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The Texas House approved on Sunday a bill that would grant political appointees unprecedented oversight of the state’s public universities.
Other conservative-led states, including Florida and North Carolina, have sought to influence who leads colleges and what gets taught in classrooms. Texas is poised to go further by shifting some of those responsibilities, traditionally held by professors, to politically appointed university regents. The legislation would also create a state office with the power to investigate universities and would threaten their funding if they don’t comply with the law.
Supporters argue the measure is necessary to combat what they perceive as a liberal bias in universities and to better support the state’s workforce needs. Critics say it will undermine teaching and research.
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Senate Bill 37 passed on a preliminary vote 83-53 on Saturday. It would create a state-level committee that would recommend courses that should be required for graduation and how to condense the number of those courses. Meanwhile, each public university system’s board of regents, who oversee the school’s operations and are appointed by the governor, would be charged with creating a committee to review curricula and reject any course deemed ideologically charged or that doesn’t align with the workforce demands. Specifically, the committees would ensure curricula do not “advocate or promote that any race, sex, ethnicity or religious belief is inherently superior to any other.”
“Members, this is a bill you can be proud to vote for,” state Rep. Matt Shaheen, a Plano Republican who carried the bill in the House, said during debate Saturday. “The end result is going to be that the degrees that your children and grandchildren graduate with are going to be more valuable. They’re going to be able to get those degrees faster. They’re going to be less expensive.”
Faculty critical of the bill have said it could lead many of them to self-censor since teaching anything related to race, gender or inequality could be misinterpreted as a violation.
The bill would also limit faculty’s influence on campus. Faculty councils or senates, bodies that have traditionally advised university administrators on academic and hiring decisions, would become smaller. In addition, SB 37 would require half of their members to be appointed by the university president, rather than elected. Any member would be subject to removal if they use their position for political advocacy.
The bill would also require regents to approve the hiring of more administrators. Traditionally, they have only gotten involved in the hiring of top leadership positions.
Finally, the legislation would create an office, led by a gubernatorial appointee, to ensure schools are complying with the new law. The office could recommend limiting the state funding of universities that violate the law until a state auditor confirms they are in compliance.
The bill comes amid repeated clashes between Republican state leaders and professors in recent years. In particular, University of Texas at Austin faculty angered Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick with a 2021 letter reaffirming their right to teach critical race theory. That academic discipline explores how racism has permeated America’s institutions and has become a regular target of conservative criticism. UT-Austin professors also condemned university administrators and state leaders for the law enforcement crackdown on pro-Palestinian protesters on campus last year.
SB 37, authored by Sen. Brandon Creighton, a Conroe Republican, passed the Senate in April.
House Democrats on Saturday raised concerns that rigidly reviewing degree programs in the way the bill describes could lead to the elimination of degrees in humanities and social sciences. They also said students would ultimately be the ones paying when universities have to respond to frivolous complaints sent to the statewide office.
“The bill is not about improving education. It’s about increasing control,” said Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin. “It threatens academic freedom. It undermines faculty voices, and it injects politics into the classroom at a time when we should be laser focused on expanding access, improving student outcomes and restoring trust in our education systems.”
Before passing the bill final time on Sunday, Democrats and Republicans debated whether it would lead to a faculty brain drain. Rep. Erin Zwiener, a Democrat, said she had heard there’d be a dearth of applicants to Texas State University, which is in her district, because the legislation would disempower them. But Shaheen said according to his research, faculty who have threatened to leave Texas in recent years have not followed through.
The bill passed 85-56, leaving the American Association of University Professors disappointed.
“SB 37 will greatly harm the reputation of our research universities and lead to a brain drain of faculty and students,” AAUP UT Austin Chapter President Polly Strong said. “We are grateful to the representatives who supported faculty on the floor, and will continue to work with them to oppose state overregulation of higher education.”
The Senate must accept the House’s changes or members must work out differences between their different versions of the bill before it can be sent to the governor.
The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
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