The Power of Texas Social Movements to Heal Fear, Inspire Hope, and Build Islands of Sanity in Troubled Times, by Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

The Power of Texas Social Movements to Heal Fear, Inspire Hope, and Build Islands of Sanity in Troubled Times

by 

Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

Nov. 1, 2025

I know there is a lot of anxiety right now in this moment of institutional unraveling. It’s hard not to be afraid or uncertain about what comes next. But I want to suggest a different way of holding this moment. I hope you take a few deep breaths, listen to my vlog, and get inspired 

In times of fear and uncertainty, social movements remind us that hope is a collective act. Across Texas, communities are rising—teachers, students, parents, organizers, and Indigenous leaders—refusing to surrender to despair. Their courage shows that democracy is not a spectator sport but a living practice of solidarity and imagination.

When we stand together, fear loses its grip and anxiety gives way to purpose. Social movements transform pain into possibility, reminding us that power does not reside in institutions alone but in people who dare to believe that another Texas—and another world—are still possible. From the halls of education and policy to the sacred work of land and water protectors, these intertwined movements embody a deep remembering: that care for people and care for the Earth are inseparable acts of justice.

These are the truths we live and build through the Texas Association for Bilingual Education educators movement, the Texas Legislative Education Equity Coalition, the Ethnic Studies Movement, the Mariachi Music in the schools movement, the Texan Genealogical Society movements, the For the Love of Texas Higher Education Coalition, the impressive youth movement of those involved in legislative battles, and the growing Indigenous and Native American movement—and many other spaces where imagination meets action and where love, courage, and community become the most enduring forms of resistance and transcendence. 

Transcendence. 

Isn't that what we all want?

Each and every one of us is entitled to a life triumphant—a life of dignity, joy, and purpose. And no one has the right to deny us of it.

As the writer and systems thinker Margaret Wheatley (2017) reminds us, our charge in these turbulent times is to create “islands of sanity” in the midst of chaos—places where truth, compassion, and shared purpose can still flourish. In nurturing these islands together, we reclaim our power to heal, to organize, and to dream the future into being. Si se puede! Yes we can!

Reference

Wheatley, M. J. (2017). Who do we choose to be? Facing reality, claiming leadership, restoring sanity. Berrett-Koehler Publishers.

All Colleges Must Reject the White House ‘Compact’ Submitting to ideological constraints would undermine U.S. universities

Friends:

As a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin, I want to commend Professors Drs. Liliana Garces, Leslie Gonzalez, and Julie Posselt for this powerful and principled essay. Their analysis in U.S. News & World Report captures exactly what’s at stake—not only for higher education, but for democracy itself. The so-called “Compact for Academic Excellence” represents a dangerous attempt to trade public funding for political loyalty, undermining the autonomy that has long defined the American university.

At a time when Texas faculty are already navigating the fallout from SB 17 and other policies designed to suppress equity and critical inquiry, this essay reminds us that academic freedom is not negotiable. It is the moral foundation upon which genuine learning and democratic life depend. I join these colleagues in calling on every institution to reject coercion masquerading as reform and to reaffirm our shared commitment to truth, inclusion, and independent thought.

— Angela Valenzuela, Ph.D.

All Colleges Must Reject the White House ‘Compact’

Submitting to ideological constraints would undermine U.S. universities.

By Liliana M. Garces, Leslie D. Gonzales and Julie R. PosseltOct. 14, 2025, at 5:51 p.m., U.S. News

DAVID L. RYAN|THE BOSTON GLOBE|GETTY IMAGES
Signs at a MIT Grad Student Union press conference on Oct. 10.

The Trump administration this week offered U.S. colleges and universities preferential access to federal funding if they accept ideological conditions laid out in what the White House dubbed the “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.” A few days earlier, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – one of nine universities that were first approached with the offer on Oct. 1 – rejected the compact on the grounds that it would “restrict freedom of expression and our independence as an institution.”

All colleges and universities must follow MIT’s example and reject this compact. That’s because bowing to the demands of any government, political party or interest group in exchange for money undermines the highest values that U.S. universities teach and uphold. America’s global leadership in higher education rests on a commitment to academic freedom – independent scholarship, teaching and self-governance – as well as equal access to opportunity. These core principles ensure that we serve the public interest regardless of the political winds.

