The Governance of Knowledge vs. the Return on Knowing: Project 2025 and the Remaking of Texas Higher Education, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Governance of Knowledge vs. the Return on Knowing: Project 2025 and the Remaking of Texas Higher Education

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

August 30, 2026

In 2024, the Intercultural Development Research Association (IDRA) published Five Threats to Public Education in Our States and Communities: An Analysis of Project 2025, warning that Project 2025 threatened federal education funding, public schooling, civil-rights enforcement, protections against discriminatory discipline, and educational access for immigrant students (Intercultural Development Research Association [IDRA], 2024). Read two years later, the report appears remarkably prescient. Yet what has transpired in 2025–26 suggests something even larger than the dismantling IDRA anticipated.

What is taking shape is a governance of knowledge.

By this I mean an increasingly coordinated effort to determine not merely how universities are funded or administered, but who possesses authority over knowledge itself: what may be taught, which fields deserve institutional protection, which histories are legitimate, which forms of inequality government is willing to recognize, which programs survive, and who gets to participate in those decisions.

This is why Project 2025 should not be understood simply as an agenda for “smaller government.” Government has not simply retreated from education. In important respects, political authority has been redirected and concentrated.

At the federal level, President Trump's March 2025 executive order directed the secretary of education, to the extent permitted by law, to facilitate the closure of the U.S. Department of Education and return authority to states and localities. Days earlier, the department had announced a reduction in force affecting nearly half of its workforce (White House, 2025; U.S. Department of Education, 2025). By July 2026, the department had also rescinded disparate-impact provisions from its Title VI regulations, narrowing an important means through which structurally unequal outcomes can be recognized as civil-rights problems (U.S. Department of Education, 2026).

Source: Texas Border Business

Yet simultaneously, government has become more—not less—assertive in defining acceptable educational practice, DEI, accreditation, curriculum, and institutional priorities. Project 2025's significance therefore lies not simply in deregulation, but in re-regulation around a different ideological conception of education (Burke, 2023).

Texas provides perhaps the clearest example.

Senate Bill 37, enacted in 2025, fundamentally redefined shared governance at Texas public universities. Governing boards must periodically review general education curricula and may reserve authority to overturn institutional curricular decisions. Faculty senates are explicitly declared “advisory only,” while the law defines shared governance as a structure in which governing boards exercise ultimate authority and faculty participation remains consultative (Texas Legislature, 2025).

This is not a semantic change. It relocates authority.

Shared governance has never meant that faculty alone run universities. Its premise is that universities are knowledge-producing institutions and that academic expertise therefore carries distinctive authority in matters of curriculum, scholarship, academic standards, and faculty status. SB 37 turns that relationship on its head. Expertise advises; politically appointed governing authorities decide.

The consequences are already visible. PEN America has documented widespread review of syllabi and courses across Texas public institutions, accompanied by course cancellations, curricular alterations, and faculty uncertainty about discussions of race, gender, and other politically contested subjects (Carter, 2026). The American Association of University Professors consequently launched a statewide inquiry in June 2026 into what it describes as the dismantling of shared faculty governance and threats to academic freedom across Texas public universities (American Association of University Professors [AAUP], 2026).

At the University of Texas System, the May 2026 revision of Regents' Rule 31003 further consolidated presidential authority over the elimination of occupied academic positions and academic programs. Faculty retain opportunities for input, but the president determines whether programs and positions should be eliminated, subject ultimately to System approval (University of Texas System Board of Regents, 2026).

At UT-Austin, meanwhile, African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latino Studies, Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, and American Studies were consolidated into the new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, affecting programs in which more than 800 students were pursuing degrees or credentials when the restructuring was announced (Dey, 2026). 

Each development can be defended individually as governance, efficiency, accountability, curricular coherence, or institutional restructuring. What matters, however, is the cumulative pattern. As Kamola (2024) demonstrates in Manufacturing Backlash, attacks on DEI, tenure, accreditation, curriculum, and shared governance have not emerged independently. They have been promoted through networks of think tanks and political organizations that have turned dissatisfaction with higher education into a sustained legislative campaign against university autonomy and academic freedom.

The goal of manufactured backlash is therefore larger than winning an argument about DEI or a particular course. Its political power lies in changing the institutional conditions under which knowledge itself is produced, legitimized, circulated, and preserved.

And here lies the extraordinary irony of our historical moment.

As I wrote earlier this year in “Exponential Knowledge, Narrowing Worlds,” Derek J. de Solla Price's classic Little Science, Big Science demonstrated that modern scientific knowledge expands exponentially rather than linearly (Price, 1963; Valenzuela, 2026a). Subsequent bibliometric research has confirmed the extraordinary growth of scientific publication over time (Bornmann & Mutz, 2015).

