Texas Tech enacts new classroom restrictions on race and gender topics

Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton issued new restrictions on the topics of race, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation in classrooms, and teachers who do not comply could face disciplinary action.

Creighton said teachers should not promote the idea that “one race or sex is inherently superior to another; that an individual, by virtue of virtue, race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive, consciously or unconsciously; that any person should be discriminated against or receive unfavorable treatment because of race or sex; that character or moral worth is determined by race or sex; that individuals bear responsibility or guilt for the actions of others of the same race or sex; or meritocracy or a strong work ethic.” Repression,” according to a Monday memo to university presidents.

“Promotion” was defined in the memo as “presenting these beliefs as true or desirable and pressuring students to affirm them, rather than analyzing or criticizing them as one viewpoint among others.”

The memo includes a flowchart outlining the new approval process for any course content that includes prohibited topics. Faculty must submit content to department chairs, university administrators, and the Board of Trustees for review and approval.

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Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton has issued new restrictions on the topics of race, gender, gender identity and sexual orientation in classrooms. (Getty Images)

Trainers are asked to first determine whether the material is relevant and necessary. They will then be asked if the material is required for professional licensure, certification, or patient or client care, in which case the material may remain in the course, but the Board of Trustees will be notified. If the material is not required for these purposes, teachers must obtain approval to retain it by submitting it to their department head, dean, and provost, who will send their recommendation and justifications to the Board of Trustees.

The new rules are intended to provide “clarity, consistency and guardrails that protect academic excellence,” Creighton said in a press release.

A system representative said the memo is intended to serve as a guide for faculty as they prepare for the spring semester and that the system hopes the new approval process will move quickly.

“The integrity of this process depends on the meaningful participation of each faculty member,” the memo states, adding that failure to comply “may result in disciplinary action consistent with university policies and state law.”

Kelly Cargill Cook, a professor emeritus who founded the Department of Professional Communications at Texas Tech University, said the memo led her to remove a class she had planned to teach this spring, and instead decided to write a resignation letter.

“I have been teaching since 1981 and this was my last semester,” she told the Associated Press. “I was very much looking forward to working with seniors in our major, but I cannot stand what is happening at Texas Tech.” “I think the memo is disingenuous in that the beliefs it lists are on their face, something we can agree with. But when you think about how you put that into practice, where the board of guardians approves the curriculum — people who are political appointees, not learners, not scholars — that move is a slippery slope.”

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Faculty must submit content to department chairs, university administrators, and the Board of Trustees for review and approval. (Getty Images)

She said she was shocked by the memo’s description of some notions of race and gender as “one viewpoint among many,” saying it treated established facts “as if George Wallace being a racist was a viewpoint,” referring to the former Alabama governor who advocated segregation.

Creighton’s memo said the new requirements are the “first step” in the Board of Regents’ implementation of Senate Bill 37, which he wrote before he resigned from the Texas Senate to head the Texas Tech system. The law requires regents to conduct a comprehensive review of the classes all undergraduates must take to graduate to ensure they prepare students for civilian and professional life and reflect the needs of the Texas workforce, with the first review scheduled for 2027.

System leaders imposed restrictions on how faculty discussed gender identity in classrooms in September after a widely circulated video of a Texas A&M University professor teaching gender identity led to public criticism from conservatives, the professor’s dismissal and the resignation of the university’s president.

Angelo State University, one of five institutions in the Texas Tech University system, was the first to embrace the changes, quietly directing faculty in September to stop discussions of transgender identities in the classroom.

Then-Texas Tech Chancellor Ted L. Mitchell later issued a system-wide directive that faculty must comply with an executive order from the president Donald Trumpa letter from Governor Greg Abbott and House Bill 229, which recognizes only male and female gender.

Professors told the Texas Tribune at the time that Mitchell’s directives forced them to delay classes, eliminate terms like “transgender” and self-censor.

Creighton took over as chancellor last month after Mitchell retired.

The new policies at the Texas Tech University system come after the Texas A&M University system approved a new policy last month in the wake of the controversial video that requires every campus president to sign off on any course that could be deemed to advocate “race and gender ideology or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity,” though Texas Tech’s new rules appear to go further than that as they require a formal approval process that ends with the Board of Regents.

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Brandon Creighton, chancellor of the Texas Tech University System, said the new rules are intended to provide “clarity, consistency and guardrails that protect academic excellence.” (Getty Images)

Other universities that announced course revisions after the viral video controversy at Texas A&M or in response to SB 37 also sent new instructions to faculty.

Andrew Martin, president of the Texas Tech chapter of the American Association of University Professors, criticized Monday’s memo as a “profound disappointment.”

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“We hoped that the time our new chancellor would spend visiting the system’s campuses and getting to know students, faculty and staff would encourage common ground and a recognition that academic freedom is a freedom we all share, a freedom essential to a free society,” he said.

Martin argued that the new rules and process violated the rules of the game First Amendment And harming transgender students and colleagues while continuing to distort the law.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.