Tag: Texas

  • Texas Systems Review Course Descriptions, Syllabi

    Texas Systems Review Course Descriptions, Syllabi

    As conservative Texas politicians identify and target faculty who teach about gender identity, officials at six Texas public university systems have ordered reviews of curriculum, syllabi and course descriptions.

    The impetus is clear: Texas A&M University fired a professor, demoted two administrators and pushed out its president after conservative politicians lambasted the institution for a lesson on gender identity in a children’s literature class. Their criticism hinged on the fact that the topic was not reflected in the brief course catalog description for the class. Before he resigned, Texas A&M president Mark Welsh ordered an audit of all courses at the flagship campus, which the system Board of Regents quickly extended to all Texas A&M institutions.

    “The Board has called for immediate and decisive steps to ensure that what happened this week will not be repeated,” the regents wrote in a statement posted on X. “To that end, the Regents have asked the Chancellor to audit every course and ensure full compliance with applicable laws.”

    Other systems soon followed. On Sept. 29, University of North Texas system chancellor Michael Williams instructed the president of each institution to “conduct an expedited review of their academic courses and programs—including a complete syllabus review to ensure compliance with all current applicable state and federal laws, executive orders, and court orders,” he wrote in a letter. The review is due Jan. 1.

    The University of Texas system is reviewing all courses on gender identity to “ensure compliance and alignment with applicable law and state and federal guidance, and to make sure any courses that are taught on a U.T. campus are aligned with the direction and priorities of the Board of Regents,” according to a statement from the system. The review will be discussed at the Board of Regents meeting in November.

    System leaders at several public institutions have cited Texas House Bill 229, President Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 executive order and a Jan. 30 letter from Gov. Greg Abbott that said, “All Texas agencies must ensure that agency rules, internal policies, employment practices, and other actions comply with the law and the biological reality that there are only two sexes—male and female.” Yet no current federal or state laws prohibit public university professors from teaching about transgender identity.

    A University of Houston system spokesperson told The Texas Tribune that it is completing a review of general education courses in compliance with Texas Senate Bill 37, which took effect this fall. The law requires public universities to complete a curriculum review every five years, but the first reviews aren’t due until 2027. Texas Woman’s University is also conducting a review of all academic courses and programs, the Tribune reported.

    Texas Tech University ordered its faculty to ensure that course content complies with Texas and U.S. law, as well as the federal and gubernatorial executive orders that declare the existence of only two genders—male and female. The resulting oral policies—which officials are purposely not writing down—severely limit what faculty can teach about gender identity and effectively erase transgender people and topics from the curriculum.

    It’s unclear how each of the six university systems will respond after their reviews are complete, and whether courses will be censored or entirely removed from the catalog.

    “Faculty are highly trained experts in their fields of study. It harms education for faculty to be told what to teach by politicians,” Brian Evans, President of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors, told Inside Higher Ed by email. “For example, it is impossible to teach about gender without recognizing that there are countless gender identities and gender expressions across the world, the ideology that there are only two genders being only one of those.”

    The conservative politicians who have gone after institutions and faculty for teaching about gender identity have found professors through syllabi and course information posted online. As the risk of doxing grows, faculty are working to keep their information private, but new technology and Texas law are adding complications.

    Hundreds of American colleges and universities are now requiring their faculty to upload syllabi to Simple Syllabus, a third-party platform that offers uniform syllabus templates and easy editing; it also allows faculty to embed syllabi into campus learning management systems. According to the company’s website, more than 500 colleges and universities currently use the platform. Institutions may limit who can view the syllabi—for example, Clemson University requires users to log in with university credentials.

    But other institutions—including the University of Houston, Texas A&M University and the University of Texas at Austin—allow the general public to view their Simple Syllabus pages. This may be in part due to Texas House Bill 2504, a 15-year-old law that requires public institutions to provide publicly accessible syllabi that include major assignments and exams, required or recommended readings, and a general description of lecture or discussion topics.

    Andrew Joseph Pegoda, a lecturer in the Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies Department at the University of Houston, experienced the risks of this public access firsthand. In August, a conservative news site published a piece targeting Pegoda for teaching two courses that include queer theory in the curriculum and that, according to the news site, exemplify “indoctrination in women’s and gender studies departments.”

    “I realized that they got their information from Simple Syllabus,” Pegoda said. The platform allows users to search posted syllabi at an institution using keywords—for example, searching the word “queer” on the Simple Syllabus page for one Texas university returned four different syllabi that included the term.

    The spotlight on Pegoda came and passed quickly, largely because his name wasn’t included in the article’s headline. “I’m glad it wasn’t worse than it was. It could have been more direct or more vicious,” he said.