As faculty at three of the nine universities that were first urged to accept the White House proposal earlier this month – the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Arizona and the University of Southern California – we speak for ourselves, not for our institutions. As professors who study higher education policy, we are convinced the proposed compact would create a two-tiered system, privileging universities that accept the politically motivated deal in exchange for government funding and penalizing those that refuse. That means every U.S. institution of higher learning – from local community colleges to internationally recognized research universities – will be pressured to comply with ideological strings attached to federal funding.

The White House proposal, reportedly drafted in part by Marc Rowan, a Trump supporter and billionaire co-founder of private equity firm Apollo Global Management, calls for universities to commit to ignore “sex, ethnicity, race, nationality, political views, sexual orientation, gender identity, religious associations” in both admissions and hiring, and to protect those with “conservative ideas.” The aim appears to be to eliminate “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs vilified by the political right for allegedly disadvantaging white male and conservative students and faculty. Yet, ironically, the compact’s prohibition on considering applicants’ political views would in fact hamper efforts to bring more conservative students and faculty onto campuses.

Another paradox of the White House proposal is that it forbids considering nationality in admissions – while at the same time requiring institutions to cap international student visas at no more than 15% of the student body and no more than 5% from any one country other than the U.S. How do we square this with a commitment to admitting the best candidates anywhere in the country and anywhere in the world?

For decades, the government has invested in financial aid, research and institutional support for universities, and institutions have stewarded those resources to serve the public good. This partnership has yielded extraordinary benefits. Consider the creation of land-grant universities, which offered a pathway to higher education to the working class and fueled innovation in agriculture, transportation and technology, growing the U.S. economy into a global leader in each of those sectors. Or federal student aid programs, such as Pell Grants and Work-Study, which enable millions of Americans to access higher education and contribute more to society and to our tax base.

Federal research funding, awarded on the basis of merit and free from political interference, has empowered scholars to ask bold questions and pursue transformative discoveries that challenged conventional wisdom, such as Albert Einstein’s ideas – initially mocked – that were foundational for the invention of laser technology. By requiring universities to sign the compact and annually “certify their adherence” to its principles, the White House is imposing ideological litmus tests on which institutions will be funded to pursue scientific breakthroughs – and which will not.

If federal support is withheld from institutions such as MIT that refuse to sign, those institutions and their students will become the “have-nots.” Some universities may be able to backfill the loss of some federal funds, but most cannot.

Cynically, the compact also promises “excellence” without any evidence that its provisions would advance it. In truth, it would diminish institutions’ autonomy and ability to achieve academic excellence.

This compact is not a good-faith effort to improve higher education. It would subject colleges and universities to government control, unilateral and arbitrary review by the Department of Justice and the threat of losing essential federal resources through a coercive process that is an affront to the rule of law.

Higher education is not above scrutiny. We welcome robust, democratic conversations about how to improve our institutions. But that won’t be achieved through coercive actions by the executive branch that leading legal experts have called unconstitutional.

We urge every American – students, parents, faculty, alumni and concerned citizens to act now. Contact university leaders, governing boards and elected officials. Insist that colleges and universities reject this compact and reaffirm their commitment to opportunity, academic freedom and institutional autonomy. Organize on campuses and in communities.

Now that every U.S. college and university is being asked to adopt the White House compact, it is all the more urgent that we take collective action to defend the future of colleges and universities as engines of innovation, economic vitality and, most importantly, democracy.

Liliana M. Garces is the Ken McIntyre Professor for Excellence in School Leadership at the University of Texas at Austin. 

Leslie D. Gonzales is a professor of higher education at the University of Arizona.

Julie R. Posselt is a professor of education policy at the University of Southern California. 

Book banning totally needs to become the bad policy that it is. Most parents—and teachers and administrators—oppose schools becoming battlegrounds in our current culture war against books—a war characterized by shrill, exaggerated expressions of the books children are exposed to in schools.

I agree with author E. J. Dionne, Jr., that it should not at all be the case that the most upset parent can determine either a school's library holdings or what kids read in school, suggesting the need for parents and communities to step up to the plate and challenge this nonsense. Here are the most concerning observations Dionne offers:

A report by the freedom of expression group PEN America found 1,586 instances of individual books being banned between July 1, 2021, and March 31, 2022, affecting 1,145 unique book titles. In September, the American Library Association reported that there would be more challenges to books in 2022 than there were in 2021, which was a record year.

