"SB 37 Will Harm Students’ Development as Critical Thinkers"—TLEEC Testimony Against Senate Bill 37, March 20, 2025

Friends:

Sen. Brandon Creighton's (R-Dist. 4) Senate Bill 37 merits a close read not only because it is injurious to the purposes of higher education, but it could prove to be model legislation for other states. It is an anti-tenure and anti-faculty governance bill and is premised on the view that we are not doing our job in higher education in preparing young people for productive lives in society. At worst, we're allegedly and falsely about "woke indoctrination" instead of real education. 

As University of Houston's Dr. Maria Gonzalez demonstrated in her testimony, citing all the Texas institutions that granted the very legislators on Senate Education Committee their college diplomas, the system isn't broken, but rather doing what it's supposed to be doing. Similarly, Texas AFT's Amanda Garcia said that if it's not broken, it shouldn't be fixed.

To get the whole picture, I encourage you to listen for yourselves to the testimony delivered in yesterday's hearing in the Senate Committee on Education (Part I and Part II).  Of course, as usual, the invited testimony was approving of the bill while everyone else that spoke was strongly opposed. 

I am happy to share here this Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition policy brief on the bill from which witness Vivek Datla testified. A version of it will most certainly come out of the Senate. A goal would be to stop it in the House.

Of course, reach out to whoever represents you to express your views on this horrific legislation that spells disaster for Texas higher education should any version of this become law.

-Angela Valenzuela

SB 37 Will Harm Students’ Development as Critical Thinkers

TLEEC Testimony Against Senate Bill 37, submitted by Vivek Datla to the Texas Senate K-16 Education Committee, March 20, 2025

Dear Chairman Creighton and members of the K-16 Education Committee,

My name is Vivek Datla, and I am an IDRA Education Policy Fellow testifying on behalf of the Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition (TLEEC) against Senate Bill 37. Our coalition is a statewide collaborative of more than 38 organizations and individuals with the mission to improve the quality of public education for all children, with a focus on racial equity. We advocate at the local, state and national levels for high-quality teaching, curricula and instructional practices, bilingual education, fair funding, and enhanced college access and success.

TLEEC opposes SB 37 and is specifically concerned about Sections 51.315 and 454 and the potential of these proposals to censor students’ exposure to diverse curricula and ideologies as taught by field experts. The sections would diminish students’ exercise of free thought and academic judgement and impede the overall development of students as critically thinking adults.

Shared Governance Structures Promote Fair Curricula, Critical Thinking and Free Expression

Texas’ public universities do a great job of developing students and preparing them for the workforce. They consistently rank highly in publications of the nation’s best college institutions. They are powered by the principles of shared governance developed jointly in the 1960s by the American Association of University Professors, the American Council on Education, and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges.

In producing those guidelines, the representatives of faculty, school leaders and governing board members recognized that the shared interests of different university bodies necessitate collaboration, shared management of responsibilities, and freedom of expression without fear of reprisal. Those shared interests should, as they correctly described, create and maintain an educational process that enables students to “be stimulated by it to become independent adults” and that transmits to them “the cultural heritage of the larger society,” including the “strength, freshness of view and idealism of the student body.” Research suggests that when students engage with curricula that challenge previously held beliefs, they become more civically engaged and are better prepared to cooperate with others in their workspaces and in their communities (Son Holoien, 2013).

It was understood then that decisions concerning curricula and instructional methods are best left, as they are now, to field and research experts: the faculty who work directly with students daily to introduce them to diverse subject matter, foster their creative thinking and analytical skills, and prepare them for careers after college that require them to exercise individual judgement to work with others to solve complex problems.

SB 37 Creates Vague Requirements and Processes that May Induce a “Chilling Effect” on Curriculum and Instruction

SB 37 introduces vague and potentially harmful constraints on students’ exposure to diverse curricula and ideas, while transferring curriculum oversight from faculty to new and unnecessary review committees. Specifically, we are concerned about bill language that seeks to establish an office to “address matters of academic discourse,” though the bill does not clarify allowable or unallowable discourse.

