—one that I encourage us to lean into. When Adam and Eve are expelled from Eden, they do not turn against one another or the world that has cast them out; instead, they walk hand in hand, “through Eden took their solitary way.” Their loss is real and profound, but so is their potential. Exile becomes not an ending, but the beginning of a new human story:

“Some natural tears they dropp’d, but wip’d them soon;
The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide:
They hand in hand with wand’ring steps and slow,
Through Eden took their solitary way.” — Paradise Lost, Book XII

In that moment, Milton reminds us that exile can also be the beginning of resistance—that even as institutions crumble, new communities of conscience can rise. We, too, walk that road now. As scholars, educators, and citizens, our task is not only to lament the loss of paradise but to rebuild it—to reclaim the moral and intellectual commons that sustain democracy itself.

What is at stake in this moment is more than academic freedom—it is the survival of an educated democracy. Across states and systems, educators are rising to defend the university as a public good, not a partisan instrument. The broader defense of education is, at its heart, a defense of truth, inquiry, and the capacity for moral imagination. Like Milton, we must see beyond the ruins toward the possibility of renewal, for if paradise is lost through arrogance and deceit, it is restored through wisdom, solidarity, and an expansive vision of what a good and virtuous education can be.

In doing so, we walk in the footsteps of Milton—across centuries of struggle and renewal—and honor his enduring question: not whether paradise can be restored, but whether we have the courage to imagine it anew. For the record, whoever said a Humanities or Liberal Arts degree is esoteric—or that our Western literary canon is worthless? Hardly so, even as its exclusivity has remained an issue. It has always been about survival—about learning to think, to write, to question, and to dream our way through the darkness of despair toward the light of freedom.

In times such as these, when truth itself is politicized and education reduced to utility, the humanistic tradition reminds us that freedom begins in the mind—and that imagination, not ideology, is the truest measure of a free and open society.

References

Milton, J. (1968). Paradise lost & paradise regained, Signet.

Valenzuela, A. (2025, Aug. 26). The fight for higher education: A minority perspective on both the liberal University and President Michael Roth. Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas.

When Faculty Leave: Lessons from Florida’s New College for Texas Higher Education

Students, Friends, and Colleagues:

We should be concerned. The exodus of faculty from Texas universities, including my own at The University of Texas at Austin, is no longer anecdotal—it’s measurable and deeply concerning. As reported on this blog last month (Valenzuela, 2025), an extensive survey by the Texas AAUP and Texas Faculty Association found that more than a quarter of faculty plan to leave the state within a year, while 61% would not recommend Texas to out-of-state colleagues. These are not marginal figures. They point to a crisis of morale, trust, and academic freedom.

I know that our students, undergraduate and graduate, are deeply concerned as they see their faculty leaving for other opportunities, opting for early retirements, and related struggles before their very eyes. Faculty departures don’t just affect university rankings—they reverberate throughout the university, impacting both faculty and student morale, research productivity, and the overall quality of teaching, mentorship, participation on research projects, and innovation that sustains a vibrant academic community.

The situation unfolding at New College of Florida offers a chilling preview of what happens when political interference and mass resignations destabilize an institution. According to a recent article published in Inside Higher Ed, two years into a conservative overhaul, New College’s rankings have plummeted nearly 60 places, from 76th in 2022 to 135th this year, even as its spending ballooned to $134,000 per student—ten times the state average (Moody, 2025). Graduation and retention rates have fallen, and the once-distinctive liberal arts college now faces an uncertain future. Former administrators describe it as “running a Motel 6 on a Ritz-Carlton budget.”

As far as faculty departures at the New College are concerned (Walker, 2023), the lesson for Texas is clear: no amount of money can compensate for the loss of intellectual capital, institutional autonomy, and trust in governance. When faculty leave, they take with them not only their expertise but also their reputational weight—indeed, gravitas—the very foundation upon which university rankings rest. If current trends continue, the University of Texas system risks a similar downward spiral: declining peer-institutional assessments, reduced research output, and potential slippage in national standing. 

While Texas lawmakers have not explicitly named New College of Florida as a template or blueprint, the ideological and structural changes introduced through SB 17 and SB 37 bear striking resemblance to the transformation of New College—particularly in their shared emphasis on dismantling DEI initiatives and reshaping institutional governance. 

