This blog on Texas education contains posts on higher education, as well as preK-12 policy accountability, testing, bilingual education, immigration, school finance, race, class, and gender issues at both the state and national level. It also represents my digital footprint, of life and career, as a community-engaged scholar in Texas.
Academic Freedom Under Revision at Texas A&M: Family Values, Forbidden Fields, and the Closure of Women’s and Gender Studies
by
Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.
February 25, 2026
The Republican Party frequently invokes “family values” and moral order as justification for policies targeting LGBTQ+ communities, trans youth, and gender-related scholarship. Yet public rhetoric often collides with private reality—as seen in widely reported spikes in activity onGrindr—an LGBTQ social networking platform—during Republican National Conventions. According to Keller (2024), the app crashed during the RNC in Milwaukee (also see McFall, 2025).
To be clear, I am not suggesting that Texas Republicans themselves are part of this apparently large group of Grindr users. Sexual orientation exists across all political affiliations. The issue is not who uses a dating app. The issue is that the party apparatus leans into anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric and policy agendas while evidence suggests that sexuality is far more politically diverse and privately complex than its public messaging implies. That contradiction is what deserves scrutiny.
That tension is instructive as Texas A&M eliminates its Women’s and Gender Studies program, ending a field of study that had been part of the university since 1979 (Blinder, 2026; Panigrahi, 2026). Students currently enrolled may finish their degrees, but no new students can enter the program. At the same time, new policies restrict how race, gender, and sexuality can be discussed in classrooms unless explicitly approved by university leadership.
This is not an isolated administrative decision. It reflects a broader pattern across several states where women’s and gender studies, LGBTQ+ studies, and diversity initiatives are being reduced or dismantled under the language of neutrality and oversight. What is framed as restoring balance is, in practice, narrowing inquiry.
The deeper issue is governance. When elected officials condemn LGBTQ+ communities publicly while private behavior reveals a far more complex reality, and when universities respond by limiting academic exploration of gender and sexuality, the message is clear: this is less about morality than about control—including, perhaps, members within their own party where lived realities do not always align neatly with official policy platforms.
Academic freedom does not disappear all at once. It contracts. Programs close. Courses are reviewed. Speech is pre-approved. And gradually, the boundaries of legitimate knowledge are redrawn by political actors rather than scholars.
When one of the nation’s largest public universities eliminates a decades-long academic program focused on gender and power, it signals more than curricular change. It signals a struggle over who decides what can be studied—and ultimately, what kind of democracy we are willing to sustain.
Texas A&M Aggies athletes cheer on a teammate in the Women’s 500 Yard Freestyle Finals during the Division I Women’s Swimming and Diving Championships on March 21, 2024, in Athens, Ga. (Alex Slitz / NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
In many parts of the U.S., students and professors are left navigating a rapidly narrowing space for inquiry and expression
Texas A&M University announced late last month it will eliminate its women’s and gender studies program, effective immediately. At the same time, the university enacted new policies that heavily restrict classroom discussions related to diversity, race and gender, unless a course has been previously approved by the campus president. While students currently enrolled in the women’s and gender studies program will be able to complete their degrees, new students can no longer enroll.
With over 81,000 students, 17 colleges and schools on its main campus, three campuses across the state (plus several satellite locations, including one in Washington, D.C.) and more than 140 undergraduate degrees, Texas A&M is one of the nation’s largest public university systems. It began instruction in 1876 and began offering women’s and gender studies courses in 1979. The elimination of the program marks the abrupt end of a decades-long academic offering—and, coupled with new and dangerous policies regarding race, gender and sexuality, sets a disturbing precedent and furthers a chilling, anti-education agenda. Timeline: How A&M Dismantled Gender and LGBTQ+ Programs, Step by Step
March 2023 — At West Texas A&M (Texas A&M’s northernmost campus), university president Walter Wendler blocked an on-campus drag show. The student group hosting the show, Spectrum WT, filed a lawsuit in response. The case remained active until recently, when federal judge Matthew Kacsmaryk upheld the university’s decision, ruling the school did not violate the First Amendment.
August 2024 — Texas A&M stopped offering gender-affirming care to their students, forcing those receiving care to seek providers elsewhere.
November 2024 — The university eliminated its LGBTQ+ studies minor, previously housed within the women’s and gender studies program.
February 2025 — Texas A&M’s Board of Regents (all appointed by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott) attempted to ban drag shows across system campuses. This particular ban was temporarily blocked.
September 2025 — A&M’s university president Mark A. Welsh III fired lecturer Dr. Melissa McCoul following a classroom dispute over a lesson on gender identity. McCoul is now suing the university, alleging violations of her free speech and due process rights.
November 2025 — As a result of a unanimous Board of Regents decision, the university reviewed more than 5,400 course syllabi, cut six courses entirely, granted 48 special exceptions, and required hundreds more to be modified.
January 2026 — Texas A&M announced it would eliminate its women’s and gender studies program.
From Florida to Ohio to Texas, the Same Playbook Is Unfolding
Texas A&M is not alone. Across the United States, institutions including New College of Florida, Wichita State University and the University of Toledo have reduced or eliminated women’s and gender studies programs. Hundreds of universities have also scaled back or rebranded diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in response to political pressure and new state laws.
The closure of Texas A&M’s program reflects a broader national trend: mounting restrictions on how gender, race and sexuality can be studied and discussed in public higher education. For students and faculty, these changes reshape not only what can be taught, but what kinds of scholarship and inquiry are permitted on campus. The elimination of a long-standing academic program at one of the country’s largest public universities signals how quickly these shifts can take hold, and how widely they may spread.
Being concerned is no longer enough. It’s time for us to stand up and actively protect these programs.
Students, educators and advocates are increasingly being asked to document and challenge the dismantling of academic programs and protections across the country.
Ms. Classroom wants to hear from educators and students being impacted by legislation attacking public education, higher education, gender, race and sexuality studies, activism and social justice in education, and diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Cue: a new series from Ms., ‘Banned! Voices from the Classroom.’ Submit pitches and/or op-eds and reflections (between 500-800 words) to Ms. contributing editor Aviva Dove-Viebahn at adove-viebahn@msmagazine.com. Posts will be accepted on a rolling basis.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
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