Humanity is therefore living through an unprecedented expansion of knowledge.

But more knowledge does not automatically produce a more inclusive knowledge order.

As I argued in that essay, the growth curve identified by Price remains compelling, but expansion may simultaneously intensify “asymmetries of recognition, visibility, and institutional power” (Valenzuela, 2026a). An exponentially expanding knowledge system can still privilege some languages, institutions, histories, disciplines, and populations while marginalizing others.

Texas reveals a domestic political version of precisely this paradox.

At the very historical moment when knowledge is multiplying at unprecedented speed, government is becoming increasingly involved in determining which knowledge counts.

We are simultaneously experiencing an expansion of knowing and a narrowing of epistemic authority.

This development stands diametrically opposed to what I have called the Return on Knowing, or ROK (Valenzuela, 2026b).

ROK asks us to move beyond the increasingly dominant language of return on investment, or ROI, in which universities and disciplines are evaluated principally according to earnings, workforce demand, enrollment, efficiency, and immediate economic productivity. It instead asks a deeper question: What becomes possible because people know more—and what does ignorance cost us? (Valenzuela, 2026b).

The distinction is crucial.

A Return on Knowing recognizes historical, cultural, scientific, linguistic, and civic knowledge as public infrastructure. Knowing more about the peoples with whom we live, the institutions that govern us, histories that produced the present, and perspectives unlike our own strengthens judgment, professional competence, democratic literacy, institutional trust, and society's capacity to solve problems.

A governance of knowledge moves in the opposite direction.

ROK asks how we can enlarge society's capacity to know.

The governance of knowledge asks which knowledge authorities will permit institutions to sustain.

ROK treats intellectual plurality as an asset.

The governance of knowledge treats certain forms of plurality as problems requiring oversight.

ROK disperses epistemic capacity.

The governance of knowledge concentrates epistemic authority.

That distinction helps explain why shared governance matters so profoundly. The erosion of faculty authority is not simply an employment issue for professors. It alters the architecture through which societies decide what knowledge will exist.

The chilling effect follows naturally. Faculty need not be formally censored if they begin anticipating what legislators, regents, presidents, donors, or administrators might regard as objectionable. Institutions need not formally abolish fields if those fields can be consolidated, audited, deprived of autonomy, or required repeatedly to justify themselves according to politically defined measures of relevance. The most effective governance of knowledge may ultimately be the system in which universities learn to regulate themselves.

The K–12 implications identified by IDRA remain important as well. Texas enacted its private-school voucher program in 2025, moving public dollars into private educational settings, while federal retrenchment in civil-rights enforcement and the removal of disparate-impact protections potentially weaken safeguards for students experiencing systemic inequities (IDRA, 2024; Office of the Texas Governor, 2025). These developments belong to the same larger struggle over whether education is understood as a democratic public institution carrying obligations to everyone or increasingly as a collection of individual choices governed by markets and political authority.

But higher education adds another dimension because universities are among society's central institutions for producing new knowledge.

This is what makes the current moment so consequential.

The central question before Texas is no longer simply whether DEI programs should exist, whether one course is sufficiently “balanced,” whether a faculty senate should have sixty members, or whether a particular academic department should remain administratively independent.

The question is who gets to govern knowledge.

Who decides what Texans need to know? Who determines which forms of knowledge merit investment? Who decides what constitutes a legitimate discipline? Who determines whether a politically controversial subject is nevertheless academically indispensable? And what institutional protections remain when knowledge produced through scholarly inquiry conflicts with political power? Yes, lots of questions, but important ones.

Price showed us a world in which knowledge expands exponentially.

Our political challenge is to ensure that the institutions responsible for that knowledge do not simultaneously become narrower.

Because a society can possess more information than any civilization in history and still become less capable of knowing itself.

That is the danger of manufactured backlash.

And it is precisely why a Return on Knowing offers a profoundly different vision for the public university: not an institution disciplined into producing only politically approved or immediately monetizable knowledge, but one capable of expanding what society can understand, remember, imagine, and become.

References

American Association of University Professors. (2026, June 24). AAUP launches inquiry into academic freedom in Texas. AAUP inquiry

Bornmann, L., & Mutz, R. (2015). Growth rates of modern science: A bibliometric analysis based on the number of publications and cited references. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 66(11), 2215–2222. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23329

Burke, L. M. (2023). Department of Education. In P. Dans & S. Groves (Eds.), Mandate for leadership: The conservative promise (pp. 319–362). The Heritage Foundation.