    Simple Syllabus spokesperson Matthew Compton-Clark said the company has not received any reports of targeting via the platform. “We take data privacy extremely seriously, and are a faculty-first organization,” he wrote in a statement to Inside Higher Ed. “We provide multiple privacy features, giving faculty the ability to set not just their entire syllabus private, but individual components as well. This same feature also exists for the institution, allowing the school to set the visibility of the entire syllabus, or individual parts of the document based on their state-specific legislation.”

    The Texas law does not require the public syllabi to include class meeting times or locations, though many professors don’t amend the public versions of their materials to exclude that information. Pegoda said he’s been advised to “put minimum detail in the public Simple Syllabus and then to provide a more regular syllabus to students,” he said.

    But, in the wake of the incident at Texas A&M, that may not work, he said. “Now professors are being encouraged to very specifically detail everything in the syllabus so as to not potentially get fired or have student complaints.”

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  • Texas Teachers, Parents Fear STAAR Overhaul Doesn’t Do Enough – The 74

    Texas Teachers, Parents Fear STAAR Overhaul Doesn’t Do Enough – The 74


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    Texas public school administrators, parents and education experts worry that a new law to replace the state’s standardized test could potentially increase student stress and the amount of time they spend taking tests, instead of reducing it.

    The new law comes amid criticism that the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness, or STAAR, creates too much stress for students and devotes too much instructional time to the test. The updated system aims to ease the pressure of a single exam by replacing STAAR with three shorter tests, which will be administered at the beginning, middle and end of the year. It will also ban practice tests, which Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath has said can take up weeks of instruction time and aren’t proven to help students do better on the standardized test. But some parents and teachers worry the changes won’t go far enough and that three tests will triple the pressure.

    The law also calls for the TEA to study how to reduce the weight testing carries on the state’s annual school accountability ratings — which STAAR critics say is one reason why the test is so stressful and absorbs so much learning time — and create a way for the results of the three new tests to be factored into the ratings.

    That report is not due until the 2029-30 school year, and the TEA is not required to implement those findings. Some worry the new law will mean schools’ ratings will continue to heavily depend on the results from the end-of-year test, while requiring students to start taking three exams. In other words: same pressure, more testing.

    Cementing ‘what school districts are already doing’

    The Texas Legislature passed House Bill 8 during the second overtime lawmaking session this year to scrap the STAAR test.

    Many of the reforms are meant to better monitor students’ academic growth throughout the school year.

    For the early and mid-year exams, schools will be able to choose from a menu of nationally recognized assessments approved by the TEA. The agency will create the third test. Under the law, the three new tests will use percentile ranks comparing students to their peers in Texas; the third will also assess a student’s grasp of the curriculum.

    In addition, scores will be required to be released about two days after students take the exam, so teachers can better tailor their lessons to student needs.

    State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, one of the architects behind the push to revamp the state’s standardized test, said he would like the first two tests to “become part of learning” so they can help students prepare for the end-of-year exam.

    But despite the changes, the new testing system will likely resemble the current one when it launches in the 2027-28 school year, education policy experts say.

    “It’s gonna take a couple of years before parents realize, to be honest, that you know, did they actually eliminate STAAR?” said Bob Popinski with Raise Your Hand Texas, an education advocacy nonprofit.

    Since many schools already conduct multiple exams throughout the year, the law will “basically codify what school districts are already doing,” Popinski said.

    Lawmakers instructed TEA to develop a way to measure student progress based on the results from the three tests. But that metric won’t be ready when the new testing system launches in the 2027-28 school year. That means results from the standardized tests, and their weight in the state’s school accountability ratings system, will remain similar to what they are now.

    Every Texas school district and campus currently receives an A-F rating based on graduation benchmarks and how students perform on state tests, their improvement in those areas, and how well they educate disadvantaged students. The best score out of the first two categories accounts for most of their overall rating. The rest is based on their score in the last category.

    The accountability ratings are high stakes for school districts, which can face state sanctions for failing grades — from being forced to close school campuses to the ousting of their democratically elected school boards.

    Supporters of the state’s accountability system say it is vital to assess whether schools are doing a good job at educating Texas children.

    “The last test is part of the accountability rating, and that’s not going to change,” Bettencourt said.

    Critics say the current ratings system fails to take into account a lot of the work schools are doing to help children succeed outside of preparing them for standardized tests.

    “Our school districts are doing a lot of interesting, great things out there for our kids,” Popinski said. “Academics and extracurricular activities and co-curricular activities, and those just aren’t being incorporated into the accountability report at all.”

    In response to calls to evaluate student success beyond testing, HB 8 also instructs the TEA to track student participation in pre-K, extracurriculars and workforce training in middle schools. But none of those metrics will be factored into schools’ ratings.

    “There is some other interest in looking at other factors for accountability ratings, but it’s not mandated. It’s just going to be reviewed and surveyed,” Bettencourt said.

    Student stress worries

    Even though many schools already conduct testing throughout the year, Popinski said the new system created by HB 8 could potentially boost test-related stress among students.