Additionally, we are concerned that the bill restricts any curricula from endorsing “specific public policies, ideologies or legislation,” though these terms and what endorsement is are not defined. This lack of clarity and the broad nature of these proposals are likely to create a political chilling effect on higher education courses, curricula and activities that ultimately reduces students’ exposure to and discussion of complex topics, inhibiting their development as critical thinkers in the process.

Recommendations

TLEEC urges the following recommendations.

• Maintain and strengthen shared governance structures that allow for engagement with diverse curriculum curated by experts.
• Support Texas colleges to offer students a diverse range of perspectives, experiences and opportunities that will prepare them to be critical thinkers, innovators and leaders.

For questions, please contact TLEEC either through Kaci Wright at IDRA (kaci.wright@idra.org), Dr. Chloe Latham Sikes at IDRA (chloe.sikes@idra.org) or Jaime Puente at Every Texan (puente@everytexan.org).

Resources

Son Holoien, D. (September 2013). Do Differences Make a Difference? The Effects of Diversity on Learning, Intergroup Outcomes, and Civic Engagement. Princeton Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity. https://inclusive.princeton.edu/sites/g/files/toruqf7151/files/pu-report- diversity-outcomes.pdf

Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition (TLEEC) is a collaborative of organizations and individuals with the mission to improve the quality of public education for all children, with a focus on racial equity. The coalition convenes organizations and individuals who advocate in the interest of public school students at the local, state and national levels.

TLEEC Member Organizations

ARISE Adelante Asian Texans for Justice Austin Justice Coalition Big Thought Black Parents and Families Collective Breakthrough Central  Texas Coalition of Texans with Disabilities Culturingua Dr. Hector P. García G.I. Forum Easterseals Central Texas Educators in Solidarity (EIS) Ethnic Studies Network of Texas (ESNTX) Every Texan Houston Community Voices for Public Education IDRA McNeil Educational Foundation for Ecumenical Leadership Measure Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) Mexican American School Board Members Association (MASBA)

National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) – Tejas Foco San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce SEAT (Students Engaged in Advancing Texas) Southwest Region Youth Legislative Action Center Texas American Federation of Teachers Texas Association for Bilingual Education (TABE) Texas Association for Chicanos in Higher Education (TACHE) Texas Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (TADOHE) Texas Association of Mexican American Chambers of Commerce (TAMACC) Texas Center for Education Policy at the University of Texas – Austin Texas Hispanics Organized for Political Education (HOPE) Texas League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) Texas NAACP Texas State Teachers Association (TSTA) The Arc of Texas UnidosUS (formerly known as NCLR) UP Partnership

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.—Testimony March 20, 2025, before the Senate Education K-16 Committee in Opposition to Senate Bill 37

Friends:

URGENT WARNING: Sen. Brandon Creighton's (R-Dist. 4) Senate Bill 37 demands immediate attention—not only because it poses a direct threat to the very foundation of higher education, but because it could set a dangerous precedent for other states. 

This alarming piece of legislation is a full-scale attack on tenure and faculty governance, rooted in the misguided notion that educators are failing in their duty to prepare students for meaningful contributions to society. Even more disturbingly, as part of the "anti-woke" agenda, it perpetuates the false and inflammatory claim that universities are engaged in so-called "woke indoctrination" rather than genuine education. Hence, the focus of my testimony that addresses this assumption that lurks behind the bill. We only get 2 minutes to speak, so here is my testimony, short and sweet.

To learn about all that was said, you can hear for yourselves from yesterday's Senate Committee on Education deliberations (Parts I and II).  If left unchecked, this bill could have devastating consequences for academic freedom nationwide.

Thanks to Dr. David Albert, here is the link to yesterday's Senate Ed hearing together with a breakdown of where exactly on the meter you can hear everybody's testimonies:

Public testimony begins at 2:33 minutes and goes on for about an hour and 35 minutes.  I tried to get times for most of our people below. 