Carter, C. (2026, May 7). Texas universities are taking censorship into their own hands. PEN America. 

Dey, S. (2026, February 12). UT-Austin to consolidate race, ethnic and gender study programs. The Texas Tribune. 

Intercultural Development Research Association. (2024). Five threats to public education in our states and communities: An analysis of Project 2025. https://www.idra.org/resource-center/five-threats-to-public-education-in-our-states-and-communities-an-analysis-of-project-2025/

Kamola, I. (2024). Manufacturing backlash: Right-wing think tanks and legislative attacks on higher education, 2021–2023. American Association of University Professors. https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/Manufacturing_Backlash_final_0.pdf

Office of the Texas Governor. (2025, May 3). Governor Abbott signs landmark school choice legislation into law. Governor's announcement

Price, D. J. de S. (1963). Little science, big science. Columbia University Press.

Texas Legislature. (2025). S.B. 37, 89th Legislature, Regular Session. Enrolled Senate Bill 37

U.S. Department of Education. (2025, March 11). U.S. Department of Education initiates reduction in force. Department of Education release

U.S. Department of Education. (2026, July 23). U.S. Department of Education removes disparate-impact from Title VI regulations. Department of Education release

University of Texas System Board of Regents. (2026). Rule 31003: Elimination of faculty positions or academic programs. Regents' Rule 31003

Valenzuela, A. (2026a, April 28). Exponential knowledge, narrowing worlds: Justice in an unequal global order. Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas. https://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2026/04/exponential-knowledge-narrowing-worlds.html

Valenzuela, A. (2026b, July 14). The return on knowing: Why Mexican American and Latino Studies is an economic investment in our shared future. Educational Equity, Politics & Policy in Texas. https://texasedequity.blogspot.com/2026/07/the-return-on-knowing-why-mexican.html

White House. (2025, March 20). Improving education outcomes by empowering parents, states, and communities. Executive order

Public Universities Belong to the Public: Join the August 12 People’s Hearing on Higher Education

Friends,

Texas higher education is being rapidly transformed—mostly without meaningful public consultation, transparent academic review, or adequate consideration of the consequences for students, faculty, families, and communities across our state.

That is why I urge you to join us on Wednesday, August 12, 2026, from 9:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m., for the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus People’s Hearing on Higher Education at the Robert Johnson Legislative Office Building, 1501 N. Congress Avenue, Austin, Texas.

The hearing is being convened by Texas State Representative Lulu Flores and the Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus, in partnership with the Latino Coalition for Excellence in Higher Education and our broader coalition of higher education advocates.

The hearing will address the weakening or dismantling of:

• Ethnic Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies;

• academic freedom and shared governance;

• the Department of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin; and

• community-based knowledge, cultural memory, and the intellectual heritage of the people of Texas.

These are not private institutional matters. Our colleges and universities are public institutions, supported in part by the taxes that all of us pay. Texans contribute to higher education through property taxes, sales taxes, state revenues, tuition, public bonds, philanthropy, and generations of labor and civic investment. These institutions therefore carry obligations not only to administrators, governing boards, or elected officials, but also to the people of Texas.

Taxpayers have a right to know how decisions affecting public universities are being made. We have a right to ask what programs are being eliminated or consolidated, whose voices are being excluded, how public resources are being used, and whether decisions are serving the educational needs of the entire state.

The children and grandchildren of working families should be able to attend universities where they can study the histories, cultures, struggles, and contributions of the communities from which they come. Black, Latino, Indigenous, Asian American, LGBTQ+, women, immigrant, rural, and working-class Texans should not be treated as peripheral to the mission of public higher education—particularly when their families help sustain these institutions through taxes, tuition, employment, research, and public service.

The urgency could not be greater. Texas has enacted sweeping restrictions on diversity, equity, and inclusion; expanded political control over curricula and university governance; weakened faculty participation in institutional decision-making; and created conditions in which academic programs may be eliminated, consolidated, or redefined before the public fully understands what is happening.

Universities are not the private property of political leaders, governing boards, donors, or administrators. They are public trusts. Their responsibility is to educate the people, advance knowledge, prepare future generations, and serve the public good.

Decisions of this magnitude should not take place behind closed doors or be announced only after they have become accomplished facts. The people who fund public higher education deserve transparency, accountability, and a meaningful voice in determining its future.

The August 12 People’s Hearing will help create a public record by bringing together students, faculty members, staff, educational leaders, alumni, advocates, community organizations, taxpayers, and concerned Texans. It will provide an opportunity for those most affected by recent policies to speak in their own voices—and for legislators and the wider public to hear what is at stake.

Your presence matters.