    State Rep. Brad Buckley, R-Salado, who sponsored the testing overhaul in the Texas House, wrote in a statement that “TEA will determine testing protocols through their normal process.” This means it will be up to TEA to decide whether to keep or change the rules that it currently uses for the STAAR test. Those include that schools dedicate three to four hours to the exam and that administrators create seating charts, spread out desks and manage restroom breaks.

    School administrators said the worst-case scenario would be if all three of the new tests had to follow lockdown protocols like the ones that currently come with STAAR. Holly Ferguson, superintendent of Prosper ISD, said the high-pressure environment associated with the state’s standardized test makes some of her students ill.

    “It shouldn’t be that we have kids sick and anxiety is going through the roof because they know the next test is coming,” Ferguson said.

    The TEA did not respond to a request for comment.

    HB 8 also seeks to limit the time teachers spend preparing students for state assessments, partly by banning benchmark tests for 3-8 grades. Bettencourt told the Tribune the new system is expected to save 22.5 instructional hours per student.

    Buckley said the new law “will reduce the overall number of tests a student takes as well as the time they spend on state assessments throughout the school year, dramatically relieving the pressure and stress caused by over-testing.”

    But some critics worry that any time saved by banning practice tests will be lost by testing three times a year. In 2022, Florida changed its testing system from a single exam to three tests at the beginning, middle and end of the year. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the new system would reduce test time by 75%, but the number of minutes students spent taking exams almost doubled the year the new system went into effect.

    Popinski added that much of the stress the test induces comes from the heavy weight the end-of-year assessment holds on a school’s accountability rating. The pressure to perform that the current system places on school district administrators transfers to teachers and students, critics have said.

    “The pressures are going to be almost exactly the same,” Popinski said.

    What parents, educators want for the new test

    Retired Fort Worth teacher Jim Ekrut said he worries about the ban on practice tests, because in his experience, test preparations helped reduce his students’ anxiety.

    Ekrut said teachers’ experience assessing students is one reason why educators should be involved in creating the new end-of-year exam.

    “The better decisions are going to be made with input from people right on that firing line,” Ekrut said.

    HB 8 requires that a committee of educators appointed by the commissioner reviews the new test that TEA will create. Some, like Ferguson and David Vinson, former superintendent of Wylie ISD who started at Conroe this week, said they hope the menu of possible assessments districts can pick for the first two tests includes a national program they already use called Measures of Academic Progress, or MAP.

    The Prosper and Wylie districts are some that administer MAP exams at the beginning, middle and end of the year. More than 4,500 school districts nationwide use these online tests, which change the difficulty of the questions as students log their answers to better assess their skill level and growth. A 2024 study conducted by the organization that runs MAP found that the test is a strong indicator of how students perform on the end-of-year standardized test.

    Criteria-based tests like STAAR measure a student’s grasp on grade-level skills, whereas norm-based exams like MAP measure a student’s growth over the course of instruction. Vinson described this program as a “checkup,” while STAAR is an “autopsy.”

    Rachel Spires, whose children take MAP tests at Sunnyvale ISD, said MAP testing doesn’t put as much pressure on students as STAAR does.

    Spires said her children’s schedules are rearranged for the month of April, when Sunnyvale administers the STAAR test, and parents are barred from coming to campus for lunch. MAP tests, on the other hand, typically take less time to complete, and the school has fewer rules for how they are administered.

    “When the MAP tests come around, they don’t do the modified schedules, and they don’t do the review packets and prep testing or anything like that,” Spires said. “It’s just like, ‘Okay, tomorrow you’re gonna do a MAP test,’ and it’s over in like an hour.”

    For Ferguson, the Prosper ISD superintendent, a relaxed environment around testing is key to achieving the new law’s goal of reducing student stress.

    “If it’s just another day at school, I’m all in,” Ferguson said. “But if we lock it down, and we create a very compliance-driven system that’s very archaic and anxiety- and worry-inducing to the point that it starts having potential harmful effects on our kids … our teachers and our parents, I’m not okay with that.”

    This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2025/09/24/texas-staar-replacement-map-testing/. The Texas Tribune is a member-supported, nonpartisan newsroom informing and engaging Texans on state politics and policy. Learn more at texastribune.org.


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  • Texas Tech Clarified Anti-Trans Policies in FAQ—Then Removed It

    Texas Tech Clarified Anti-Trans Policies in FAQ—Then Removed It

    Faculty may include a preferred name policy on their syllabi, but they are advised against mentioning pronouns, the FAQ said.

    Photo illustration by Justin Morrison/Inside Higher Ed | menonsstocks/E+/Getty Images | snorkulencija/iStock/Getty Images

    After a confusing week, Texas Tech University officials offered the first written clarification on new university policies that prohibit faculty members from speaking or teaching about transgender identity. On Sunday, the provost’s office posted a lengthy frequently asked questions page that, among other things, addressed the definition of “noncompliant language,” explained how the new policies impact research and answered whether faculty can write on their syllabi that they are an ally to transgender people.

