Once again targeting higher ed, Texas lawmakers limited faculty influence, campus speech this session

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Texas Republican lawmakers continued their carrot-and-stick approach to higher education during this year’s legislative session, pressuring public universities into abandoning what they view as progressive policies.

As in 2023, they opened with threats to withhold hundreds of millions in funding unless universities aligned more closely with their conservative vision of higher education. In the end, lawmakers left that pool of money alone, but the pressure may help explain why university leaders held back from commenting publicly on some of the most controversial proposals brought forward this session.

One new law will shift power away from faculty — who have often resisted GOP leaders’ recent efforts to push schools to the right — by giving governor-appointed university regents more control over curriculum and hiring. It will also create an office to monitor schools’ compliance with the new law and the existing ban on diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives, which could lead to funding cuts for schools found in violation.

Lawmakers also responded to pro-Palestinian protests with bills that limit how students can express themselves on campus and require schools to use a definition of antisemitism in disciplinary proceedings.

Meanwhile, university officials were vocal about the need for a law allowing them to directly pay student athletes for the use of their name, image and likeness, which they said will be essential to help their athletic programs remain competitive.

Lawmakers signed off on this and other less controversial higher ed measures, such as transferring the University of Houston-Victoria to the Texas A&M University System, proposing a constitutional amendment to fund repairs at Texas State Technical College and tweaking the community college funding model to better support students.

About 1.4 million students are enrolled across Texas’s public higher education system in the fall of 2024. It comprises 36 universities, 50 community and junior college districts, one technical college system, and 14 health-related institutions.

Here’s how new legislation approved this year will impact them.

Political appointees will have more power — and faculty less — to shape curricula

Senate Bill 37 could have a profound impact on how universities are run and what students can learn.

The sweeping legislation gives public university systems’ boards of regents, which are appointed by the governor, new authority to approve or deny the hiring of top university administrators and reject courses that do not align with the state’s workforce demands.

Traditionally, faculty senates have advised university administrators on academic matters and hiring decisions. But in recent years, some Republicans have increasingly criticized faculty members, viewing them as obstacles to their efforts to reshape higher education.

SB 37 also creates an ombudsman's office within the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. It will have the power to investigate complaints that universities and colleges aren’t following the new law or the state’s DEI ban, as well as recommend funding cuts for violators. Supporters say the office will bring needed accountability, while the American Association of University Professors contends that, without due process protections, it is ripe for abuse.

Initially, the bill would have barred any course that advocates that one race, sex, ethnicity or religious belief is superior to another. But lawmakers struck that provision after the AAUP warned it would chill classroom discussions on complex and controversial topics.

“Even with that small victory, SB 37 will put what we teach in the hands of political appointees rather than the hands of faculty who have studied these subjects and understand their nuance,” said Brian Evans, president of the Texas Conference of the AAUP. “The passage of SB 37 is a dark day for Texas colleges and universities, with many more to come.”

The law also requires regents at each university system to decide by Sept. 1 whether their schools’ faculty senates can continue to operate. If allowed, the legislation requires that the bodies are capped at 60 members, and half of them must be appointed by administrators.

Lawmakers limit on-campus protests in response to pro-Palestinian outcry

This session came in the wake of pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses across the nation and the start of President Donald Trump’s second term in the White House.

Trump has said universities did not do enough to protect Jewish students during the protests, and Texas Republicans shared his concern.

They passed legislation that will restrict protesting on campus, especially at night or in the last two weeks of a semester.

Specifically, Senate Bill 2972 bars anyone who participates in a protest from using microphones or other amplification devices during class hours if it intimidates others or interferes with campus operations or police work. They will also be prohibited from wearing disguises and erecting tents, and will have to identify themselves when asked by a university official or police.

That bill is headed to Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, but the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression is urging him to veto it. The group told Abbott that the bill’s scope is so broad that it would prohibit students from wearing a Make America Great Again hat on campus between the hours of 10 p.m. and 8 a.m.

Abbott, who called last year’s pro-Palestinian protests “hate filled,” has until June 22 to decide whether to veto the proposal; otherwise, it will become law. He has already signed into law Senate Bill 326, which requires that schools use the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition and examples of antisemitism when considering disciplining a student.

Free speech advocates say that definition and those examples conflate criticism of the Israeli government with antisemitism.