For more information, do check out PEN America's report titled, "Banned in the USA: Rising School Book Bans Threaten Free Expression and Students’ First Amendment Rights (April 2022). 

Clearly, bans against books and the teaching of controversial topics—under the auspices of the disingenuous "anti-CRT" instruction agenda, are "red meat" issues that don't square with most parents and youth who are in the majority of those seeking a truthful and fair rendering of society and our nation's history. 

If you need Texas data on this, check out the Butt Foundation report titled, Connected Through Our Schools). If these folks decrying alleged indoctrination via "porn" that's getting taught in our schools really cared about public education, they'd be pushing for funding it and stemming the teacher turnover crisis. Instead, they opt for engaging in a contrived culture war that is cynical and damaging of the the trust that should emanate from the hard work and good faith efforts of our teachers, administrators, and librarians.

-Angela Valenzuela

#EyesWideOpen

Book banning is bad policy. Let’s make it bad politics.

by E. J. Dionne, Jr., Washington Post, December 18, 2022

Amanda Darrow, director of youth, family and education programs at the Utah Pride Center, poses in Salt Lake City on Dec. 16, 2021, with books that have been the subject of complaints from parents. (Rick Bowmer/AP)

There was a time when the term “Banned in Boston” was one of the best things that could happen to a book, a play or a movie. From roughly the 1880s to the mid-20th century, a censoriousness rooted in the city’s Puritan past supported especially aggressive laws aimed at suppressing material seen as salacious or dangerous. For many, the label was a guarantee that whatever was banned must have been, well, interesting.

This is a really good report by John Fensterwald in EdSource. Research evidence points strongly to the positive impact of Ethnic Studies curricula over the long term with respect to key outcomes about which we should care—when taught, of course, by well-prepared teachers. 

Although it most certainly is a movement unto itself, support for Ethnic Studies is evidence-based and shouldn't at all get caught up under today's "culture war" frame that opposes the teaching of Critical Race Theory. Why, when Ethnic studies is the antidote to to student alienation from school contexts that are often sterile, unfriendly, or even hostile to children of color? Why, when, as Stanford researcher Thomas Dee states, such classrooms create "spaces where they [students] feel a sense of belongingness and engagement?" The short answer is that with changing demographics, many leaders in power do not want to empower these youth with either the precious knowledge or uplift that ethnic studies classrooms provide.

Regardless of the intention behind those shrill voices making the case against Critical Race Theory—which is but one methodological orientation—among many utilized by our Ethnic Studies teachers, the benefits that accrue to ALL, including white, children merit mention. 

These courses simply make school more interesting because they speak to students' lived experiences while opening the creative door to personal or individual expression—and freedom of expression is everybody's inalienable right in a democracy.

Someday, I trust, what we know today as "Ethnic Studies" will simply be called "a good and virtuous education."

-Angela Valenzuela

Research finds ethnic studies in San Francisco had enduring impact

Ninth grade course engaged and motivated students who hadn't shown prior success in school 

by John Fensterwald | September 7, 2021 | EdSource.org

Research released Monday found that the benefits for San Francisco Unified students who took an ethnic studies course in ninth grade lasted throughout high school, resulting in higher attendance, higher graduation rates and increased enrollment in college, compared with similarly matched students who didn’t take the course.

The update of an often-cited 2017 study provides the first quantitative evidence of the longer-run academic impact of ethnic studies. Not only did the strikingly large benefits from the course not fade after ninth grade, but the course produced “compelling and causally credible evidence” of the power to “change learning trajectories” of the students targeted for the study — those with below-average grades in eighth grade, said Thomas Dee, a professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Education and co-author of the research.

Those historically underserved students “experience school environments as unwelcoming, or even hostile,” Dee said. The course appeared to succeed in changing their expectations at an important time, when students are deciding if they belong in high school. San Francisco Unified succeeded by engaging students “critically in an honest discussion of U.S. history and creating classroom spaces where they feel a sense of belongingness and engagement,” Dee said.