    But after three days, the FAQ was taken down. Faculty have not been told why the information was removed, and health-care instructors are concerned students will not be trained in care for transgender patients, as required by certification exams.

    A university spokesperson did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions on the matter. Some faculty suspect that Brandon Creighton, who was officially named the Texas Tech system’s next chancellor on Tuesday, may have orchestrated the removal of the FAQ. Creighton was the lead author of the Texas Senate’s sweeping ban on diversity, equity and inclusion in 2023, and of the recent bill giving control of faculty senates to university presidents and boards. He will assume the chancellor role on Nov. 19.

    While it was the first and most comprehensive written guidance Texas Tech has posted on its anti-trans policies, the FAQ left a lot of questions unanswered. The word “transgender” wasn’t included in any of the written answers. In one answer, officials wrote that noncompliant language “refers specifically to outdated or inaccurate syllabus content (i.e., COVID-era statements or statements referring to offices or units that no longer exist at Texas Tech.),” but said nothing about gender identity.

    In response to a question about academic freedom, officials wrote, “Faculty may include course content that is relevant to a student’s program of study and post-graduation opportunities, including workforce and additional education. Faculty are encouraged to be thoughtful about including content that is described in the Chancellor’s memo.”

    The new directives do not impact research, the FAQ clarified. Officials advised against including a “personal statement of student support” or a statement professing LGBTQ allyship, writing that “such a statement could attract unwanted attention.” They also wrote that faculty could include a preferred name policy on their syllabi, but that “until further clarification is available, it is advisable to omit personal pronoun language.” When relevant, instructors are permitted to facilitate classroom discussions in which students examine the state’s position on gender alongside other views, but the instructor may not advocate for any particular view.

    In a later question about government censorship and faculty retention, officials wrote, “We recognize that faculty recruitment and retention may be affected. At present, the issued guidance applies only to instructional activities, not a faculty member’s independent research.”

    The Texas conference of the American Association of University Professors has pushed back on the anti-trans policies at Texas Tech and other public universities in the state.

    “Colleges and universities have an obligation to develop campus policies that protect the constitutional rights of their faculty to teach and research the subjects in their areas of expertise without intimidation or censorship,” said Brian Evans, president of the Texas conference of the AAUP. “By ensuring that teachers can speak freely, campus administrators should enable students to explore and learn the widest set of topics for civil engagement and successful careers. Campus policies related to academic freedom and free speech should be devised with the full participation of faculty in the spirit of a shared commitment to excellence.”

    The FAQ—as short-lived as it was—only applied to Texas Tech’s flagship campus. The four other campuses in the public system, including Angelo State University, where faculty have received a profusion of conflicting verbal information, were not included.

    A faculty member at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retribution confirmed to Inside Higher Ed that faculty at their campus have been told not to use certain terms in their course content, including “transgender”; “gender-affirming care”; “diversity, equity and inclusion”; and “affirmative action.” Health Sciences Center faculty have not received any written guidance, and the deans don’t have clarifying information, either, the faculty member said. It is an especially troubling policy to enforce for health-care students, because care for transgender patients is included in some certification exams students must pass to be licensed, they said.

    “There are certainly many things that our government has [outlawed] … but I can’t think of another thing that we’ve been told we can’t talk about,” the faculty member said. “Sex trafficking is illegal, but we can talk about how to care for people who have been victims of sex trafficking. Drunk driving—there’s about a million examples.”

    It is unclear how much information students have about these new policies, according to the faculty member. Some students are bringing up transgender care in classroom discussions, and instructors are unsure how to respond.

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  • Texas Tech System Ends Class Discussions of Trans Identity

    Texas Tech System Ends Class Discussions of Trans Identity

    The Texas Tech University System has ordered all faculty to refrain from classroom discussions of transgender identity, The Texas Tribune reported.

    In a letter to the leaders of the five universities in the system, Texas Tech Chancellor Tedd Mitchell wrote that the institutions must comply with “current state and federal law,” which “recognize only two human sexes: male and female.“ He cited Texas House Bill 229, which defines sex strictly as determined by reproductive organs, a letter from Texas governor Greg Abbott directing agencies to “reject woke gender ideologies,” and President Trump’s January executive order—which is not a federal law—declaring the existence of just two genders.

    “While recognizing the First Amendment rights of employees in their personal capacity, faculty must comply with these laws in the instruction of students, within the course and scope of their employment,” Mitchell wrote.

    The move follows a confusing week at Angelo State University—part of the Texas Tech System—where a new set of policies first seemed to prohibit faculty from engaging in any sort of pride displays but ultimately limited discussion and content only related to trans identity.

    Mitchell’s letter provided little guidance for faculty about how to implement the new policy, suggesting it presents certain challenges.