A hearing filled with students, educators, parents, families, elders, alumni, and community members sends a powerful message: We pay taxes. We support these institutions. They belong to the public, and the public has a right to be heard.

Please join us on August 12. Come to listen, bear witness, offer testimony, and stand in solidarity with all those defending educational freedom, academic integrity, democratic accountability, and the right of every community to see its knowledge, history, and experiences respected within our public universities.

Texas Legislative Progressive Caucus People’s Hearing on Higher Education

Wednesday, August 12, 2026

9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

Robert Johnson Legislative Office Building

1501 N. Congress Avenue

Austin, Texas 78701

Please share this announcement with all your networks. 

We are likely to have a press conference on this day. Details forthcoming.

We are not without power. The future of public higher education in Texas is being decided now. As taxpayers, educators, students, families, and members of the public, we must be present, organized, and heard.

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

UT is merging four ethnic and gender studies departments. What changes this fall, by Lily Kepner, July 10, 2026

Friends, 

I invite you to read Lily Kepner’s important reporting on the uncertain future of the University of Texas at Austin’s newly created Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. Her article makes clear that the consolidation of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, American Studies, and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies is not simply an administrative reorganization. It entails the loss of departmental names, leadership positions, staff jobs, institutional homes, and scholarly identities built over decades.

At the same time, the appointment of Dr. Danielle Clealand as interim chair offers some reassurance that the new department will be led by a respected scholar who understands these fields and has the trust of many colleagues. Faculty are clearly determined to protect their students, programs, intellectual traditions, and hard-won legacies. 

Still, the unanswered questions remain profound: Will the new department receive the resources, autonomy, and institutional respect it needs to thrive—or is this only the first stage of further erosion?

Kepner’s article captures both the grief of what is being lost and the resolve of faculty to carry this essential work forward. 

-Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

UT is merging four ethnic and gender studies departments. What changes this fall

Six weeks before the University of Texas begins its fall semester, its new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis still lacks a permanent home and a clear identity.

By Lily Kepner,Staff WriterJuly 10, 2026

Murals decorate the University of Texas Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies office in Burdine Hall, Feb. 18, 2026. UT President Jim Davis announced plans this year to consolidate ethnic and gender studies into a new department and review the courses and majors within it, but the future of the new department is still unclear.

Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman
Six weeks before the University of Texas begins its fall semester, its new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis still lacks both a permanent home and a clear identity.

As Texas universities face growing political pressure over identity-based academic programs, UT President Jim Davis announced in February that the university’s four ethnic and women gender and sexuality studies departments would be consolidated into a new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.

Offering the clearest picture yet of the department's future, College of Liberal Arts Interim Dean David Sosa on July 1 appointed Danielle Clealand, an associate professor in the Mexican American and Latina/o Studies department, as interim chair of the new department .

At the end of the academic year, the four department chairs learned they will lose their appointments in August, a new department manager was hired and the departments’ names were removed from the doors, the former chairs said.

Between the two new departments, which also include European and Eurasian studies, five staff members lost their jobs, and others were reassigned, Clealand confirmed. She said they were committed to finding new positions for the staff.

The new department and its website launch Aug. 15, when the departments of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, American Studies and Women and Gender Studies will close, Clealand said. But many questions remain.

After her first week as interim chair, Clealand, speaking to the American-Statesman as an individual, said she doesn't expect a Social and Cultural Analysis major to launch by the fall. She also said the new department has not yet been assigned a home, as the four former departments were spread across two buildings.

Although her focus going into the role is to unite the four departments in a collective vision, “I don't know if we have a unifying message yet,” Clealand said in an interview after her appointment. “Perhaps we'll get there. But I think for now we want students to know that yes, this is one large department, but within that department you can still take all of the same classes and majors that you could before.”

Clealand’s appointment eased faculty's fears that the consolidation would weaken the decades-old departments, which collectively offer six undergraduate majors, four graduate programs, six minors and three doctorate programs, said Karma Chavez, the chair of Mexican American and Latino/a studies.

“I think everyone in the four units realizes that we lost our battle, and that our objective now is to focus on building the best new department collectively and collaboratively that we possibly can,” Chavez said, adding that Clealand is “the right leader for this time.”

“The biggest question that all of us have is whether we're going to be treated like a normal department,” Chavez said, or if “another shoe will drop.”

Cherise Smith, the department chair of African and African Diaspora studies said she is "cautiously excited” about coming together with different intellectual groups and working with more students.

Smith said defining the department’s mission is complicated because social and cultural analysis is not a commonly established academic discipline.

“It’s destabilizing for all of us,” she said. “Many of us are wondering whether we can be a unified department.”