The peer-reviewed study appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Dee’s co-authors are Emily Penner, an assistant professor at the University of California, Irvine, and Sade Bonilla, a former Stanford Graduate School of Education doctoral student who is now an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

Its publication coincides with a final vote later this week in the California Legislature on a bill that would require all students to take a semester course in ethnic studies as a high school graduation requirement, starting with the class of 2030. High schools would have to start offering ethnic studies by 2025-26. Assembly Bill 101, authored by Assemblyman Jose Medina, D-Riverside, is expected to pass easily. Gov. Gavin Newsom will have a month to decide whether to sign it.

Dee and the co-researchers caution, however, not to generalize the results of a study of 1,405 ninth-graders, only 13% of whom — about 180 students — took the ethnic studies course. The study was designed to measure the effect on at-risk students by comparing the results of students with grades of C or slightly below in eighth grade, who were assigned ethnic studies by default, to students with average grades of C or slightly above.

Whether the positive impact would apply to all students, especially those already thriving academically, is “an important, open question,” Dee said. Another caveat, the study noted, is that in San Francisco Unified, the ethnic studies course, developed over several years, was taught by well-trained teachers.

“It’s exciting because it’s a proof point about what this type of pedagogy can do for students, but the fact that it was a smaller-scale pilot should create some agnosticism about our capacity to replicate and scale this up,” Dee said.

The initial study, which measured the course’s impact on students in ninth grade, produced surprisingly positive results. Attendance of the students who took the course improved 21%; grade point average grew 1.4 out of 4 points, and credits earned improved 23 credits, out of 60 possible credits.

The impact continued throughout high school with impressive effects. The ethnic studies students’ graduation rates were 16 to 19 percentage points greater than similar students who didn’t take the course. Ethnic studies takers neared the district’s 220 credit requirement for graduation; the non-takers had 20 fewer credits. By between 10 and 16 percentage points, more ethnic studies takers enrolled in college within a year or two of graduation.

The demographics of students in the study and San Francisco Unified significantly differ from that of the state and the nation; 60% were Asian, 23% Latino, 6% Black and 5% white. Asian and Latino students showed significant gains in graduation; the numbers of white and Black students in the study were too small for reliable comparisons, the study said.

San Francisco Unified was one of the first districts to develop an ethnic studies curriculum; the study covered students who took the course between 2011-12 and 2013-14.

The state’s model ethnic studies curriculum, approved in March after two years, with multiple drafts and heated debates over what it should include, is optional; districts can pick and choose elements they like — or choose none of them. Assembly Bill 101 would not prescribe the content, although a district must offer a course that the University of California approved as meeting A-G admission criteria.

In a letter to the State Board of Education in January, three dozen professors from across the nation argued there was insufficient evidence to support assertions in the proposed model curriculum that research had found extensive benefits from ethnic studies. The evidence was overstated or unfounded, it said, and should be removed from the document.

Most of the 10-page letter was directed at the writing of Christine Sleeter, an author and emerita professor at California State University, Monterey Bay, and a strong advocate of ethnic studies. But in a section about the San Francisco Unified study, the writers criticized Dee and Penner for not including low-performing students who declined to take the ethnic studies course in their comparison. They also said the authors had glided over data showing that taking ethnic studies did not lead to improvement of students with a higher or lower GPA than the students at the center of the study.

San Francisco course’s anti-racism focus

The study summarized the themes of San Francisco’s course as “social justice, anti-racism, stereotypes, and social movements led by people of color from U.S. history spanning the late eighteenth century until the 1970s.” It stressed ties to the Third World Liberation Front, the coalition of Black, Latino and Asian student groups whose 1968 strike at San Francisco State University led to the nation’s first ethnic studies courses. The learning objectives of the course included “student knowledge of and ability to combat racism and other forms of oppression, increased student commitment to social justice, and improvement of student pride in their own identities and communities.”

Districts outside the Bay Area might steer clear of the course that promotes activism, comes across as ideological and could alienate some parents, ethnic groups and students in the class.

The study itself draws no conclusion about whether the particular course content contributed to the positive results.

What’s more essential, Dee said, is “culturally relevant” instruction that motivates and engages students. “So it’s not clear to me those mediating mechanisms require really doctrinaire, inflammatory content,” he said.

“There’s something I found impoverishing about the public debate over ethnic studies and, more recently, critical race theory,” he said. “And it’s because it has a cultural war frame” instead of focusing on “what’s going on with teaching and learning and student motivation and engagement.”

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