    “This is a developing area of law, and we acknowledge that questions remain and adjustments may be necessary as new guidance is issued at both the state and federal levels,” he wrote. “We fully expect discussions will be ongoing.”

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  • Texas State Prof Sues, Claiming Free Speech, Contract Violations

    Texas State Prof Sues, Claiming Free Speech, Contract Violations

    Thomas Alter had received tenure as an associate history professor just 10 days before he was fired.

    Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman/Getty Images

    A tenured Texas State University professor who was terminated earlier this month after allegedly inciting violence during a speech has sued the university, CBS Austin reported. In the lawsuit filed in district court, Thomas Alter, the former associate professor of history, claims that university leadership violated his free speech and due process rights and breached his employment contract. 

    At a Sept. 7 conference organized by Socialist Horizon, Alter said in part that “without organization, how can anyone expect to overthrow the most bloodthirsty, profit-driven mad organization in the history of the world—that of the U.S. government.” His speech was recorded and circulated by a right-wing YouTuber who had infiltrated the event. Alter was terminated three days later.

    In a statement announcing his termination, Texas State president Kelly Damphousse said Alter’s “actions are incompatible with their responsibilities as a faculty member at Texas State University.” Alter told CBS Austin that he did not associate himself with Texas State during the conference. 

    “The reasons Provost Aswrath provided for Dr. Alter’s termination are false and give every appearance of politically-motivated discrimination,” the lawsuit states. “In truth, Dr. Alter was terminated because he espoused views that are politically unpopular in today’s politically-charged climate, in violation of his First Amendment right to free speech.”

    Alter told CBS Austin that his dismissal “turned my world upside down and my family’s world upside down.”

    “Anyone should be able to express their views no matter how unpopular they are without facing the repercussions that many people are seeing,” he added. (Alter had earned tenure just 10 days before he was removed, The Chronicle of Higher Education reported.)

    Texas State did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s request for comment, but a spokesperson told CBS Austin the university declined to comment on pending litigation.

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  • What’s Next for Texas A&M?

    What’s Next for Texas A&M?

    When Texas A&M University president Mark Welsh resigned amid an academic freedom controversy last week, he became the institution’s second leader to step down due to scandal in two years.

    Unlike his predecessor, Kathy Banks, who retired in 2023 after she was caught lying about a hiring scandal, Welsh remained popular on campus; faculty sent the Board of Regents letters of support last week following a controversy that prompted him to fire an instructor, and students rallied on his behalf. But he seemed to lose the support of the deep-red Texas Legislature: Several Republican lawmakers called for his dismissal after a discussion over gender identity between a student and a professor in a children’s literature class was captured on video and quickly went viral.

    In the short video, which has racked up more than five million views, a student questions whether an instructor is legally allowed to teach that there is more than one gender, which she suggests is “against our president’s laws.” Welsh initially defended the professor but quickly folded under considerable pressure from lawmakers, firing her and removing two administrators from their duties because they “approved plans to continue teaching course content that was not consistent” with the course’s description, he said in a Sept. 9 statement.

    Amid the fallout, the American Association of University Professors and free speech groups accused Texas A&M of stifling academic freedom and bending to conservative political pressure. (Welsh countered that the case wasn’t about academic freedom but “academic responsibility.”)

    But the incident also raises questions about what comes next for Texas A&M after legislators accused Welsh—a retired four-star general and former chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force—of spreading “leftist [diversity, equity and inclusion] and transgender indoctrination.”

    A Mixed Reaction

    Welsh largely skirted the controversy in a statement released Friday, his last day on the job.

    “When I was first appointed as President of Texas A&M University, I told then Chancellor John Sharp and our Board of Regents that I would serve as well as I possibly could until it was time for someone else to take over,” he wrote. “Over the past few days, it’s become clear that now is that time.”

    He added that serving as president for two years had been “an incredible privilege” and a “remarkable gift” and praised Texas A&M faculty, staff and students in his parting statement. On campus Friday, hundreds of supporters greeted Welsh outside an administrative building, according to social media and local coverage. The Texas A&M Student Government Association encouraged students and others to gather to “express gratitude” for Welsh’s service.

    While Welsh’s parting remarks were restrained, state legislators and faculty members have been more passionate—and outraged—as both groups look ahead to the coming presidential search.

    Leonard Bright, interim president of the Texas A&M AAUP chapter, told Inside Higher Ed that many faculty members had mixed feelings about Welsh. On the one hand, many professors viewed him as a stable leader who had served the university well since his time as dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service, which he led from 2016 until he was appointed interim president in July 2023, before being given the permanent job later that year.

    On the other hand, Welsh’s dismissal of English instructor Melissa McCoul, the professor caught up in the gender ideology flap, raised questions about whether he would protect academic freedom. As Bright sees it, when Welsh’s job was threatened, he failed to stand up for academic freedom.