What will and won’t change this fall

Clealand said she accepted the interim chair position because she had earned the trust of colleagues in her home department and in African and African Diaspora studies, where she had often collaborated. She also held a leadership position in Mexican American and Latino studies.

Her hope for the new department, she said, is “longevity.”

Clealand said enrollment declined in ethnic and gender studies after UT eliminated the signature-course program that allowed students to satisfy core curriculum requirements through many of the departments’ classes.

Now, Clealand said she wants to encourage prospective students and faculty to see the new department’s potential despite frustration over the consolidation, which she said a majority of faculty opposed.

Having worked across two departments, Clealand said she’s seen the benefits of collaboration and hopes the consolidation will ultimately strengthen those connections.

“I think that right now people don't necessarily know what we're doing, and recruiting can be challenging because of that,” Clealand said. “But I'm hoping that we can establish ourselves as a really strong department, not only institutionally but nationally.”

Sosa, the College of Liberal Arts interim dean, said the college will begin reviewing the new department’s curriculum and degree programs during the next academic year. For now, Clealand said, all existing degree programs will continue enrolling students and offering the same curriculum.

Now, Clealand said she wants to encourage prospective students and faculty to see the new department’s potential despite frustration over the consolidation, which she said a majority of faculty opposed.

Having worked across two departments, Clealand said she’s seen the benefits of collaboration and hopes the consolidation will ultimately strengthen those connections.

“I think that right now people don't necessarily know what we're doing, and recruiting can be challenging because of that,” Clealand said. “But I'm hoping that we can establish ourselves as a really strong department, not only institutionally but nationally.”

Sosa, the College of Liberal Arts interim dean, said the college will begin reviewing the new department’s curriculum and degree programs during the next academic year. For now, Clealand said, all existing degree programs will continue enrolling students and offering the same curriculum.

‘This existential crisis’

In mid-August, professors will become “professors of social and cultural analysis,” a new department website will launch, and the four original departments will shutter.

For the former chairs, the changes amount to the loss of departments they spent their careers building.

Lisa Moore, who has taught at UT since 1991 and chairs Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, worries the new department will render her life work “invisible.”

“It's heartbreaking, and I do find myself kind of grief about it catching me,” she said. “It feels like just a really brutal loss of my scholarly and professional identity, and an erasure of the decades of my career that I know I've spent building this field.”

When Smith became chair, university leaders envisioned African and African Diaspora studies as a program that could touch every student through the core curriculum, she said.

The department eventually grew to 26 faculty members — the largest of its kind in the nation — attracting students from around the world. Although the department itself is disappearing, Smith said its legacy doesn’t have to.

“These challenges, this existential crisis, has made us recommit to and refocused on what we do,” Smith said. “ We're going to exist in a different way from here on out, but there are things that we will continue to do and that we need to continue to do intellectually and training our students, for example, that we don't need to have a department named African and African Diaspora Studies to do.”

When Consolidation Is Elimination: Ethnic Studies, Faculty Governance, and Power at UT, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

When Consolidation Is Elimination: Ethnic Studies, Faculty Governance, and Power at UT

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

April 24, 2026

UT President Jim Davis talks with Daily Texan
News Editor Maryam Ahmed in his office during the
first sit-down interview of his tenure.

In an April 9, 2026 interview with The Daily Texan, reporter Maryam Ahmed pressed UT President Jim Davis on decisions that cut to the core of the university’s academic mission: the consolidation of Ethnic Studies and related departments, the restructuring of faculty governance, and the question of public trust in higher education (Ahmed, 2026a, 2026b). What emerges is not reassurance, but a troubling portrait of governance redefined, faculty voice narrowed, and critical fields rendered administratively vulnerable under the language of “efficiency” and “stewardship.”

At issue is not whether combining departments yields intellectual “fullness,” as Davis suggests. Ethnic Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies are already deeply interdisciplinary by design. They were built to cross boundaries, challenge siloed thinking, and interrogate power. The claim that they must be consolidated to achieve interdisciplinarity reflects not innovation, but a misreading—or dismissal—of their intellectual foundations.

What remains unspoken is that “consolidation” is rarely neutral. It often functions as a quiet form of elimination—not of people, but of departmental standing, autonomy, and power. Departments carry budget authority, hiring lines, curricular control, and institutional visibility. Collapse them, and you reduce the number of sites where faculty exercise collective authority. This is not merely organizational—it is political. Power moves upward and inward, away from the very units that have historically produced the most sustained critiques of inequality.

Equally flawed is the premise that these fields are not already in dialogue. Ethnic Studies and Gender and Sexuality Studies have long operated in robust conversation—through joint appointments, cross-listed courses, and shared theoretical frameworks. To suggest they must be administratively merged to “see from different angles” misreads their history and erases existing collaboration. What is presented as integration risks becoming administrative diminishment.

