Texas Tech struggles with new rules that changed what students learn about race, gender, sexuality

When Henry Carter opened the syllabus for a spring class at Texas Tech University, he found “DO NOT READ” stamped next to page numbers in the middle of a required text. Another professor assigned a new textbook, then days later told students not to buy it. The syllabus for a third class labeled some readings as “censored.”

This is Carter’s fourth semester at Texas Tech but the first under restrictions set by the system’s new chancellor, Brandon Creighton, limiting how race, gender and sexuality can be discussed in classrooms.

Twelve days after starting as chancellor, Creighton issued a Dec. 1 memo directing faculty across the system’s five universities to refrain from advocating or promoting a belief that individuals are inherently racist or sexist by virtue of their identity, or that meritocracy or a strong work ethic are constructs of oppression. The memo also instructed faculty to recognize only two sexes, male and female, and to disclose course content related to race, gender identity or sexual orientation for review.

Creighton warned that failure to comply could result in “disciplinary action.”

When faculty sought clarification, administrators said they could offer little guidance, according to two internal emails reviewed by The Texas Tribune. One recounted unsuccessful attempts to get more information from the system. “Unfortunately, we only have the information provided in the memo,” said an email from an associate dean who suggested faculty will have to rely on their “professional judgment” in interpreting the restrictions.

The second email said the university system had not provided information on what constitutes prohibited topics such as gender identity and sexual orientation. If a student asks about such “implicated content,” faculty were told they could provide answers one-on-one, “just not in class.”

The uncertainty had immediate consequences.

Two upper-level psychological sciences courses, Ethnic Minority Psychology and Close Relationships, with a combined enrollment of 139 students, were canceled within days of the memo’s release, according to another internal email reviewed by the Tribune.

“When they say faculty aren’t allowed to advocate for something, what we read that as is, they aren’t allowed to mention it,” said one academic adviser, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliatory discipline.

The adviser said some of the students affected by the cancellations were set to graduate in May.

“We were able to find solutions to get them enrolled in something else, but the classes they got into are not as relevant to what they’re hoping to do post-graduation,” the adviser said.

Texas Tech officials declined to discuss how many courses have been changed or canceled under the memo’s restrictions, saying the review process is still underway.

In a statement to the Tribune, Creighton said his memo was designed to ensure “clarity, accountability and alignment” across the system and that he has “full confidence in our campus leaders — presidents, provosts and deans — to carry out this directive appropriately and consistently,” with oversight from the board of regents.

For the spring semester that began Jan. 14, faculty were directed to submit potentially affected course content for review by department and campus administrators. If administrators recommend that flagged material remain in the course, those recommendations are forwarded to the system’s nine regents, appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, who have final authority.

Unfortunately for instructors as well as students like Carter, the regents are not scheduled to meet until late February.

Consequences in the classroom

Carter is a history major with a minor in women’s and gender studies. He said he chose his courseload because the classes were required for his degree, leaving him frustrated over the series of late changes.

Removing a planned textbook left his feminist theory course relying on PDFs and more fiction-based works. The class also doesn’t have in-depth discussions of sexuality or transgender topics like he thought it would.

Carter said he feels parts of his education are missing.

“A lot of students sign up for these classes because this is what they want to learn and what they want to know, and now they’re unable to do that,” he said.

In the memo, Creighton defined advocacy or promotion as presenting certain beliefs as required or correct and pressuring students to affirm them, rather than analyzing or critiquing them as one viewpoint among others. But the memo did not specify how faculty or administrators should distinguish between the two concepts.

The Tribune spoke with more than a dozen faculty members over the past eight weeks who said they were uncertain where the lines were and worried about crossing them.

“I can find very few examples of any faculty member — and I’m in touch with many of them — who have, like, in writing an administrator saying, ‘You cannot teach this,’” a humanities professor said. “But I’ve encountered many examples of administrators saying, ‘If I were you, I wouldn’t teach this, because that might cause a problem.’”

The professor, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, responded by removing a book about historical trans experiences from a required reading list, assuming regents would not approve the book.

In a process created after the memo’s release, faculty on Dec. 19 received a link to an online submission form — derided by some professors as a “censorship portal” — to disclose instructional materials for review. That was after fall grades were due and instructors had gone off duty. Several said they felt pressured to work over the holiday to comply.

Will Crescioni’s honors-level psychology course was canceled two days before the semester began. Crescioni, a lecturer, selected a submission form option to have the entire course reviewed because topics of race, sex and gender were woven throughout the class. Under the process outlined in Creighton’s memo, only material required for professional licensure and patient care could remain without review, and the lecturer said the course did not meet that standard.

In late December, the department chair responded by requesting specific content to review, according to emails reviewed by the Tribune. In a follow-up exchange in January, the chair asked Crescioni whether he was willing to postpone “implicated content” while awaiting approval. Crescioni replied that doing so would not be “feasible or ethical,” so the chair canceled the course without forwarding the matter to the dean, provost or board of regents.

“I think our most important job as college educators is to teach people to be comfortable with uncertainty and to confront ideas that are challenging or uncomfortable,” Crescioni said. “If we’re not allowed to do that, if we’re muzzled in that way, then we can’t actually give our students a full education.”

The course, required for psychology majors, also fulfills a core curriculum requirement and was fully enrolled with 25 students.

Listing course work as “censored”

Matthew Pehl, a history professor, also filled out the submission form. His class was allowed to proceed after he signed a statement agreeing not to teach certain content unless approved by the board of regents.

Pehl disclosed two readings for review. One, assigned in a graduate history course, examines wage labor in 19th-century Baltimore. Pehl said he uses the book to teach historical methodology rather than ideology, showing students how scholars can work with limited primary evidence. He said the reading could violate restrictions because it compares enslaved and free workers, as well as men and women.