    Bright added that he was somewhat surprised by Welsh’s resignation, arguing that “as horrible” as the president’s recent actions were, he thought they had appeased the conservative critics and that “the board did not want to create further upheaval” given recent turnover at the top.

    But ultimately, only Welsh’s resignation would satisfy his fiercest critics.

    Brian Harrison, a Republican lawmaker and Texas A&M graduate, noted in posts on X following Welsh’s resignation that he had been calling for the board to fire the president for nine months.

    “Proud and honored to be the voice for millions of Texans who are fed up with being taxed out of their homes so their government can weaponize their money against them, their values, and their children by funding DEI and transgender indoctrination,” Harrison wrote on X on Friday.

    An LGBTQ+ Crackdown?

    Like all institutions in the state, Texas A&M has backed away from DEI as instructed by state law. But Welsh’s removal of McCoul for discussing gender identity in class is part of a broader retreat by Texas A&M from LGBTQ+ topics. That effort dates back to at least 2021, according to one anonymous source who previously told Inside Higher Ed they were discouraged from promoting LGBTQ+ materials in the university library’s collection when Banks was president.

    Last year Texas A&M cut its LGBTQ studies minor, alongside other low-enrollment programs, after Harrison led a charge against the program, calling it “liberal indoctrination.”

    Both the flagship and the Texas A&M system have also taken aim at drag shows.

    Texas A&M defunded an annual student drag show without explanation in 2022. West Texas A&M University president Walter Wendler canceled a student drag show in 2023, claiming it was demeaning to women. Earlier this year, the Texas A&M University system Board of Regents passed a resolution banning drag shows across all 11 campuses, only to get hit with a First Amendment lawsuit; a judge ruled against the system in March on free speech grounds.

    (Neither Texas A&M University or system officials responded to a request for comment.)

    Texas Hiring Trends

    With Welsh out of office, Texas A&M will soon begin a search for its next president. Chancellor Glenn Hegar announced Friday that an interim president will be named shortly, and in the meantime, James Hallmark, vice chancellor for academic affairs, will serve as acting president.

    Hegar, who has only been on the job since July, is a former Republican politician, one of several hired to lead a Texas system or university in recent months in what is shaping up to be a trend.

    Elsewhere in the state, the Texas Tech University system named Republican lawmaker Brandon Creighton as the sole finalist for the chancellor position. During his time in the Legislature, Creighton championed bills to crack down on DEI, restrict free speech at public institutions by banning expressive activities at night and undercut the power of faculty senates.

    The University of Texas at Austin also opted for a politico, hiring as president Jim Davis, former Texas deputy attorney general, who had worked in UT Austin’s legal division since 2018. Davis was promoted to the top job after a stint as interim president, a role he had held since February. Similarly, the UT system tapped former GOP lawmaker John Zerwas as its next chancellor.

    Recent hiring trends in Texas are beginning to mirror Florida, which has hired multiple former Republican lawmakers and other political figures with connections to Governor Ron DeSantis.

    As Texas A&M prepares to launch its search, faculty are calling for an open process.

    “The search should be transparent. It shouldn’t be primarily behind closed doors,” Bright said. “The faculty need to be involved. This is academia—this is about teaching, research and service.”

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  • Texas A&M President Steps Down After Political Campaign Targets Academic Freedom

    Texas A&M President Steps Down After Political Campaign Targets Academic Freedom

    Texas A&M University President Dr. Mark A. Welsh III announced his resignation Thursday following intense political pressure from state Republican leaders over a viral confrontation involving gender content in a children’s literature course—the latest in a series of incidents that underscore the mounting challenges facing academic freedom and diversity efforts at public universities across Texas.

    Welsh’s departure came just over a week after state Rep. Brian Harrison amplified a video on social media showing a student confronting Professor Melissa McCoul about course content. Despite initially defending McCoul’s academic freedom, Welsh terminated the professor the following day under pressure from Harrison and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick.

    The incident represents part of a broader Republican-led campaign to exert political control over university curricula, faculty hiring, and campus speech—efforts that education advocates warn are undermining the foundational principles of higher education.

    Welsh’s tenure, which began in 2023, was marked by repeated clashes with state political leaders over diversity and inclusion initiatives. In January, Gov. Greg Abbott threatened Welsh’s position after the university’s business school planned to participate in a conference aimed at recruiting Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous graduate students. Under pressure, Welsh withdrew the university from the conference entirely.

    The pattern reflects what faculty and higher education experts describe as an escalating assault on academic autonomy.

    Despite strong support from faculty and students, Welsh’s position became untenable under sustained political attack. On last Wednesday, the university’s Executive Committee of Distinguished Professors—composed of 12 faculty members holding the institution’s highest academic honor—sent a letter urging regents to retain Welsh.