When department chairs raised objections, Davis acknowledged “difference of opinion,” but deferred to a “consensus recommendation.” The question is unavoidable: whose consensus—and under what conditions was it produced?

That question takes on added urgency in light of Texas Senate Bill 37. The elected Faculty Council has been replaced with an appointed advisory body that, by Davis’s own admission, is “not intended to be representative.” This is not a procedural adjustment; it is a redefinition of governance itself. Representation is not incidental—it is the democratic core of faculty authority. What replaces it is curated input: invited voices without collective power.

Davis casts this shift as a move from “discord” to “stewardship.” But governance without disagreement is not governance—it is management. The Faculty Council’s openness enabled contestation, visibility, and record. Informal conversations, however frequent, cannot substitute for structures that allow faculty to deliberate, dissent, and hold leadership accountable. They invite candor, perhaps—but not power.

Seen in this light, the consolidation of Ethnic Studies is not an isolated decision. It is part of a broader transformation in how authority is organized and exercised. When representative structures weaken, decisions about curriculum and resources become more susceptible to top-down rationales—especially those framed in neutral administrative language. Terms like “efficiency” and “balance” function as what critical policy scholars call “discursive cover,” recasting political choices as technical necessity (Fairclough, 1992; Tauber & Wolf, 2018).

Davis denies that political pressures shaped the decision. Yet this claim must be read within the context of Texas Senate Bill 17, which has already dismantled DEI infrastructure and chilled institutional commitments to equity. Even without explicit directives, universities operate under conditions of anticipatory compliance—aligning themselves with perceived political expectations to avoid risk. In such an environment, structural changes to fields like Ethnic Studies rarely occur in a vacuum.

The same ambiguity surrounds resources. Davis insists that “nothing has changed,” yet acknowledges uncertainty ahead. Faculty concerns about moving from multiple funding streams to fewer reflect well-established patterns: consolidation often leads to internal competition, diminished autonomy, and eventual contraction. The metaphor of a recombined pie obscures a central reality—who controls the knife.

There is also an intellectual cost. Ethnic Studies does not simply add perspective; it anchors critical inquiry into race, power, colonialism, and inequality. When absorbed into larger units, its distinctiveness—and its capacity to challenge dominant frameworks—can be diluted. The result is not interdisciplinarity, but incorporation: difference folded into sameness.

Public trust will not be restored through consolidation or administrative redesign. It is built through transparency, accountability, and genuine shared governance. It requires not only listening to faculty, but ensuring they have real, representative power in shaping institutional direction.

UT Austin is not just reorganizing departments—it is redefining who gets to decide what counts as knowledge, whose voices carry authority, and which fields are allowed to remain visible as distinct sites of critique.

And that is the real stakes of this moment: not whether programs are combined, but whether the university still has the structural capacity—and the political will—to sustain knowledge that speaks back to power, rather than being quietly reorganized out of it.

References

Ahmed, M. (2026a, April 9). Exclusive: UT President Jim Davis reflects on first year leading University. The Daily Texan. https://thedailytexan.com/2026/04/09/exclusive-ut-president-jim-davis-reflects-on-first-year-leading-university/

Ahmed, M. (2026b, April 9). Read the full transcript of UT President Jim Davis’ first interview since taking office. The Daily Texan. https://thedailytexan.com/2026/04/09/read-the-full-transcript-of-ut-president-jim-davis-first-interview-since-taking-office/

Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and social change. Polity Press.

Tauber, R., & Wolf, S. (2018, December 5). Students, faculty discuss free speech. The Williams Record. https://williamsrecord.com/4037/news/students-faculty-discuss-free-speech/

UT explores merging 'fragmented' departments, raising fears over ethnic studies’ future | “What Happens Here Happens to Us”

The sense of alarm among many right now is profound. What appears to be a routine “consolidation” of departments within UT Austin’s College of Liberal Arts is, in truth, anything but routine. Words like “flexibility” or appeals to “political neutrality” mask a deeper politics—not only of erasure, but of disciplining how we think, teach, and speak from the authenticity of our own experience and standpoint.

I’m reminded of a conversation years ago with my dear friend and former UT professor, Doug Foley. In the middle of a lively exchange, he looked at me with that characteristic glint in his eye and belted out with his voice, “You’re not supposed to have a standpoint!”

For a moment I was taken aback—“Them’s fightin’ words,” my face must have said. Then he burst out laughing. “What do you expect? You’re a Chicana!” He made me smile.