2:33 - Leonard Bright, 2:35 Seth Chandler, 2:39 - Margaret Hale (they were asked some questions by the panel)

3:16 - Karma Chavez, 3:18 - Andrea Gore, 3:20 - Pauline Strong, 3:23 - Brian Evans,

3:25 - Caitlin Smith, 3:28 - Jake Leo, 3:30 - Angela Valenzuela, 

3:42 - Amanda Garcia, 3:45 - Mathew LaDue, 3:48 - Andrew Henrich, 

3:59 - David Albert, 4:01 - Maria Unda, 4:04 - Allen Liu

As you can hear from everybody's testimonies, our concerns are by no means exaggerated. SB 37 is truly appalling. Its very filing sends a chilling message and will undoubtedly already have devastating consequences just in terms of the message it's sending out to the world. 

Frankly, this bill should have never been introduced in the first place.

-Angela Valenzuela

Testimony on Senate Bill 37

Countering the Allegation of Indoctrination in Higher Education: We are Epistemic Bubbles, Not Echo Chambers

by

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

March 20, 2025

I have thought long and hard about what education would look like if we were truly indoctrinating our students. I draw from the compelling work of game theorist and philosopher C. Thi Nguyen, who distinguishes “echo chambers” from “epistemic bubbles” or “knowledge bubbles.”

An echo chamber is a carefully rigged structure of language where a particular idea becomes a message that bounces off the walls from various sources. There is a distinctive sense of people who are insiders and outsiders to the echo chamber, with the outsiders being mistrusted and actively discredited. The “anti-woke” agenda itself is a good example of the echo chamber.

In contrast, an epistemic bubble emerges from an informational architecture that derives from our fields of study and the disciplines—that are themselves structured by specific methodologies, theoretical frameworks, operating assumptions, and so on.

While epistemic bubbles can also be impaired, they work differently from echo chambers. There is no “other side” that they are actively distrusting or discrediting. The issue is rather the never-ending quest of addressing our own blind spots, biases, and gaps in knowledge in our own research and teaching.

Whereas echo chambers can become quite durable—even to the point of rejecting disconfirming evidence—epistemic bubbles are more unstable and easily burst. And those bursts are the stuff of intellectual growth, epiphanies, and pathbreaking discoveries.

The irony is that SB 37 is justified as an attack on woke and ostensibly “woke professors” when what is actually sought is a backwards educational architecture that will cripple the scientific enterprise should this bill become law. Do we indoctrinate? No, we evolve and grow with our students by challenging them to think critically, question assumptions, and engage in the continuous pursuit of knowledge. Thank you very much.

Reference

Nguyen, C. T. (2018). Escape the echo chamber. Aeon Magazine,12. https://cs50.harvard.edu/x/2021/labs/10/chamber.pdf

Texas faculty testify against bills to screen universities’ curriculum for “ideological” bias, by Jessica Priest, Texas Tribune

As covered by Jessica Priest with the Texas Tribune, professors across Texas, myself included, gathered yesterday to issue a dire warning against Senate Bill 37, condemning it as a direct assault on academic freedom that could muzzle educators and impose sweeping ideological restrictions on higher education. Many argued that the bill will most definitely instill a climate of fear, forcing professors to self-censor rather than risk political repercussions for discussing essential but controversial subjects. Even more alarming, SB 37 represents an unprecedented power grab, stripping faculty of their long-held role in shaping curricula and hiring decisions and instead handing this authority to governing boards stacked with political appointees. 

The bill’s overhaul of faculty senates is equally troubling, as it would drastically curtail faculty participation and eliminate their ability to hold university leadership accountable. If enacted, SB 37 and its accompanying proposals could very easily dismantle the academic excellence Texas has spent decades building, leaving a system that prioritizes ideological conformity over intellectual rigor.

Republicans and Democrats should be equally outraged by this power grab by a senator who needs—and will indeed take this "win" to become governor. The public needs to be aware of this and act on it right away.

The bill still has to go to the House side. It would be great if we can stop it dead in its tracks there. Stay tuned!