    “All members of this Committee write this letter collectively to strongly urge you to retain President Mark Welsh in the wake of recent events,” the faculty letter stated.

    Student leaders also rallied behind Welsh, with dozens of current and former student government representatives praising his “steadfast love and stewardship for our University” and expressing “faith and confidence in his leadership.”

    However, these expressions of campus support proved insufficient against external political pressure.

    Welch’s predecessor, M. Katherine Banks, had resigned following the botched hiring of journalism professor Kathleen McElroy, whose employment offer was undermined after regents expressed concerns about her work on diversity, equity, and inclusion.

     

     

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  • Texas A&M President Steps Down Under Pressure

    Texas A&M President Steps Down Under Pressure

    Texas A&M University president Mark Welsh stepped down abruptly Thursday under mounting pressure from state lawmakers over how he handled a recent incident in which a student clashed with a professor over a lesson on gender identity, prompting him to dismiss the instructor.

    Earlier this month, Welsh fired Melissa McCoul, who taught English, after a student taking her children’s literature class objected to the professor’s statement that there are more than two genders. Welsh also removed two administrators from their duties because they “approved plans to continue teaching course content that was not consistent” with the course’s description, he said.

    The incident prompted fury from state lawmakers, some of whom called on the Texas A&M Board of Regents to terminate Welsh. But on Thursday, system officials announced he had resigned.

    The case also raised serious questions about academic freedom at Texas A&M and prompted pushback from faculty members who argued that McCoul’s termination was unnecessary and unjust. The American Association of University Professors also released a statement arguing that the “firings set a dangerous new precedent for partisan interference in Texas higher education.”

    Welsh’s resignation is effective Friday at 5 p.m., system officials noted in a statement.

    “President Welsh is a man of honor who has led Texas A&M with selfless dedication. We are grateful for his service and contributions,” Texas A&M system chancellor Glenn Hegar, a former GOP lawmaker, said in a statement Thursday. “At the same time, we agree that now is the right moment to make a change and to position Texas A&M for continued excellence in the years ahead.” 

    Others took a victory lap, including Brian Harrison, a Republican lawmaker and Texas A&M alum who has accused the university of funding “leftist [diversity, equity and inclusion] and transgender indoctrination.”

    Last week Harrison posted a video that the student had taken of her confrontation with McCoul, in which the student claims that teaching material related to gender identity and transgender people is illegal and violates one of President Trump’s executive orders, which are not laws. Harrison called for the board to fire Welsh and other senior officials. 

    “WE DID IT! TEXAS A&M PRESIDENT IS OUT!!” Harrison wrote on social media Thursday, adding that “as the first elected official to call for him to be fired, this news is welcome, although overdue.”

    Several other Republican lawmakers also publicly expressed support for firing Welsh.

    Welsh’s resignation comes despite the backing of notable faculty members, such as Texas A&M’s Executive Committee of the University Distinguished Professors, who wrote a letter of support for the president to the Board of Regents ahead of Thursday’s meeting.

    Welsh, a four-star general who served as chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force, was previously dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service before he was initially tapped as interim president in July 2023 when his predecessor, Kathy Banks, resigned following a hiring scandal. Welsh was named to the job on a permanent basis in December 2023.

    Welsh’s exit now means the last two Texas A&M presidents have been felled by scandal and neither lasted more than two years in the job.

    Texas A&M did not immediately name an interim upon announcing Welsh’s resignation, but system officials noted in a statement that it will appoint someone to the position “in the coming days” and “initiate a national search for a permanent president” following Welsh’s resignation.

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  • Texas State Fires Professor Accused of Inciting Violence

    Texas State Fires Professor Accused of Inciting Violence

    Alter at Texas State is the second Texas professor fired this week.

    Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman/Getty Images

    Texas State University fired a professor Wednesday after he was accused of inciting violence during a speech at a socialist conference, The Texas Tribune reported. 

    In a video posted on X, associate professor of history Thomas Alter can be seen giving a speech over Zoom to attendees of the Revolutionary Socialism Conference. “Without organization, how can anyone expect to overthrow the most bloodthirsty, profit-driven mad organization in the history of the world—that of the U.S. government,” he said in the clip, which was circulated online by a YouTuber who infiltrated and recorded the event.

    Texas State president Kelly Damphousse said in a statement Wednesday that the university reviewed the comments, which he said “amounted to serious professional and personal misconduct.”

    “As a result, I have determined that his actions are incompatible with their responsibilities as a faculty member at Texas State University,” he added. “Effective immediately, his employment with Texas State University has been terminated.”

    The video clip shared on social media was spliced and cut together. In the full version of his speech, which is posted on YouTube, Alter discusses the various tactics of different socialist groups. 