It is not too late to change course, but doing so requires leadership willing to protect shared governance, reaffirm academic freedom, and prioritize the very people—the faculty, staff, and students—who make a university great.

-Angela Valenzuela

References

Moody, J. (2025, Oct. 1). Spending soars, rankings fall at New College of Florida: Student outcomes and rankings are slipping at the liberal arts college while spending is up. Critics believe the college is at risk of implosion, and some are calling for privatization, Inside Higher Education. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/governance/state-oversight/2025/10/01/spending-soars-rankings-fall-new-college-florida

Valenzuela, A. (2025, September 8). Texas professors are leaving—But the crisis is bigger (and deeper) than Texas, Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas. https://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2025/09/ttexas-professors-are-leaving-but.html

Walker, S. (2023, July 20). New College of Florida sees ‘ridiculously high’ faculty departures ahead of fall semester. Herald-Tribune. https://www.heraldtribune.com/story/news/education/2023/07/20/new-college-of-florida-loses-a-third-of-faculty-amid-desantis-shakeup/70421635007/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Spending Soars, Rankings Fall at New College of Florida

Student outcomes and rankings are slipping at the liberal arts college while spending is up. Critics believe the college is at risk of implosion, and some are calling for privatization.

By  Josh Moody | Inside Higher Education | October 1, 2025

“With DeSantis, I think his motivation for the takeover was that he was running for president and he needed some educational showcase. And he picked us because we were an easy target,” said one New College faculty member.

Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | Thomas Simonetti/The Washington Post/Getty Images

More than two years into a conservative takeover of New College of Florida, spending has soared and rankings have plummeted, raising questions about the efficacy of the overhaul.

While state officials, including Republican governor Ron DeSantis, have celebrated the death of what they have described as “woke indoctrination” at the small liberal arts college, student outcomes are trending downward across the board: Both graduation and retention rates have fallen since the takeover in 2023.

Those metrics are down even as New College spends more than 10 times per student what the other 11 members of the State University System spend, on average. While one estimate last year put the annual cost per student at about $10,000 per member institution, New College is an outlier, with a head count under 900 and a $118.5 million budget, which adds up to roughly $134,000 per student.

Now critics are raising new questions about NCF’s reputation, its worth and its future prospects as a public liberal arts college.

A Spending Spree

To support the overhaul, the state has largely issued a blank check for New College, with little pushback from officials.

While some—like Florida Board of Governors member Eric Silagy—have questioned the spending and the state’s return on investment, money keeps flowing. Some critics say that’s because the college is essentially a personal project of the governor.

“With DeSantis, I think his motivation for the takeover was that he was running for president and he needed some educational showcase. And he picked us because we were an easy target,” one New College of Florida faculty member said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

But now, two-plus years and one failed presidential run later, money continues to flow to the college to help establish new athletics programs and recruit larger classes each year. Part of the push behind such recruiting efforts, the faculty member said, is because of retention issues.

“It’s kind of like a Ponzi scheme: Students keep leaving, so they have to recruit bigger and bigger cohorts of students, and then they say, ‘Biggest class ever’ because they have to backfill all the students who have left,” they said.

Nathan Allen, a New College alum who served as vice president of strategy at NCF for almost a year and a half after the takeover but has since stepped down, echoed that sentiment, arguing that administrators are spending heavily with little return on investment and have failed to stabilize the institution. He also said they’ve lost favor with lawmakers, who have expressed skepticism in conversations—even though New College is led by former Speaker of the Florida House Richard Corcoran, a Republican.

“I think that the Senate and the House are increasingly sensitive to the costs and the outcomes,” Allen said. “Academically, Richard’s running a Motel 6 on a Ritz-Carlton budget, and it makes no sense.”

While New College’s critics have plenty to say, supporters are harder to find.

Inside Higher Ed contacted three NCF trustees (one of whom is also a faculty member), New College’s communications office, two members of the Florida Board of Governors (including Silagy) and the governor’s press team for this article. None responded to requests for comment.

A Rankings Spiral

Since the takeover, NCF has dropped nearly 60 spots among national liberal arts colleges in the U.S. News & World Report Best Colleges rankings, from 76th in 2022 to 135th this year.

