How Gov. Greg Abbott Appointees Could Take Over UT

Texas Republicans are working to tighten their grip on the state’s public universities. Monday night, the House’s Higher Education Committee voted along party lines, 6-5, to approve Senate Bill 37, a bill that would let Republicans selected by the governor influence the courses taught at Texas universities, choose the schools’ leaders, micromanage their lower-level hires, and open investigations into their professors.

SB 37 could be approved by the full House and Senate within the next week and sent to Gov. Greg Abbott for his signature. UT-Austin professor Karma Chávez told us she and her colleagues believe that if the bill is passed it will “enshrine intellectual discrimination” at UT. “It’s indoctrination,” Chavez said. “Our leaders always say they are worried about indoctrination, but they are the ones who want to insert politics into every corner of public university education in the state.”

SB 37 makes several big changes to higher education. It shifts power over the courses that students take from the universities’ administrators and gives it to their governing boards. These boards, like UT’s Board of Regents, are composed of political appointees chosen by Gov. Greg Abbott, with the approval of the Texas Senate. SB 37 requires the governing boards to examine each university’s core curriculum – the courses that students must pass in order to graduate. The bill states that the governing boards shall ensure that courses in the curriculum do not "advocate or promote the idea that any race, sex, or ethnicity or any religious belief is inherently superior to any other race, sex, or ethnicity or any religious belief." The bill further states that the universities have the final decision-making authority over which courses remain in the curriculum -- "under the direction of the institution's governing board.”

Chávez told us that UT’s core curriculum includes many courses in disciplines like history, humanities, and the arts. The courses are proposed by instructors from the different departments within the university and approved by administrators. She said the Republican claims that professors endorse particular ideologies is unfounded. She believes they don’t want students to learn about the civil rights victories that minority groups have won over the last several decades and said restricting education will help them achieve that goal.

“Those of us in the College of Liberal Arts – especially ethnic and gender studies, American Studies, those kinds of things – our classes are not going to be allowed in the core curriculum,” Chávez said. “They’re trying to make it so that no one takes our classes. And then what they’re going to do is say, 'Well, no one takes your classes, so now we’re going to slash your budget.’ It’ll be a death by a thousand cuts.”

SB 37 also changes the way universities choose their leaders, giving Abbott’s governing bodies the power to approve or deny the hiring of vice presidents, provosts, and deans. The governing boards could also approve or deny job postings for tenured faculty positions in fields other than science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. One jarringly expansive rule simply states, “The governing board of an institution of higher education may overturn any decision made by the administration of a campus under the board’s control and management.”

The bill also creates an avenue to investigate professors for violations of state law -- the Office of the Ombudsman. Under the proposal, Abbott, with the consent of the Senate, will appoint a ombudsman within the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board who will open investigations into professors after written complaints by any student, faculty member, or staff member of a university. The ombudsman will make yearly reports to Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and other state officials.

UT professor Andrea Gore said her colleagues believe the creation of the Office of the Ombudsman will encourage an avalanche of baseless accusations. “They can report on professors and then there’s going to be an investigation by this politically appointed ombudsperson,” Gore said. “It is kind of scary.”

Gore said SB 37 also undermines faculty governance, the principle that faculty members should help create and manage school policy with university leaders. The bill would greatly reduce the number of professors sitting on faculty senates at the state’s colleges and universities. It would give UT’s president – former Ken Paxton lieutenant Jim Davis – the power to appoint half of UT’s faculty council members, who are currently elected by their fellow academics. It would also allow Davis to pick which of those members sit on the faculty council’s executive board, with whom he meets weekly.

Taken as a whole, the professors we spoke with believe that SB 37 is another effort to silence voices and stifle research that Republicans take issue with. They think it will further damage the reputation of our colleges and universities.

“I’ve already lost key colleagues who have accepted positions at other institutions and will be gone this coming fall,” UT professor Adele Nelson said. “And frankly, I have no idea how I’m going to teach my classes. I can’t talk about Latin American art history without discussing race and ethnicity. And obviously, I don’t advocate for the superiority of one race or ethnicity over the other, but part of the humanities' critical thinking is understanding the perspective of other people. And I’m worried that a student will misunderstand that and I’ll be reported.

“So we’re panicked, both in how we’re going to manage our classrooms and the destruction that this will bring on UT’s departments.”

An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that a university's governing board must create a review committee to evaluate school curricula. In fact, SB 37 states that a governing board may do so. It also misnamed the Office of the Ombudsman as the Office of Excellence in Higher Education. The Chronicle regrets the errors.