Higher Ed: Board of Regents Round Up

Texas University Systems are meeting this month to review and vote on proposed system policies. With each quarterly meeting, regents continue to introduce and approve policies that encroach on course curriculum and faculty teaching methods.

The University of Texas, Texas Tech, University of North Texas, and Texas State University systems all held their committee meetings this past week, and our Texas AAUP-AFT members stood alongside students and alumni to stand up to policies made without their input.

Texas Tech faculty member protests against course review process implemented by the university this spring. Credit: Michelle Waida, KTTZ

Texas Tech System

In April, the Texas Tech System, now led by former Senator Brandon Creighton, announced that its five schools will phase out all academic programs related to gender or sexual orientation, including undergraduate majors, minors, certificates, and graduate degrees. The memo noted that TTU System schools will no longer offer academic credentials in those fields. 

Last week, Students Engaged in Advancing Texas (SEAT) held a funeral procession at the TTU Regents meeting, mourning the death of academic freedom. During the meeting’s opening remarks, Chancellor Creighton defended the system’s course review process, which examined more than 14,000 courses across the system, as both necessary and “trend setting.” One honors student, Aaron Texidor, was allowed to give public comment. “We cannot on one hand say we support our education and with the other cover the mouths of our professors,” he said. 

SEAT went on to hold similar funeral processions at the University of Texas and University of North Texas systems. 

Texas State System

In preparation for its full board meeting next week, the Texas State University System (TSUS) held committee meetings to discuss proposed business. Two of the proposals make major changes to termination due process procedures and completely abolishes tenure track appointments at its two-year institutions. 

One rule change ends the guarantee of “full due process procedures” for any faculty member “whose employment is terminated prior to the end of his or her contract period.” Faculty singled out for “Summary Dismissal” would lose the right to appeal to a tribunal of peers.

Another rule change creates a system with two classes of institutions—those with tenure track and those without tenure track. Another rule change creates two classes of faculty dismissal—those with “full due process procedures” and those without.

At Lamar Institute of Technology, Lamar State College Orange, and Lamar State College Port Arthur, regents propose to eliminate all tenure track positions. Tenured faculty will retain their positions, but tenure-track professors will be reassigned, and there will be no new tenure-track positions offered. 

At two-year colleges, tenure is essential to recruiting and retaining talented faculty. Many faculty members who teach at these institutions have the opportunity to make six-figures in the industries they train students in but choose to remain educators because the job security and protections tenure provides. 

The board approved both proposals. 

University of North Texas System

At the UNT System, faculty and students stood together in a funeral procession to mourn the closures of over 70 academic programs, including special education, geology, ethnic, and women and gender studies.

These cuts come alongside faculty buyout offers, which 44 tenured and long-term UNT faculty applied for. Faculty who accepted their buyout offers cited that “many of their peers felt UNT leadership over-complied with state laws banning trainings, programs or initiatives that promote racial and gender equality.”

UNT leaders point to insufficient international student enrollment and state funding changes as reasons for the structural changes.

University of Texas System

The UT System meeting agenda included two significant proposals that continue to threaten academic freedom and the ability of Texas universities to attract top academic talent.

The approved changes could revoke tenure protections for term-tenured faculty at the system’s university medical institutions, including UT MD Anderson and the UT Tyler Health Science Center. Term-tenure is a seven-year employment contract during which, as the name suggests, faculty are intended to receive the same employment protections as other tenured faculty. 

The new policies grant UT system presidents more authority to close programs on an accelerated timeline due to “time-sensitive, exceptional circumstances, such as needing to comply with new regulations or laws.” The policy also states that a program may be close on “academic grounds,” including for institutional strategy or program quality at the discretion of the institution’s president. This comes after the announcement that UT Austin and UT San Antonio will be consolidating their ethnic studies and women and gender studies departments.

UT Austin staff and students held a funeral procession for academic freedom on campus. Photo by: CCR Studios.

AAUP at UT Austin President Karma Chavez testified against these policies on Thursday, noting that they are conveniently passed in anticipation of the 2027 Texas Legislative Session, where she expects to see legislation mirroring the Texas Tech regent's policy eliminating all programs centered on gender or sexuality. 

Now that these changes are approved, faculty members at system schools will no longer play a role in reviewing academic programs and job positions before any cuts are made, and prevents certain faculty from appealing a president’s decision to eliminate an academic program—even if faculty are terminated as a result. 

Faculty, Students, and Alumni Stand Together

Despite this month’s board meetings sending a clear message that the unelected regents are unwilling to listen to the communities they are obligated to serve, our faculty and students continue to fight for Texas colleges. On Wednesday, SEAT launched an alumni donor strike for alumni of any of The University of Texas campuses interested in pledging to withhold contributions from their university campus until necessary steps are taken to restore academic freedom and the rights of students, faculty, and staff. As of Thursday, alumni have pledged to withhold $300k in donations.