Texas Republicans’ efforts to control what is taught at the University of Texas passed another milestone last week, as UT administrators announced that the school will consolidate its highly regarded gender and ethnic studies programs into one new department.
UT-Austin President Jim Davis sent a notice to the school community on Feb. 12 that the independent departments of American Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies will soon cease to exist. Their areas of study – which Republicans have criticized as part of a woke agenda – will be folded into the newly created Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.
Three more departments – Slavic and Eurasian Studies, French and Italian Studies, and Germanic Studies – will become the Department of European and Eurasian Studies. All seven affected departments are in UT’s College of Liberal Arts. The decision to consolidate them came with minimal input from faculty and none from students. The consolidations will lower funding and reduce the number of professors granted tenure in the study areas, sources told the Chronicle.
The chairs of the seven departments learned about the consolidations in a 30-minute Zoom call with COLA Interim Dean David Sosa on Feb. 12. Cherise Smith, chair of African and African Diaspora Studies, said the meeting left her numb. UT has offered courses on African Studies since the late 1960s, and all top-tier universities have departments devoted to ethnic and gender studies in this day and age. Having helped lead the department in various capacities over the last 14 years, Smith said the programs bring prestige to the university.
“It’s a big change, and a change that is taking us off the course of being a top-ranked, global research institution.”
Cherise Smith, chair of African and African Diaspora Studies
“I’m having trouble wrapping my head around this,” Smith said. “Multiple departments, multiple faculty, and many, many students are going to be affected. It’s a big change, and a change that is taking us off the course of being a top-ranked, global research institution.”
Other faculty members echoed Smith’s dismay. “Our leaders are taking a giant leap backwards,” said Julie Minich, a professor of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies.
“There can be no reason for this decision, other than an authoritarian takeover of Texas’ flagship university,” said Lauren Gutterman, a professor of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Mary Neuburger, chair of Slavic and Eurasian Studies, said that her faculty and students are devastated. “We can only conclude that our departments are being targeted to provide cover for the politically motivated closure of ethnic and gender studies departments,” she said.
For several years, Texas Republicans have led a nationwide, right-wing attack on higher education, particularly the teaching of race and gender. In 2023, state Republicans outlawed DEI programs at Texas’ public universities. In 2025, they gave control over curricula to the school systems’ boards of regents – appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott – and outlawed faculty senates, cutting out the voices of professors in administrative decision-making. Three weeks ago, Texas A&M announced it would close its Women’s and Gender Studies program and stop teaching related courses. UT’s Board of Regents is currently reviewing courses related to gender.
President Davis, a former deputy of Attorney General Ken Paxton with no working background in academia, ignored this political context in his letter to the school community, explaining the consolidations as part of an effort to streamline degree plans. He did not say whether they will lead to layoffs or when they will be complete. He added that UT is “also initiating a review of the curriculum of these areas to determine what majors, minors, and courses will be offered in the newly formed departments.”
More than 800 students are currently pursuing degrees in the departments affected by the consolidations, a faculty group called Save UT said in a press release after the announcement. Jestina Ricci, who is completing a master’s degree in Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, told us she feels betrayed by UT’s leaders.
“This has had a horrible impact on my mental health and ability to successfully move through my program,” Ricci said. “Last semester, when the campus community was hearing rumors about the Trump compact, consolidation, or even outright elimination of our departments, I was a wreck. It was difficult to continue attending classes, teaching my discussion sections, and finishing projects.”
Ricci said she has decided to leave UT to continue her education elsewhere. However, she said that ongoing student protests against the administration are having an effect. “I believe that if student activists on campus hadn’t mobilized so effectively in the fall, UT-Austin would have signed the Trump compact and our departments would have been eliminated outright,” Ricci said. “But the public was paying attention and the administration caught too much heat.”
That resistance was on display Feb. 13, as Students for a Democratic Society held a protest at the Littlefield Fountain to condemn the department consolidations and UT’s punishment of seven students who, according to The Daily Texan, held a brief sit-in at the office of Provost William Inboden, the school’s second-in-command, last November. SDS member Daniel Ramirez said he had been suspended until the end of May, causing him to lose his job on campus and all the credits he would have earned this semester. But he spoke about the courage of the students who participated in the Palestinian protests in the spring of 2024, stating that he and his colleagues won’t be intimidated.
“We know the lengths that the university, the Board of Regents, and Greg Abbott will go to, to send a political message,” Ramirez said. “They will send hundreds of state troopers to go crack the skulls of students, and we’re keenly aware of that. But that won’t stop us. We’re still gonna keep fighting.”
Ramirez and his colleagues held another protest on Feb. 16 outside Gregory Gym, attended by about 80 students, who chanted and held signs reading “Stop the Consolidation” and “Protect Ethnic Studies.” Two days later, SDS and the American Association of University Professors held a press conference at the UT System Building, and members of SDS said they will meet again on Feb. 26 at the UT Tower to march against the consolidations.
This article appears in February 20 • 2026.