A sign at a rally in support of Dr. Tom Alter in San Marcos in September. Courtesy of the Texas AFL-CIO.
Faculty from across the state gathered last Saturday in the Rio Grande Valley for the Texas Higher Education Summit, hosted by Texas AAUP-AFT and the Texas Faculty Association, to face a hard truth: higher education in Texas is under coordinated political attack, and defending our rights, our work, and our students will require collective action like never before.
This year’s summit served as an opportunity for faculty to understand their rights and navigate the rapidly changing education landscape—one in which our higher education educators are being forced to defend not only their jobs, but the very idea of the university itself.
How We Got Here
Dr. David Albert, president of the Texas AAUP-AFT chapter at Austin Community College, situated today’s attacks within a broader historical and political context. The present moment is rooted in decades of ideological movements: the economic conservatism of Ayn Rand and Reagan-era politics, the increasingly blurred lines between church and state, and hostility towards diversity and immigration.
Our college campuses sit at the intersection of these movements as places for ideological growth and hubs for diverse populations. The current chaos in higher education, sparked by a video of gender identity discussion, is rooted in anti-LGBTQ sentiments—which are now central arguments in attacks against public education more broadly. Colleges are now quietly censoring courses related to gender identity and other LGBTQ topics, citing SB 412 and SB 12, both of which are K-12 bills that do not touch higher education.
SB 17, the 2023 DEI prohibition bill, the repeal of the Texas DREAM Act enacted by the Dept. of Justice and Attorney General Ken Paxton, as well as immigration arrests of K-12 educators at our very own locals, all signal increasing hostility towards diversity in education—another target of censorship on our campuses.
Of course, the 2025 Texas legislative session produced a raft of other bills that we’ve covered: SB 37, SB 530, SB 2615, and SB 2972 all rewrite the relationship between faculty, administrators, students, and the state.
The throughline? The attacks on public education did not emerge in isolation. This has been a compounding movement to weaken both our neighborhood schools and Texas colleges, and it is more critical now than ever to act together.
Back to Basics: Labor Laws & Faculty Rights
Frank Hill, a lawyer for the Texas Faculty Association, reminded attendees that faculty contracts—tenured or not—are protected as “property interests” under the Fourteenth Amendment. Universities cannot terminate or suspend a faculty member without pay during a contract term without due process.
- Under the Fourteenth Amendment, a contract to work is “a property interest” which cannot be taken away without due process.
- All work contracts, including tenure and 1-year contracts and 3-year lecturer contracts held by non-tenure track faculty, are considered “property.” They cannot be taken away without due process.
- Faculty can legally be put on leave and suspended with pay, but universities cannot terminate an employee contract or suspend someone without pay during the contract period without due process.
Even with the protections of labor laws, Hill advised that the best way to protect and advocate for yourself is through union membership.
Lessons from the Front Lines
Dr. Tom Alter, whose termination from Texas State University was recently upheld, was in attendance. He gave an update on his campaign to be reinstated at Texas State focusing on his appeal to the Texas State University System Board of Regents. He encouraged people working in education to join and get involved in their union to resist the current attacks on public education.
Dr. Leonard Bright, president of the Texas AAUP chapter at Texas A&M, presented his new book that outlines ways faculty members can protect themselves during grievances and the tenure and promotion process, including the following:
- Request your tenure and promotion file, including external letters of recommendation, during the process. You have the legal right to request and receive your personnel file at any time.
- Request your personnel file, in your own name or anonymously.
- When communicating with administrators and with university regents and boards, always use private email, private phone, private computer and servers. Present yourself as a concerned private citizen and member of your union, not as a faculty member.
- Take notes and record all interactions with administrators.
- In formal grievance hearings, faculty members have the right to bring an AAUP colleague as a representative.
- You may be asked to sign a non-disclosure agreement or an acknowledgment of something you are alleged to have done or said. Don’t sign any documents. Take a picture or get a copy of what you are being asked to sign.
The Path Forward
The lesson of the 2025 Texas Higher Education Summit is simple but urgent: academic freedom will not defend itself. Faculty must defend it—together. We must continue to build our union and make it impossible for lawmakers or administrators to divide us.