Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton on Monday imposed restrictions on how faculty discuss race, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation in classrooms and introduced a new course content approval process, underlining that instructors could face discipline for not complying.
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But this baby just wanted to play ballWhy doing good also makes us feel good, during the holidays and beyondEating the wrong foods can keep you up at night. A new cookbook offers a better planThe World in PicturesChairman of vaccine committee leaves for new HHS jobMore people are addicted to marijuana, but fewer of them are seeking help, experts sayMexico plans to build Latin America's most powerful supercomputerEating the wrong foods can keep you up at night. A new cookbook offers a better planPope Leo XIV sends message of support to southern Lebanon as he ends 1st foreign tripEEUU deporta a Honduras a estudiante universitaria que volaba a casa por Acción de Gracias But this baby just wanted to play ballWhy doing good also makes us feel good, during the holidays and beyondEating the wrong foods can keep you up at night. A new cookbook offers a better planThe World in PicturesChairman of vaccine committee leaves for new HHS jobMore people are addicted to marijuana, but fewer of them are seeking help, experts sayMexico plans to build Latin America's most powerful supercomputerEating the wrong foods can keep you up at night. A new cookbook offers a better planPope Leo XIV sends message of support to southern Lebanon as he ends 1st foreign tripEEUU deporta a Honduras a estudiante universitaria que volaba a casa por Acción de GraciasTexas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton on Monday imposed restrictions on how faculty discuss race, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation in classrooms and introduced a new course content approval process, underlining that instructors could face discipline for not complying. In a memo to university presidents, Creighton said instructors may not promote that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another; an individual, by virtue or race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, consciously or unconsciously; any person should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of race or sex; moral character or worth is determined by race or sex; individuals bear responsibility or guilt for actions of others of the same race or sex; or meritocracy or a strong work ethic are racist, sexist or constructs of oppression.” Creighton defined promotion as “presenting these beliefs as correct or required and pressuring students to affirm them, rather than analyzing or critiquing them as one viewpoint among others.” The memo includes a flowchart detailing a new approval process for any course content that touches on the restricted topics. Faculty will be required to submit the materials to department chairs, university administrators and ultimately the Board of Regents for their review and approval. Instructors are first asked to determine whether the material is relevant and necessary. If it is, they’ll next be asked if the material is required for professional licensure or certification or patient or client care. If it is, the material may remain in the course, but the Board of Regents will be notified. If it is not required for those purposes, instructors must seek approval to keep the material by submitting it to their department chair, dean and provost, who will forward their recommendation and justification to the Board of Regents. In a news release, Creighton said the goal of the new policies was to provide “clarity, consistency and guardrails that protect academic excellence.” A system representative said the memo was intended to guide faculty as they prepare for the spring semester, which starts in six weeks. The representative said the system hopes the new approval process will move quickly, but is still working out the details. Creighton’s memo concludes that “the integrity of this process depends on the earnest participation of every faculty member” and warns that noncompliance “may result in disciplinary action consistent with university policies and state law.” It was immediately unclear how faculty across the Texas Tech University System reacted to the changes, but Kelli Cargile Cook, a professor emeritus who founded Texas Tech’s Department of Professional Communication, said the memo pushed her to scrap a class she planned to teach this spring and begin drafting a resignation letter instead. “I’ve been teaching since 1981 and this was going to be my last class. I was so looking forward to working with the seniors in our major, but I can’t stomach what’s going on at Texas Tech,” she said. “I think the memo is cunning in that the beliefs that it lists are at face value, something you could agree with. But when you think about how this would be put into practice, where a Board of Regents approves a curriculum — people who are politically appointed, not educated, not researchers — that move is a slippery slope.” Cargile Cook was alarmed by the memo’s characterization of certain race and sex concepts as “one viewpoint among many,” saying it treats settled facts “as if George Wallace being a racist is a viewpoint,” referring to the former Alabama governor known for defending segregation., a state law authored by Creighton before he resigned from the Texas Senate to lead the Texas Tech System. The law, which wasearlier this year, requires regents to conduct a comprehensive review of the classes all undergraduates must take to graduate to ensure they prepare students for civic and professional life and reflect Texas’ workforce needs. The first review is due in 2027.on how faculty discuss gender identity in classrooms in September after a viral video of a Texas A&M professor teaching about gender identityTexas Tech’s then-Chancellor Tedd L. Mitchell then issued a systemwide directive telling faculty they must comply with a Trump executive order, a letter from Gov. Greg Abbott and House Bill 229, which recognize only the existence of two sexes. Professors told The Texas Tribune at the time that Mitchell’s guidance prompted them to delay lessons, strip terms like “transgender” from curricula and self-censor. When they submitted questions to administrators — and the written answers were briefly posted online and then taken down — Neither the executive order, the governor’s letter nor the new state law specifically mentions college instruction, and no federal or state laws — including SB 37 — limit how professors should teach these topics. Early drafts of SB 37 included language restricting how universities could teach about race and sex, but lawmakers removed those provisions before passing the legislation. The new policies at the Texas Tech University System follow in the footsteps of the Texas A&M University System, which last montha new policy that requires each campus president to sign off on any course that could be seen as advocating for “race and gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity.” Texas Tech’s new rules appear to go further than A&M’s by adding a formal approval process that ends with the Board of Regents.after the A&M viral video controversy or in response to SB 37 have also circulated new instructions to faculty. At Texas State University, the student newspaperthat faculty received guidance to rewrite course descriptions in “ideologically neutral” language and remove terms that could be associated with advocacy.faculty to review their course titles, syllabi and content “to ensure they were not knowingly or unknowingly “violating the university’s stated academic commitments.” “Our responsibility is to give the ability to form their own opinions, not to force a particular one on them,” Khator wrote in a letter to the campus community on Nov. 21. “Our guiding principle is to teach them, not indoctrinate them.” She outlined a four-phase review of all core curriculum under SB 37, beginning with a preliminary evaluation by the provost’s office and the university’s lawyers by the end of December and culminating in a report to the Board of Regents by February., warning that the review process Khator described threatens academic freedom by allowing administrators to overrule faculty judgment and by encouraging “false balance” in the classroom. Andrew Martin, the president of the Texas Tech chapter of the AAUP, called Monday’s memo a “profound disappointment.” “We had hoped that our new chancellor’s time visiting the campuses of the system and getting to know students, faculty and staff would encourage finding common ground and a recognition that academic freedom is a freedom we all share, one that is foundational to a free society,” Martin said. The new rules and process violates the First Amendment, Martin said, and harms transgender and gender nonconforming students and colleagues while continuing to misstate law.
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