Political oversight reaches Texas college classrooms, with Texas Tech and A&M at the forefront

From Texas Public Radio:

In late February a group of students and faculty gathered at Texas Tech University in Lubbock to protest changes to course content that the university had imposed on professors.

They chanted “Stop censorship” and “Let teachers teach” and took turns sharing their experiences through a bullhorn.

“I hope I don’t get fired for this,” professor of American literature Sara Spurgeon told rally-goers when it was her turn to speak.

Spurgeon told the group that the English Department at Texas Tech had been told they could no longer teach texts written by gay authors.

“Most classes in the Department of English are affected at some level,” Spurgeon said. “We have even been told to censor novels with gay characters in them.”

Ahead of the spring semester, both the Texas Tech and the Texas A&M University Systems announced restrictions on what professors can teach about race, gender and sexual orientation. To ensure compliance, they implemented a review of course materials.

Texas Tech hasn’t said how many courses were canceled or modified to comply with the review, despite multiple requests.

Texas A&M modified hundreds of syllabi at their flagship university in College Station alone.

One of those modified syllabi belongs to A&M professor of philosophy Martin Peterson.

“I was told that I’m not allowed to include reading from Plato in my philosophy course, and the alleged reason is that Plato discusses what the university considers to be gender ideology,” Peterson said.

The reading in question raises the possibility of there being more than two genders.

“I’m not surprised that I wasn’t allowed to talk about race and gender issues. I knew that,” Peterson said. “But I was very surprised that I wasn’t allowed to talk about Plato. Plato has been dead for about 2,300 years. How can anyone be afraid of Plato now?”

Other public universities across Texas are also reviewing curriculum.

The president of the University of Houston asked professors to review their courses to comply with a new law and make sure they are “teach(ing)” students, “not indoctrinat(ing) them.”

In response to a request for comment from TPR, the University of Houston said in a statement that their faculty “remain free to teach contested topics.”

And the University of Texas Board of Regents approved a policy directing faculty at their 13 institutions to “exclude unrelated controversial or contested matters” from their classes.

Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors said the curriculum reviews are part of a rapid assault on academic freedom in Texas over the past six to nine months.

“They do everything bigger in Texas,” Wolfson said.“This is about knowledge production. Like, who controls what is knowledge?”

Wolfson said political control over what gets taught in college classrooms could impact the economy, society, and democracy.

“If you can’t be a critical thinker, you can’t critically analyze the statements coming from either the media or your political and elected leaders,” Wolfson said.

Texas A&M Interim President Tommy Williams said in a statement that requiring professors to change their course content was about “protect(ing) educational quality,” not censoring faculty or restricting academic freedom.

In response to a request to explain that position, A&M officials told TPR that academic freedom “does not create an unrestricted license to teach any topic, in any way, in any class.”

So, why is this happening now?

Last year the Texas Legislature passed a law that gives more control over what’s taught at public universities to their boards of regents. In Texas, regents are appointed by the governor.

And Republican Governor Greg Abbott has been pushing the idea that “woke” professors have been indoctrinating students for years.

“College professors have increasingly pushed woke agendas. They have too much influence over who is hired to educate our kids. We need legislation that prohibits professors from having any say over employment decisions,” Abbott said in his 2025 state of the state address. “We must also expand the ban on DEI in our public universities. We must purge it from every corner of our schools and return the focus to merit.

Texas public universities cite the new law as the reason for their course reviews and content restrictions.

Former Republican State Senator Brandon Creighton wrote the law. A few months later, he was appointed chancellor of the Texas Tech system.

Republican state leaders say the law was needed to stop what they perceive as indoctrination. But Peterson, the A&M philosophy professor, said public universities are instead using it to indoctrinate students with conservative ideas.

“They should be free to make up their own mind, but in order to be free to do so, they must be exposed to different ideas,” Peterson said. “We can’t just expose them to conservative ideology approved by the Board of Regents or the governor of Texas.”

UT San Antonio student Marcela Salome Hernández also said there’s no need to tell professors to stop indoctrinating students, because that’s not been their experience.

“That makes me laugh so much,” Hernández said. “I was a proud Mexican American before I even knew what (Mexican American Studies) was. I was a proud queer person, proud trans person, before I even knew what those words were. And no, I did not learn it in the university level. I did not learn it in school.”

Professors and students told TPR they’re worried restricting what’s taught in their colleges will diminish the quality of students’ degrees and make it harder for universities to recruit and retain faculty.

In addition to restricting course content, multiple professors in Texas have been fired over the past few months, sparking free speech concerns.

Several universities, including Texas A&M and the University of North Texas, have announced cuts to women’s and gender studies programs. Both UT Austin and UT San Antonio are consolidating their ethnic and gender studies departments into other departments.

Both UNT and UT officials say their cuts and mergers are about budget and enrollment concerns, but faculty and students believe they are actually part of the larger political effort to influence what students learn in the state’s public universities.

Michelle Waida with KTTZ contributed to this report.

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