Pat Heintzelman, Texas Faculty Association State President, AAUP chapter president and HELU delegate
Higher Education faculty are facing overwhelming and crushing challenges just to do the work for which they have dedicated much of their lives and money: the skills to be experts in their respective fields and prepare students to do the same. National and state politicians have invaded classrooms and restricted research. They are progressively stomping on faculty rights and responsibilities. One obstacle after another impedes progress: research funds are held hostage, politicians try to control curriculum, our international students fear for their safety, and faculty face loss of shared governance and academic freedom.
Fighting SB37 in the Legislature
In Texas, faculty are rattled but determined. The 2023 Texas Legislature came after tenure, due process, and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Faculty testified, one after another, in hearings, sometimes until after 3 AM, against bills which would negatively impact our work and our students. Still, ten ways to terminate any faculty member were passed into law. DEI programs and practices based on race, color, gender, and gender identity are gone. The 2025 legislature doubled down on faculty, placing faculty senates under administrative control and weakening faculty’s participation in the hiring process and driving curriculum.
Faculty worked hard in the State Capitol to try to limit the potential damage by SB37; in fact, there were six versions of the bill before it was finalized. Texas AAUP-AFT led the way: 2025: A Year of Resistance, Solidarity, and Resolve. Earlier versions of the bill included censorship of specific course content, but these provisions were removed in the final version.
The chilling effect: Pre-emptive bending the knee
Although the actual law does not prohibit the teaching of any particular content, the bending of knees can already be seen at various universities. In reality, SB 37 has not altered expectations and academic freedom for teaching and class discussion, and students should not feel the need to censor their speech pertaining to topics including race, gender, gender identity, ethnicity, politics, society, and religion. Please see Texas AAUP-AFT’s blog SB 37 Implementation Concerns & Recommendations. Even so, the chilling effect is spreading.
Politicians are now serving as chancellors at four of the seven Texas university systems. Senator Brandon Creighton, a one-time chair of the Texas Senate Higher Education Committee, now serves as Chancellor at the Texas Tech University System. He authored Texas Senate Bill 37, the same 2025 law reshaping the governance of public colleges and universities.
At Texas Tech University, and indeed across the state, the chilling effect by this law has resulted in continued and growing administrative overreach. A secret video taken in a classroom at Texas A&M University-College Station resulted in the professor losing her job, her chair and dean being reassigned to other duties, and the president resigning. The “sin” was discussing gender in the professor’s children’s literature class. Texas A&M, with almost 80,000 students, is searching for its third president in four years. At various universities, faculty have been told not to teach certain topics. Rumors suggest some universities are considering getting rid of programs in gender studies and race. The chair of one Sociology department suggested to its faculty that they change the department’s name. Some universities are verbally instructing faculty not to use specific words/wording in the titles of their courses or in the course content. Specific readings, including one by Plato, have been removed in some classes. Faculty syllabi are being reviewed at most universities. Last week, Texas A&M cancelled Dr. Leonard Bright’s Ethics class because, according to The Texas Tribune, “he did not provide enough information to let administrators determine if the course meets new standards for discussing race and gender.” He passionately defends his position. Interestingly, Dr. Bright wrote an Open Letter to the Texas A&M Community regarding their celebration of MLK day, stating that King called for “an honest reckoning with how race and identity shaped opportunity, policy, and lived experience. He [King] insisted that education must be a force for liberation, not suppression. To honor Dr. King while simultaneously censoring discussions on the impact of racism, especially in ethics, public service, and social policy courses, is an exploitation of his legacy for institutional vanity.”
Faculty organizations fight “the new reality”
AAUP-AFT, a union of faculty members which advocates for faculty rights, academic freedom, and shared governance, reports membership doubling statewide on 100 campuses in the last year. Higher Education looks little as it did even just a few years ago. AAUP-AFT has been a superstar in supporting faculty to navigate their new reality. Another union group, the Texas Faculty Association, working with AAUP-AFT, hosted Higher Education Summits the last two years. Faculty from across the state attended. Texas Faculty Association and AAUP-AFT educated faculty on their rights. Several attorneys spoke at each summit. An attorney from FIRE, Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, discussed faculty concerns regarding First Amendment Rights and Academic Freedom. Several panels of faculty led discussions on shared governance and academic freedom. Frank Hill, an attorney who is representing numerous faculty members from around the state who got crossways with their administrations, spoke about his concerns for faculty. He has represented over fifty Texas faculty members, including many for whom he has filed lawsuits for in the past year. Faculty are facing unprecedented crises—lack of due process, terminations, constitutional violations, and now a hotline which students or others can call if they think their university or professor is violating the laws put in place for politicians to guide the future path of higher education in Texas.
The threat to Tier 1 status
In February of 2025, The Texas Tribune reported that Texas has more Tier 1, also referred to as R1, universities than any other state. Texas faculty must be doing their jobs well for Texas universities to achieve this coveted outcome: sixteen R1 universities. Texas Governor Greg Abbott stated in the Tribune article that he “will continue working with the Legislature to support higher education and ensure Texas students have the opportunity to thrive in our great state.” How can university faculty keep Texas students among the best prepared when faculty merely discussing race or gender in one’s class seems to equal, in some regents’ and/or administrators’ perspectives, advocating for a specific position in those areas? How can professors prepare their students to be experts in their field if certain topics are excised from the discipline courses students take? Will Texas maintain its most-R1’s-in-the-country record when course content is limited directly or indirectly by politicians? Will there be an exodus of faculty to other states? Will the best and brightest students want to study here? Will the most talented faculty continue to apply here? Recent surveys suggest there is a rough road ahead.
Loss of shared governance bodies
Due to part of SB 37, all faculty senates were disbanded at public colleges and universities on September 1, 2025, and each governing board could decide to have a scaled-down faculty senate under administrative control as proscribed by SB 37 or keep it disbanded. The University of Texas System banned faculty senates; the other six university systems allowed the faculty senates at their component institutions to rewrite their charters and bylaws to meet the requirements of SB37 so as to be relaunched during the 2025-2026 academic year. The President of The University of Texas at Austin disbanded elected faculty positions on all university committees and handpicked 60 faculty to serve as a faculty advisory council to replace the faculty senate elected by faculty. At least one system has chosen to create small committees to do the work their senate used to do. For those with faculty senates, the institution’s president appoints the senate officers and some of the senate’s members. The institution’s president can remove any member of the senate if he chooses. Depending on the president, the senate could have minimal shared governance or none at all.
Anyone who thinks we are resting in the Ivory Tower should think again.