The second reading, assigned in an upper-level undergraduate immigration history course, focuses on immigrant women working in California canneries in the early 20th century.

Rather than quietly removing the material while awaiting the board of regents, Pehl labeled the readings as “censored” in the syllabi and emailed students explaining why the books could not be taught.

“I wanted the paper showing that I’ve been censored,” he said. “And I wanted students to understand this is happening.”

Carter is a student in Pehl’s immigration history class.

Zoe Wittekiend, a sophomore history and political science major and student senator, said professors are increasingly using disclaimer-style language when discussing topics that could be seen as controversial. In a class discussion about the relationship between health insurance and health outcomes, she said, a professor paused to stress that the idea being presented was “one viewpoint” and repeatedly urged students to consider alternate viewpoints.

Wittekiend said she is working on a student government resolution to raise awareness of the restrictions and formally oppose them. She said she has collected 35 responses so far to a short survey asking whether students were aware of the review process and whether they believed it would have a positive or negative impact. Most respondents, she said, viewed the changes negatively.

She said she was especially alarmed by the memo’s description of the policy as a “first step.”

“If this is the first step,” Wittekiend said, “how much further are you going to go in step two?”

From the Capitol to campus

Texas Tech University System’s restrictions took shape amid intensifying political scrutiny over classroom instruction across Texas.

During the spring and summer, professors traveled to Austin to oppose Senate Bill 37, one of Creighton’s final pieces of legislation after nearly two decades as a Republican in the Texas Senate and House.

The law expands regents’ authority over curriculum and requires academic programs to justify their value in preparing students to join the workforce.

The instructors argued the measure would weaken academic freedom and faculty governance. Republicans countered that universities had drifted from their core mission and should prioritize workforce preparation over ideological instruction.

SB 37 passed along party lines. Earlier versions of Creighton’s bill included language barring general education courses from “advocating or promoting the idea that any race, sex, ethnicity or religion is inherently superior to another,” but the language was removed during last-minute negotiations.

Within days of the law taking effect in September, a student’s recording of her professor teaching about gender identity at Texas A&M University went viral on social media, turning an abstract debate into a public test case.

The professor was fired, the university’s president resigned, and campuses across Texas began reviewing their course offerings.

That same month, Angelo State University, part of the Texas Tech University System, was the first to impose classroom restrictions. Before any systemwide directive was issued, faculty were told not to discuss transgender or nonbinary identities in the classroom, a move administrators said was meant to prevent a controversy like the one at Texas A&M.

Days later, then-Chancellor Tedd Mitchell issued a memo telling Texas Tech System faculty to comply with presidential and gubernatorial executive orders and a state law recognizing only male and female sexes. Faculty said the guidance was confusing because the orders and the law did not directly apply to classroom instruction.

Creighton, who left the Texas Senate to replace Mitchell in mid-November, said the restrictions listed in his Dec. 1 memo were to take effect immediately, with no formal faculty input, public vote or appeals process laid out.

That approach differed from the Texas A&M University System, where leaders initially focused on making sure instruction outlined in professors’ syllabi matched course descriptions. After a public meeting with comments from faculty and community members, the board of regents approved a policy prohibiting professors from advocating for race and gender ideologies or discussing topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity. The policy included a limited appeals process for non-core and graduate courses deemed to have a necessary educational purpose.

In previous statements, Creighton said public universities have an obligation to comply with state law and should focus on providing what he has described as “degrees of value,” rather than ideological or political debates.

Creighton reiterated that message in a January interview with NBC 5 / Lone Star Politics. Asked whether it was fair to say Texas Tech was “probably not the place to go” for students interested in gender studies, Creighton said undergraduate students would not find that kind of instruction in Texas Tech’s curriculum. He said Texas Tech instead focuses on providing a “degree of value,” one that allows students to fill high-demand jobs with strong pay. When asked whether he considered gender studies a degree of value, Creighton said he had not seen data supporting that conclusion.

Texas Tech has had a women’s and gender studies program since 1981. The interdisciplinary program offers an undergraduate minor and a graduate certificate.

In later interviews, Creighton has said he was referring specifically to stand-alone undergraduate majors in women’s and gender studies.

“Should I drop out?”

For some students, Creighton’s comments felt like a dismissal of the degrees they had already invested time and money to pursue.

“I’m dedicating my life to learning this material and teaching it,” said a graduate student whose literature course was converted to independent study shortly before the semester began.

An email reviewed by the Tribune shows administrators approved the change, allowing the course to proceed largely as planned outside of the formal course content review process.

But the student, who is in the English department and requested anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the workaround felt temporary and worried similar options would not exist when teaching undergraduate courses next semester.

As a part-time instructor, the student said the policy has raised questions about whether to limit student research topics in advance; how to handle classroom discussions involving race, gender or sexuality; and how much feedback instructors can safely provide on that work.

The student described the degree as professional training and an opportunity to perform socially and intellectually valuable work.

“I think he’s talking about business degrees, STEM degrees, money-making degrees — degrees that are of value to the university,” the student said. “Just because Chancellor Creighton doesn’t care about my degree does not make it any more or less valuable than anybody else’s.”

Carter, who is from Albuquerque, New Mexico, said he chose Texas Tech because his parents met there.

“I like to say I was indoctrinated from a very young age to attend Texas Tech,” he said.

Carter, who is cisgender and white, said he is minoring in women’s and gender studies because he believes it will be relevant to his planned career in public labor policy.

He said if granted the chance to speak directly with the chancellor, he knew what he’d ask Creighton.

“I would like to look him in the eye and be like, ‘Should I drop out and change universities? Is that your opinion?’”

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University System, Texas Tech University and Texas Tech University System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune’s journalism. Find a complete list of them here.