Though critics have long argued that such rankings are flawed and various institutions have stopped providing data to U.S. News, the state of Florida has embraced the measurement. Officials, including DeSantis, regularly tout Florida’s decade-long streak as the top state for higher education, and some public universities have built rankings into their strategic plans. But as most other universities in the state are climbing in the rankings, New College is sliding, a fact unmentioned at a Monday press conferencefeaturing DeSantis and multiple campus leaders.

Corcoran, the former Republican lawmaker hired as president shortly after the takeover, did not directly address the rankings slide when he spoke at the briefing at the University of Florida. But in his short remarks, Corcoran quibbled over ranking metrics.

“The criteria is not fair,” he said. 

Specifically, he took aim at peer assessment, which makes up 20 percent of the rankings criteria. Corcoran argued that Florida’s institutions, broadly, suffer from a negative reputation among their peers, whose leaders take issue with the conservative agenda DeSantis has imposed on colleges and universities. 

“This guy has changed the ideology of higher education to say, ‘We’re teaching how to think, not what to think,’ and we’re being peer reviewed by people who think that’s absolutely horrendous,” Corcoran said.

An Uncertain Future

As New College’s cost to the state continues to rise and rankings and student outcomes decline, some faculty members and alumni have expressed worry about what the future holds. While some believe DeSantis is happy to keep pumping money into New College, the governor is term limited.

“It’s important to keep in mind that New College is not a House or Senate project; it’s not a GOP project. It’s a Ron DeSantis project. Richard Corcoran has a constituency of one, and that’s Ron,” Allen said.

Critics also argue that changes driven by the college’s administration and the State University System—such as reinstating grades instead of relying on the narrative evaluations NCF has historically used and limiting course offerings, among other initiatives—are stripping away what makes New College special. They argue that as it loses traditions, it’s also losing differentiation.

Rodrigo Diaz, a 1991 New College graduate, said that the Sarasota campus had long attracted quirky students who felt stifled by more rigid academic environments. Now the administration and state are imposing “uniformity,” he said, which he argued will be “the death of New College.”

And some critics worry that death is exactly what lies ahead for NCF. The anonymous faculty member said they feel “an impending sense of doom” at New College and fear that it could close within the next two years. Allen said he has heard a similar timeline from lawmakers.

Even Corcoran referenced possible closure at a recent Board of Governors meeting. 

In his remarks, the president emphasized that a liberal arts college should “produce something different.” And “if it doesn’t produce something different, then we should be closed down. But if we are closed down, I say this very respectfully, Chair—then this Board of Governors should be shut down, too,” Corcoran said, noting that many of its members have liberal arts degrees.

To Allen, that remark was an unforced error that revealed private conversations about closure are likely happening behind closed doors.

“I think Richard made the mistake of not realizing those conversations haven’t been public. He made them public, but the Board of Governors is very clearly talking to him about that,” he said.

But Allen has floated an alternative to closure: privatization.

Founded in 1960, New College was private until it was absorbed by the state in 1975. Allen envisions “the same deal in reverse” in a process that would be driven by the State Legislature. 

“I think that the option set here is not whether it goes private or stays public, I think it’s whether it goes private or closes,” Allen said. “And I think that that is increasingly an open conversation.”

(Though NCF did not respond to media inquiries, Corcoran has voiced opposition to such a plan.)

Allen has largely pushed his plan privately, meeting with lawmakers, faculty, alumni and others. Reactions are mixed, but the idea seems to be a growing topic of conversation on campus. The anonymous faculty member said they are increasingly warming to the idea as the only viable solution, given that they believe the other option is closure within the next one to three years.

“I’m totally convinced this is the path forward, if there is a path forward at all,” they said.

Diaz said the idea is also gaining momentum in conversations with fellow alumni. He called himself “skeptical but respectful” of the privatization plan and said he has “a lot of doubt and questions.” But Diaz said that he and other alumni should follow the lead of faculty members.

“Now, if the faculty were to jump on board with the privatization plan, then I think that people like myself—alumni like myself, who are concerned for the future of the college—should support the faculty,” Diaz said. “But the contrary is also true. If the faculty sent up a signal that ‘We don’t like this, we have doubts about this,’ then, in good conscience, I don’t think I could back the plan.”