Friends,
UNT Denton is now extending SB 17 law compliance into curriculum and research. Yes, this unnecessary and ridiculous DEI phobia is impacting what gets taught in some Texas' university classrooms, as well as what gets researched by university professors who are under scrutiny at UNT Denton. So far, so good at UT Austin, but this could be a portent of things to come at your local university if officials continue contributing to a climate of fear and misinterpreting and misrepresenting the law.
What's crazy is that UNT Denton is asserting itself into what have been decades-long, thorny debates on what constitutes "research," by offering something as truly ambiguous as "generalizable research." Moreover, to cite my colleague, Dr. Lilia Garces, this is "repressive legalism" playing out.
Please, we don't need or want every university in Texas to be run by lawyers, councils, or chief integrity officers!!! This should not even exist or get normalized. These kinds of decisions about what constitutes research need to be made by the research community itself. Anything short of this undermines faculty governance, contributes to low morale among the faculty and administrators who know better (and most do), and turns higher ed in Texas into glorified high schools.
Faculty, please consider joining AAUP as this will provide you with job protection and a community that is responding to this nonsense and hurtful agenda that by their own admission, exceeds the bounds of SB17 that's not supposed to impact either teaching or research.
Angela Valenzuela
Guidance on research and teaching aimed at SB 17 compliance announced, North Texas Daily
by McKinnon Rice, John Forbes
Oct 31, 2024 | North Texas Daily
Chief Compliance Officer Clay Simmons introduced new guidance on research and academic course instruction at the most recent Faculty Senate meeting that included restrictions on faculty research and academic course instruction to comply with Senate Bill 17.
SB 17, passed in 2022, prohibits Texas public institutions of higher education from undertaking diversity, equity and inclusion efforts and from requiring employees to participate in DEI training or make DEI statements. It also does not allow the university to “give preference on the basis of race, sex, color, ethnicity, or national origin to an applicant for employment, an employee, or a participant in any function of the institution.”
The law also says the DEI prohibition does not apply to “academic course instruction,” and “scholarly research or a creative work by an institution of higher education's students, faculty, or other research personnel or the dissemination of that research or work.”
The new guidance introduced at the meeting, provided to Clay Simmons by the university’s Office of General Counsel, has caused confusion and concern among faculty.
Simmons said at the Oct. 9 meeting that the university is using the definition of research used in the university’s research misconduct policy, which defines research as “a systematic investigation, including development, testing, evaluation, or publication to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge,” under the advice of the General Counsel’s Office.
Simmons’ presentation at the meeting acknowledged the bill mentions areas where the DEI restrictions do not apply, and outlined the university’s limitations on those exceptions.
The new guidance in the presentation said that “classroom lessons on DEI topics must be limited to elements of the course,” and that “course activities must relate to the course goal or objective.”
Regarding research, limitations to the exception are that “research must meet the definition of true research and be essential to the research,” and that the “scope of work is very important,” according to the new guidance.
“The identity-based aspects must be essential to the research,” Simmons said at the Oct. 9 meeting. “So if you're doing research on homelessness, you have to be very careful if you're going to focus on a certain identity within homelessness. So if you're looking at LGBTQ homeless individuals, then you'll have to make sure that that is narrowly-tailored within the scope of work.”
Adam Briggle, professor and director of graduate studies in the philosophy department, expressed concern about the new guidance at the meeting.
Briggle said he is often told his scholarly work is not research as defined by the Institutional Review Board, a body at the university that reviews faculty’s research proposals to ensure they are complying with regulations pertaining to the use of living subjects, because his work does not fit the part of the definition that says research must “contribute to generalizable knowledge.”
The IRB defines research as “a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge,” almost identical to the Office of General Counsel’s chosen definition.
At the meeting, Briggle asked if a peer-reviewed article about the rights of transgender people that appeared in a journal or periodical would be permitted.
Simmons said such work would not be protected by the exemption.
“So if you’re not conducting research to the definition that’s included in the policy there, then you’re not covered by the exception,” Simmons said.
Senior Lecturer Lisa Welch, a senator from the College of Science, asked a similar question of Simmons later in the meeting about how faculty work like fiction and nonfiction writing and journal articles are handled by the new guidance.
“I think, as long as you're not doing one of those prohibited activities, then you're on safe ground,” Simmons said. “I don’t think there’s anything that prohibits anyone from writing a paper, especially if it's going to a research publication or a journal or something like that.”
In an interview with the North Texas Daily, Briggle said he believes the research restrictions discussed at the meeting are not the result of what the law said, but of the university’s interpretation of it.
“I actually don’t think this is a problem with SB 17, I think it’s a problem with our compliance office,” Briggle said. “I think they are hitting everything with a blowtorch here, because they're really afraid, understandably, of the legislature cutting their funding. So that's my concern, is even if the authors of SB 17 didn't intend this, it’s having a chilling effect campus wide that is creeping into the classrooms and research when it shouldn't be. I think we need to recalibrate where we're drawing the line as an institution.”
Mariela Nunez-Janes, a professor in the anthropology department, attended the Faculty Senate meeting and raised concerns about the teaching guidance issued. She asked Simmons how academic freedom was being considered by the university.
Simmons said he believes the new guidelines do not inhibit academic freedom because SB 17 is now state law, and is the “very top of the hierarchy” for the university when determining what is allowed in an institution.
Simmons also said there is “intense scrutiny” from the Texas Legislature and interest groups in regard to SB 17 compliance — the penalty for not abiding by the law is losing funding from the state.
On Oct. 25, Simmons sent an email to Faculty Senate members intended to clarify the guidance. The email reiterated the previously-used definition of research, including the section that says research must “develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge,” but also added that “this definition includes scholarly activities and creative works.”
Briggle said of the clarification that confusion remains because the phrase “generalizable knowledge” is still in the definition.
“I'm not sure it fixes it to just say this includes scholarly activities and creative works,” Briggle said. “Does that mean they still have to contribute to generalizable knowledge? And who's deciding what that means? Actually, I don't know, maybe this leaves more questions than answers.”
In an interview with the Daily, Simmons said, “I don’t see us really getting down into the very minute detail of what is generalizable knowledge […].”
According to the presentation, penalties for noncompliance with SB 17 include “disciplinary action by the university against individuals and loss of state funding for UNT.”
Briggle also said penalties could be a year without pay for a professor’s first offense, and immediate termination from employment for their second. In addition to being fired, Briggle said the professor would also be “blacklisted” from being hired at another higher education institution in Texas.
Simmons said anyone can request a review from the Integrity and Compliance Office to check if they or someone else are following SB 17.
At the Faculty Senate meeting, Simmons encouraged faculty members to consult their own chain of command before requesting a review from his office.
“The reason for that is that not only are we looking at legal risks that are presented with some of these activities, but we're also looking at the political risk that comes along with a lot of these,” Simmons said at the meeting. “And so sometimes things will be legal, but a dean just isn't comfortable going quite that far into that territory, and will be more prone to want to either change it or modify it, or rethink the whole idea.”
Simmons said in an interview with the Daily that the “political risk” is the possibility of it appearing to the state that the university is not taking SB 17 compliance seriously.
Simmons also said at the meeting that around university 90 activities had been cut and around 17 modified to comply with the law.
The next Faculty Senate meeting will take place on Nov. 20, and senators will be able to further discuss concerns about SB 17 guidelines.