But his point stays with me. Our universities are under siege. Instead of embracing deliberation and democratic dialogue, they are succumbing to control—decisions made in private rooms, cloaked in bureaucratic language. Words like “consolidate” can easily mask what is, in practice, the erosion of intellectual autonomy and the quiet dismantling of programs that took generations to build—programs born from community struggle and sustained by public trust. It’s disheartening how similar this language sounds to the rationale now being used for the next wave of school closures in the Austin Independent School District.

Departments such as African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, Asian Studies, and Women’s and Gender Studies are not bureaucratic redundancies—they are living archives of research, creativity, and truth-telling. They produce cutting-edge scholarship that grapples with some of society’s hardest questions. These programs exist because communities demanded greater balance in perspectives forged through struggle and love.

Their existence testifies to the courage of generations of students, faculty, and community members who refused to let their histories, languages, and epistemologies be erased. I am a product of Mexican American Studies—and I am proud of it. I am a teacher, researcher, friend, and colleague shaped by a tradition of care, rigor, and purpose. We prepare exceptional scholars and public servants who engage the needs of our communities with professionalism, insight, and hope. We do this work well—and it matters.

After all, many of us are from here and live here. We’ve been here since before there ever was a Texas or a United States. Contrary to what some might think, we have nowhere “to go back to.” Our histories, our children, our grandchildren, and our dreams are interwoven with this place. What happens here happens to us.

There’s nothing “woke” about this—there’s only truth: the truth of who we are, where we come from, and our enduring commitment to the future of this place we call home.

Students and faculty are right to demand clarity, transparency, and above all, honesty. We deserve to know what problem this reorganization is meant to solve—and at what cost. When programs that have long served the heart of our communities are merged, diminished, or dissolved, we are not strengthening the university—we are surrendering its soul. And for what? And for whom?

This is not consolidation; it is capitulation.

— Angela Valenzuela

UT explores merging 'fragmented' departments, raising fears over ethnic studies’ future

As rumors circulate that UT’s ethnic studies programs may be at risk of consolidation, the school’s College of Liberal Arts told faculty a committee is reviewing “overly fragmented” departments.

From left, Mia, Daniel Schoeggl and Elijah Rivera, from Students for a Democratic Society, lead the crowd in chants at a protest at the University of Texas at Austin on Monday, October. 13, 2025. About 150 people gathered to protest Trump's compact, which was sent to UT and eight other schools. If signed, UT will get exclusive benefits but also pledge to follow trump's guidance. Aaron E. Martinez/Austin American-Statesman

By Lily Kepner, Staff Writer, Austin American-Statesman, Oct 30, 2025

As rumors circulate that the University of Texas’ ethnic studies programs may be at risk of consolidation, the school’s College of Liberal Arts told faculty a new committee is exploring administrative changes to some of the school’s departments that “may have become overly fragmented.
In an Oct. 23 email sent to department chairs, an associate dean wrote that the advisory committee is considering changes to the “administrative departmental structure of the college,” not individual academic programs or centers. However, the consolidation changes may result in some programs losing autonomy, the administrator conceded in the email obtained by the Statesman.

“There are, of course, tradeoffs to be considered, including potentially some loss of autonomy for small units,” wrote Daniel Brinks, the associate dean for academic and faculty affairs. “But the ultimate goal is to strengthen the college and its individual components.”

The task force’s work is to propose ways to reorganize some departments into new larger units that will “provide greater opportunities for collaboration and have more flexibility to accommodate change,” Brinks added.

The email did not name which departments are poised for consolidation, but the committee includes representatives from Asian Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Classics, American Studies, American Sign Language, Spanish and Portuguese and is chaired by Brinks.

The announcement comes as Texas public universities face tremendous political pressure to rid institutions of “gender ideology” and target LGBTQ and ethnic studies. Texas A&M recently fired children’s literature professor Melissa McCoul when a student accused her of teaching about gender identity in a viral video that caught the attention of Gov. Greg Abbott.

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Third-year PhD student Lena Mose-Vargas, who is pursuing a doctorate in Mexican American and Latino/a Studies, is one of many students who emailed the College of Liberal Arts to oppose the feared consolidation and ask if their program will be impacted. Mose-Vargas, who spoke to the Statesman on behalf of themself, said they received no information in response. They chose to study at UT because of the program’s rigor and fear the rumored changes will compromise their program’s excellence.

“Students are asking questions and they’re not receiving answers,” Mose-Vargas said. “We anticipate, in this political climate and with the particular attacks on WGS (Women and Gender Studies) and ethnic studies, that this is likely going to be what we’re looking at.”

