Federal, State Policies Destabilize Higher Education Landscape

Higher education has been at the center of a wave of attacks by the state and federal government, as well as by coordinated social media smear campaigns. From federal funding cuts to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), to sudden policies prohibiting faculty from any class discussions on transgender identities, every day continues to bring groundbreaking news that drastically changes the higher education landscape.

HBCU, HSI Funding

Last week, the Trump administration announced it would end grant funding to Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), which include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs). This comes after the U.S. Solicitor General determined that HSIs "violate the equal-protection component of the Fifth Amendment's Due Process Clause." The Department of Education supported this decision, claiming these schools' "racial quotas" are unconstitutional.

About $350 million was expected to be allocated towards MSIs, which will now instead go towards programs that "advance the administrations priorities."

In light of this, the Moody Foundation donated $150 million to Austin-based HBCU Huston-Tillotson. This donation marks the single largest donation to an HBCU in the nation's history. Huston-Tillotson plans to use this donation to construct three new housing facilities, including state-of-the-art student apartments, adding 800 more beds to its campus.

Curriculum Censorship

Over in West Texas, Angelo State University, a college within the Texas Tech University System, told faculty last week that they must abide by the following new policy, which:

• Bans classroom discussion of "transgender topics" or any topics that discuss gender in a way that acknowledges more than biological sex at birth
• Requires the removal of transgender-related content from syllabi
• Prohibits use of preferred names
• Requires employees to strip pronouns from email signatures
• Removes safe-space symbols and LGBTQ flags
• Limits administrative defense of faculty who violate these restrictions

A representative for Angelo State cited executive orders from President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott for these changes, saying the university "fully complies with the letter of the law."

Take Action

Our union is pushing back against this assault on academic freedom, as well as freedom of expression and due process. As Dr. Brian Evans, Texas AAUP-AFT president, said, this is "an overt attempt to erase individuals of diverse backgrounds and experiences by limiting not only what can be taught but also what ideas students can explore." Our higher education leaders have put together Know Your Rights documents for different Texas campuses, with Angelo State being the first guidance document we created.

Click here to view all the KYR documents, tailored to specific Texas college systems.

At Texas State University this week, we joined with student groups, fellow unions, and San Marcos community members to rally support for Dr. Tom Alter, the professor terminated a few weeks ago for comments he made on his personal time at an independent conference. As attacks on the integrity of higher education continue, our union will push back even harder to protect the rights of our members.

Join us in writing a letter to Abbott and tell our state leaders: Hands Off Our Freedom of Speech, Support Texas Educators!