-Angela Valenzuela

Texas faculty testify against bills to screen universities’ curriculum for “ideological” bias


Lawmakers say several bills under consideration Thursday would “address the unchecked authority of faculty.” They would expand university governing boards’ oversight powers.

By Jessica Priest March 20, 2025 | Texas Tribune

The University of Texas System's Board of Regents during a regular meeting in Austin on May 3, 2023.

Dozens of professors testified Thursday against a proposal that would prevent college courses from endorsing “specific public policies, ideologies or legislation,” saying it threatens not only their freedom to teach, but students’ freedom to learn.

The Texas Senate’s K-16 Education Committee heard testimony Thursday on Senate Bill 37, by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, a sweeping piece of legislation that would task universities’ governing boards with screening curricula for ideological bias, among other things.

Seth Chandler, a professor of law at the University of Houston, said the bill could be interpreted as prohibiting a broad range of subjects — from the teaching of free market economics to the original interpretation of the Constitution, or even the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery.

Others said the legislation would instill fear to introduce and discuss material some might find controversial.

"Mostly, I'm concerned with how SB 37 infantilizes college students. These are adults who take my classes, who are bright, thoughtful and more than capable of confronting new and challenging ideas,” said Caitlin Smith, an assistant professor of Instruction in the Department of Educational Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin.

Sen. Royce West, a Democrat from Dallas, leveled with them. He said it was likely this bill would pass because Republicans have the majority, but he repeatedly asked witnesses to provide suggested language that would make the bill “more palatable.”

Creighton said he’d review their suggestions.

“It’s not our intention to promote fear,” he said. “There’s 10,000 bills in the Capitol that may cause someone anywhere from indigestion to incredible fear, but that’s because it’s the unknown, it’s change."

SB 37 would reduce faculty’s role in curriculum and hiring decisions and transfer much of it to the governing boards that oversee Texas’ public universities. They are composed of regents appointed by the governor and make policy, budget and administrative decisions for their systems.

Sherry Sylvester, a distinguished senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and one of Creighton’s invited witnesses, said SB 37 is a critical next step to build on the state’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in higher education. She said it would address an imbalance in the number of classes with gender, race and identity in their title versus those that cite the Federalist Papers or the Declaration of Independence.

Sylvester added that she was concerned about those classes being used to fulfill core curriculum requirements and that they don’t help meet the state’s workforce needs. SB 37 would require boards to create committees, made up of local industry partners and tenured faculty at the institution, to ensure courses prepare students for the workforce.

The bill “will ensure that the general education courses that students are required to take are focused on both their professional and civic skills, what they will need to prosper in the work world and in their lives after graduation,” she said.

SB 37 would also give college and university governing boards the final say on a wider range of leadership hires. Right now, governing boards are mostly tasked with hiring university system chancellors or individual universities’ presidents. SB 37 would let them vet and veto other administrators like deans and provosts.

West pointed out Texas public universities employ more than a thousand administrators to underscore how much additional work vetting the new hires would mean for regents. He said the regents already have power over curriculum and hiring because they can convey their wishes to their university systems’ chancellors and presidents.

“So what’s the current problem?” West asked.

Sen. Mayes Middleton, R-Galveston, said he did not think confirming or vetoing the hiring of department chairs would be too much additional work for regents as there are only 82 at the University of Texas at Austin and they are unlikely to turn over at the same time. Creighton added that SB 37 will better orient future regents to their new responsibilities.

In addition, SB 37 would codify how faculty senates are established and who can serve in them. Faculty senates are bodies of professors that advise university leaders. They currently take the lead in developing curricula and in hiring and evaluating their fellow academics.

Creighton said he was spurred to limit faculty’s influence after some pushed against their universities’ leaders.

Creighton said Stephen F. Austin University joined the University of Texas System in part because the faculty held a vote of no confidence in University President Scott Gordon in 2021. Professors were upset Gordon had accepted an $85,000 pay raise amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The university’s board of regents backed Gordon despite the vote, but he ultimately stepped down months later.