Universities can now pay student athletes directly

Abbott has also signed a law allowing Texas public universities to directly pay student athletes for the use of their name, likeness and image. The governor signed the legislation on June 5 and it became effective immediately.

The next day, a judge approved a settlement that ended claims that the National Collegiate Athletic Association was illegally limiting the earning power of student athletes.

Texas Tech and Texas A&M University systems publicly pushed lawmakers to act in anticipation of that settlement and an NCAA rule change.

Under House Bill 126, athletes 17 or older can receive payments from their school after they are enrolled and participating in their sports program.

University of Houston-Victoria joins A&M

Lawmakers answered the call from Victoria residents to transfer a small college there from the University of Houston system to the Texas A&M system.

Residents have pushed for this since at least 2011. Proponents say the move will stabilize the university’s declining enrollment and allow it to offer agribusiness and engineering programs that the local economy requires.

Funds for technical colleges will be put up for a vote

Legislators also passed Senate Joint Resolution 59, which would create an endowment for the underfunded Texas State Technical College.

If voters approve it as a constitutional amendment on Nov. 4, TSTC will receive money to fix its infrastructure and grow its presence across the state.

In 2023, similar legislation passed through the Legislature with bipartisan support, but was among the slew of bills Abbott vetoed to signal his disappointment with the House and Senate’s inability to find a compromise over property taxes during the regular legislative session. This year, the effort to give technical colleges a funding boost nearly got caught in political crosshairs again, when House Democrats threatened to shoot down all constitutional amendments over school vouchers.

Efforts to target international students fall short

Republican state lawmakers were less successful than the Trump administration in targeting international and undocumented students — at least legislatively.

After the Trump administration began revoking the visas and legal immigration status of international students who it said had participated in Pro-Palestinian demonstrations or were charged with a crime, the Texas Senate passed a measure that would have required universities to suspend and report to the federal government international students who are “publicly endorsing or espousing terrorist activity related to an ongoing conflict.” But the House did not consider it.

Another bill proposed this year sought to repeal a 2001 law that allows undocumented students who have lived for some time in Texas and promised to take steps toward becoming legal residents to pay in-state college tuition. The measure advanced out of committee for the first time in a decade, but stalled before a full vote.

Advocates for undocumented students were relieved, but it was short-lived. Two days after the legislative session ended, the Trump administration sued Texas, claiming the policy discriminated against U.S. citizens. Texas did not defend its law in court and now as many as 19,000 students are facing higher tuition bills in the fall.

Lawmakers threaten universities’ funding

Ultimately, the 2025 session mirrored 2023 in pairing threats to defund universities over DEI with a continued push for more performance-based funding.

Lawmakers opened the session by proposing to zero out the institutional enhancement fund, a $423 million line item from the last budget cycle. They argued universities remained “too [DEI] and leftist-focused.”

Though the fund isn’t universities’ sole source of revenue, school leaders warned that losing it would harm student success and academic programs, especially because Abbott had barred tuition increases to offset the cut.

Universities have struggled to please anyone on the DEI front: Legislators claim the schools haven’t done enough to comply with the state’s DEI ban, while students and faculty say they’ve overcomplied. Last year, leaders from all seven of Texas’ public university systems testified and described in writing how they had laid off or reassigned staff, closed offices and eliminated certain training and programs tied to DEI.

In the end, lawmakers restored the institutional enhancement fund but said future funding will be based on the universities’ performance.

It is unclear what metrics lawmakers might consider implementing to evaluate universities or whether they’ll want to create a similar system like the one used for community colleges.

Community colleges’ funding formula is refined

A 2023 reform changed how Texas measures community colleges’ performance. Their funding used to be based on their enrollment numbers; now they receive money based on the number of job credentials, degrees or certificates their students complete. Legislators refined that law this year in the hope that it will help connect more Texans to higher education.

Under Senate Bill 1786, community colleges will receive funds when their students transfer to private universities, not just public ones. This will help schools like McLennan Community College, which has a strong pipeline to Baylor University next door.

SB 1786 also narrows the definition of a “credential of value,” tying it more closely to wage-related returns on investment for students and to labor market needs.

Finally, the bill clarifies that students in the Windham School District, the high school education system in Texas prisons, qualify for the FAST grant, which waives the cost of dual credit courses.

The state has just five years to meet its goal of getting 60% of Texas adults a postsecondary degree or credential.

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

Disclosure: Baylor University, Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University System and University of Houston 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.

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