    “Another strain of anarchism gaining ground recently is that of insurrectionary anarchism,” Alter said in his speech. “Primarily coming out of those that were involved in the Cop City protest. These groups, individuals have grown rightfully frustrated with symbolic protests that do not disrupt the normal functioning of government and business. They call for more direct action and shutting down the military-industrial complex and preventing ICE from kidnapping members of their communities. Many insurrectionary anarchists are serving jail time, lost jobs and face expulsion from school. They have truly put their bodies on the line. While their actions are laudable, it should be asked, what purpose do they serve? As anarchists, these insurrectionists explicitly reject the formation of a revolutionary party capable of leading the working class to power. Without organization, how can anyone expect to overthrow the most bloodthirsty, profit-driven mad organization in the history of the world—that of the U.S. government.”

    Alter didn’t respond to a request for comment from Inside Higher Ed.

    He is the second Texas professor to be fired from their post this week. On Tuesday, Texas A&M officials fired Melissa McCoul, a senior lecturer, and removed two faculty members from their administrative roles after a student complained that the material McCoul taught in a summer course violated President Donald Trump’s executive orders.

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  • ‘Blatantly unconstitutional’: Student groups sue over Texas law limiting campus protests

    ‘Blatantly unconstitutional’: Student groups sue over Texas law limiting campus protests

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    Dive Brief: 

    • The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sued the University of Texas System on Wednesday on behalf of students over a new state law that directs public colleges to prohibit expressive activities on campus from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.
    • The lawsuit also takes aim at the statute’s provisions that prohibit inviting speakers to campus, using devices to amplify speech, or playing drums or other percussive instruments during the last two weeks of any term. 
    • FIRE called the provisions “blatantly unconstitutional,” arguing they violate First Amendment and due process rights on public colleges. The group is urging the judge overseeing the case to declare the prohibitions unconstitutional and to permanently block the UT System from enforcing them.  

    Dive Insight: 

    Texas state Sen. Brandon Creighton — who authored the bill and has been named the sole finalist for chancellor of the Texas Tech University System — has framed the legislation as a response to pro-Palestinian demonstrations campuses both within Texas and across the nation last year. 

    “While the world watched Columbia, Harvard and other campuses across the country taken hostage by pro-terrorist mobs last year, Texas stood firm. UT allowed protest, not anarchy,” Creighton told Austin American-Statesman earlier this year after lawmakers passed his bill. 

    Police arrested dozens of demonstrators at the University of Texas at Austin in April last year after they erected a protest encampment. They likewise quickly dismantled a protest encampment at the University of Houston the following month. 

    In the new lawsuit, several student groups — including the independent student newspaper at the University of Texas at Dallas, an interdenominational student ministry, and libertarian organization Young Americans for Liberty — say the legislation blocks a broad array of protected speech. 

    That’s because the legislation defines expressive activities as “any speech or expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.” 

    “Early morning prayer meetings on campus, for example, are now prohibited by law,” the lawsuit says. “Students best beware of donning a political t-shirt during the wrong hours. And they must think twice before inviting a pre-graduation speaker, holding a campus open-mic night to unwind before finals, or even discussing the wrong topic — or discussing almost anything — in their dorms after dark.” 

    Other activities covered by the 10-hour daily block on expressive activities include screening a film at midnight, “wearing a Halloween costume after 10 p.m.,” photographing the sunrise, setting up an information booth early on the morning of election day to boost voter awareness, or even saying, ‘Good morning,’ the lawsuit says.

    The Retrograde, a student-run newspaper at UT-Dallas, voiced concerns that the ban covers their reporting and publishing deep into the night. Working in those hours is necessary for the students to fulfill their journalist mission, according to the lawsuit. 

    Similarly, the student ministry group, the Fellowship of Christian University Students’ chapter on UT-Dallas, often meet to discuss issues of faith — even after their official events conclude at 10 p.m. 

    “The First Amendment doesn’t set when the sun goes down,” FIRE senior supervising attorney JT Morris said in a statement Wednesday. “University students have expressive freedom whether it’s midnight or midday, and Texas can’t just legislate those constitutional protections out of existence.”

    Along with the UT System’s board members and chancellor, the lawsuit also names the heads of UT-Austin and UT-Dallas as defendants. 

    The UT System said via email Thursday that it has not reviewed the lawsuit and declined to comment further. UT-Austin and UT-Dallas did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 

    The 10-hour daily block on expressive activities exempts commercial speech. According to the lawsuit, that means students would be banned from protesting world hunger at 7 a.m. but they would not be prevented from hosting a bake sale at that time. 

    That type of content-based restriction makes the law unconstitutional, the lawsuit argues. 

    The lawsuit also argues against the prohibitions on certain types of expressive activities — including inviting speakers or playing percussive instruments — during the last two weeks of any term. Those bans are overly broad, the lawsuit alleges.

    UT-Austin, for instance, has seven academic terms, meaning bans on those expressive activities would cover 98 days of the year. At UT-Dallas, these bans would be in place for over 90 days, according to the lawsuit.

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