One of Creighton’s invited witnesses, Carrie Butler, an SFA professor on sabbatical, offered a different account of the vote.

“It’s my opinion that the faculty senate did not accurately or appropriately make the decision based on credible information. It seemed to me, if I might use the term, more of a witch hunt,” Butler said.

Faculty at West Texas A&M University also took a vote of no confidence on President Walter Wendler after he banned a drag show on campus in 2023. Wendler remains president.

Creighton said there was a “lack of transparency for all to understand these actions … that have significant consequences on the future of the flagship or other systems.”

Some of the professors who testified Thursday wanted to make it clear to Creighton that the American Association of University Professors, not a faculty senate, was responsible for circulating a petition of no confidence for Jay Hartzell, who served as president of the University of Texas at Austin when police arrested dozens of students for protesting the Israel-Hamas war last spring. Creighton is a UT-Austin graduate.

“That petition was organized by a group that is entirely autonomous from the university. Not only did the faculty senate have nothing to do with it, they disavowed it and there was never a vote,” said Andrea Gore, a professor of pharmacology and toxicology at UT-Austin.

Creighton said SB 37 will still allow faculty senates to take votes of no confidence, but they’d have to be recorded and the members of the faculty senate would be limited to one-year terms.

SB 37 would also establish an office within the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to receive and investigate complaints that universities are not complying with state law. The office would employ nine people and cost more than $2 million to operate in its first year, according to the bill’s fiscal note.

The State Auditor’s Office is already checking college and universities’ compliance with the DEI ban. It released its first report on the issue last month, finding two minor violations so far.

Neal Hutchens, a professor at the University of Kentucky’s College of Education, said state legislatures and governing boards need to be careful not to use a wrecking ball to accomplish their goal for more transparency and accountability.

Hutchens said governing boards should ensure their institutions meet their state’s demand for certain professionals, such as engineers and doctors. But SB 37 opens the door for board members to prevent professors from teaching about certain topics that they might disagree with, Hutchens said.

“These are public institutions, so they should be responsive and representative to the public,” he said. “But if we become fixated on the idea that every course and every professor is trying to indoctrinate students, you really run the risk of harming institutions states have spent decades, centuries, building up.”

For decades, professors, administrators and governing boards have agreed to divvy up their responsibilities and lend their expertise to certain tasks in the best interests of their universities, said Mark Criley with the American Association of University Professors.

Criley said SB 37 conflicts with this agreement by stating that each college within the university may only have two faculty members on the faculty senate and one of the two must be appointed by the university president.

He said that under SB 37, faculty also would be excluded from disciplinary processes. At most top-tier universities, administrators who believe a faculty member’s conduct warrants discipline or dismissal make that case before a committee of faculty members. If that committee doesn’t agree, the administrator then takes it up with the board of regents.

“Excellence at an institution requires that the faculty be given a voice and often a decisive voice,” Criley said.

On Thursday, several professors who came to testify pointed out that SB 37 allows only tenured professors to serve on faculty senates and make recommendations on curriculum. They said this would disenfranchise non-tenured faculty members who also contribute to the success of their institutions and have valuable expertise to offer.

Another bill discussed Thursday, authored by Sen. Lois Kolkhorst, would require regents to attend 75% of their meetings annually in person. Those who fail to do so would have to pay a $1,000 fine to the general scholarship fund of the institution. A second violation would make that regent ineligible to be reappointed.

In her bill’s statement of intent, the Brenham Republican wrote that some university system regents have missed more meetings since the COVID-19 pandemic began. She did not say which regents she was referring to.

The committee on Thursday also discussed prohibiting colleges and universities from accepting gifts, grants, donations or investments from certain foreign entities and measures to prevent those foreign entities from stealing universities’ intellectual property.

This year, Texas became the state with the most top-tier research universities.

Professors on Thursday reminded lawmakers that they’re the ones who made that happen, winning billions of dollars in competitive research grants. They cautioned that the restrictions legislators are considering might lead faculty to flee for job opportunities elsewhere.

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

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