‘A full education’

In a recent speech, President Jim Davis said that UT will restore balance and “completeness” to students’ education amid concerns that departments have become too “splintered and specialized” at the expense of including all viewpoints.

“We don’t want degree programs that are so narrow they develop only one perspective,” Davis said. “Instead we must provide a balanced education — a full education — for every degree program.”

Students have protested the new College of Liberal Arts committee in demonstrations across campus, calling for the institution to resist external political pressures. UT has been silent on whether it will accept an offer from the administration of President Donald Trumpthat would require the institution to close or change programs that “belittle” conservative voices.

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Like students who oppose combining ethnic studies departments, Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies Chair Mary Neuburger joined other department faculty in writing a letter to Interim Dean David Sosa to critique the concept of consolidation. The faculty members said consolidation would threaten their department’s ability to teach the cultural complexities of regions.

“People are upset about this for good reason,” Neuburger said. “Because we’re not understanding what is going to be gained, and we are definitely seeing what is going to be lost.”

The Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies opened in 1917, Neuburger said. Though her department is a segment of global area studies, she fears its size could make it eligible for consolidation. But its size is also an advantage, she said.

The department provides a key opportunity for specialization that can distinguish graduates from other job candidates and allows for in-depth learning. A broadening of her department would prohibit students from deeply understanding important parts of Slavic history, impacting the work and grants its research center brings in, she said.

But Neuburger fears “it’s inevitable,” she said. “It’s going to dilute our ability to do what we want to do. It’s going to dilute our community, and it’s going to take away from our leadership, all the work on our curriculum but also extracurricular programming that’s really important to students.”

The university and the College of Liberal Arts declined to comment.

‘Fighting for a voice’

The College of Liberal Arts houses 20 departments, 18 centers, 9 institutes and 14 programs. The structure of ethnic studies programs is similar to peer colleges, such as the University of Michigan. The Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies reaches students in a wide variety of majors through cross-listed courses and core classes, Neuburger said.

Ethnic studies units, including Mexican American Studies and African American Studies, have existed for more than fifty years, and the Center for Women’s and Gender Studies opened in 1979. Several rose out of student advocacy, expanding over the years to produce more research, programming and academic options, including doctoral programs.

“These programs come from a very long history of students in marginalized communities fighting for a voice,” Mose-Vargas said. “Getting rid of ethnics studies or (Women's and Gender Studies) at UT is not just some meaningless maneuver, it would directly be removing a part of UT’s history from itself, a part that is indispensable to ethnic studies as a whole.”

Last year, Texas A&M University cut its LGBTQ minor along with 51 other minors and certificates because of “low enrollment” after facing pressure from the extremely vocal Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, who called it a “victory.” Texas A&M faculty said they were not given an opportunity to raise enrollment before the cuts.

A department reorganization isn’t the only change UT could face. The UT System is auditing courses concerning gender identity to ensure compliance with system priorities and the law, and the university is conducting its own audit of courses. UT launched a new core curriculum task force to “thoroughly review” general education.

Senate Bill 37, the higher education reform bill passed last session, also charges regents with reviewing programs to ensure schools meet standards for enrollment and return on investment.

Brinks said in his email that the college will consult faculty, staff and students once a proposal is formed. Neuburger said she hopes the College of Liberal Arts listens to faculty and is transparent about goals.

“For an R-1 institution like ours, this is just the model that has worked, that exists nationally for a reason,” Neuburger said, referencing UT's research status. “If they would tell us what exact number is the problem, or what exact problem they’re trying to solve, we could sit down with them and be creative and think through how to solve whatever problems they’re seeing, but they have not.”


Editor's note: This report was updated to reflect that the Department of Slavic and Eurasian Studies is not classified as an ethnic studies program, but as a global areas study program.


Lily Kepner

HIGHER EDUCATION REPORTER

Lily Kepner started at the American-Statesman in October 2023. She has appeared on BBC, NPR and Texas Standard to talk about her coverage, which has spanned the impact of state laws and politics on the University of Texas, pro-Palestinian protests, free speech, the anti-DEI ban, LGBTQ student belonging and more. Kepner graduated with honors from Boston University's College of Communication in 2023, where she received the college's highest awards for writing and journalism leadership and led the award-winning student newspaper as Editor-in-Chief. In her time with the American-Statesman, she contributed to reporting that won an Edward R Murrow Award for breaking news, won the School Bell Award for Outstanding Feature from Texas State Teachers Association, and Critics Choice for Best of Austin in the Austin Chronicle. Previously, she has been published in USA Today, The Boston Globe, The National Catholic Reporter and GBH. Kepner is passionate about accountability and service journalism and encourages anyone to reach out to her to tell their story or share a tip.