Texas Tech’s limits on gender identity discussion deepen fears of politics breaching academic freedom

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LUBBOCK — In a first for Texas higher education, the Texas Tech University System has ordered faculty across its five universities to limit classroom discussion of transgender and nonbinary identities, but gave little guidance on how academic endeavors or instruction should proceed.

The vague directive rattled Texas Tech students and professors, many of whom expressed fear that they will face academic or professional repercussions for pushing back. Free speech groups quickly characterized the unclear limits as unconstitutional censorship. And LGBTQ+ advocates said the move will only further marginalize already-vulnerable trans and nonbinary students and faculty.

“Everyone is terrified,” said a professor at the flagship Tech campus in Lubbock, who asked not to be named over fear of losing their job.

Texas Tech Chancellor Tedd Mitchell late Thursday said that when faculty are acting as employees and instructors, they must follow President Donald Trump’s executive order recognizing only male and female genders as assigned at birth, Gov. Greg Abbott’s letter directing state agencies to “reject woke gender ideologies” and House Bill 229 requiring a strict binary definition of gender for the collection of vital statistics.

“While recognizing the First Amendment rights of employees in their personal capacity, faculty must comply with these laws in the instruction of students, within the course and scope of their employment,” Mitchell wrote in a memo that landed in faculty’s email inboxes on Friday.

Legal experts immediately disputed Mitchell’s characterization of the executive order, gubernatorial letter and state law he cited.

“This is an egregious attack on academic freedom,” said Chloe Kempf, a staff attorney with the ACLU of Texas. “The bottom line is that the Constitution requires — and Texans deserve — free and open learning environments in institutes of higher education.”

There is no state or federal law that prohibits instruction on gender identity in college classes. Mitchell did not explicitly detail what can and cannot be acknowledged in academic discussions. A spokesperson for the system did not respond to questions about the new policy on Friday.

“It’s like cruelty is the point,” said a graduate student at the flagship Texas Tech campus in Lubbock who advocates for the transgender community. “It’s such an injustice to the students who came here to learn.”

The student, who is queer and asked for anonymity out of fear they’d be fired from their university job, said the policy undercut Texas Tech’s efforts to recruit diverse faculty and students and tarnishes its reputation as a welcoming, top-tier institution.

The Texas Tech University System includes five institutions that enrolled 69,502 students in 2024: Texas Tech University, Texas Tech Health Sciences Center, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso, Angelo State University and Midwestern State University.

Mitchell’s guidance comes after Angelo State University instructed faculty not to discuss transgender identities in the classroom, making the school the first known public Texas university to largely restrict classroom acknowledgement of such gender identities.

The new Texas Tech system rules also come on the heels of a recent controversy at Texas A&M, where professor Melissa McCoul was fired amid conservative backlash — including from top Texas Republicans — over a viral video depicting a student’s objection to a gender identity discussion in a children’s literature class. Mark A. Welsh III, Texas A&M’s former president, resigned over a week later after he was criticized for his initial handling of the incident.

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Are political or cultural shifts spurring curriculum or policy changes on your college campus that Texans need to know about? Send tips to higher education reporter Jessica Priest at jessica.priest@texastribune.org or send her a message via Signal at @jessicapriest.79.

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Texas Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature and hold every office elected statewide, have spent years exerting more control over the state’s higher education institutions. Lawmakers have given more power over curriculum, hiring and discipline to regents, who oversee university systems and are appointed by Abbott. Two years ago, lawmakers banned diversity, equity and inclusion programs and training in higher education, but exempted academic instruction, research and creative work.

State Sen. Brandon Creighton, a Conroe Republican, was the architect of many of the Legislature’s higher education bills in recent years. Texas Tech regents are scheduled to formally name him system chancellor on Tuesday. University regents across Texas have increasingly turned to politicians to lead their schools as they prioritize better relations with state leaders over academic experience.

Mitchell, who has led the Tech system since 2017, had previously announced his planned departure. Creighton could not be reached for comment Friday.

A spokesperson for Texas Tech University did not respond to questions about whether leaders there believe the directive is out of step with the First Amendment, what kinds of instruction could be considered out of compliance, or what sanctions faculty who don’t comply could face. In a statement Friday, a spokesperson said the university was "continuing to seek clarity on certain matters while our faculty adhere to applicable laws.”

Restricting trans Texans’ access

Texas lawmakers in recent years have also filed scores of bills aimed at LGBTQ+ Texans. They have successfully restricted the bathrooms trans people can use in government buildings, the sports teams they can play on and the medical treatments they can receive as children. State Rep. Ellen Troxclair, the author of the new state law Mitchell cited in his Thursday memo, argued during the legislative session that her measure protects women’s sports teams and women’s privacy in bathrooms.

Anti-trans ads and campaign messages mobilized the Republican base during last year’s election season, in which Trump was elected, political strategists and experts say.

The queer student who works at the Lubbock university worries the new restrictions on discussing trans and nonbinary identities will worsen LGBTQ+ students’ mental health.

A 2024 Trevor Project survey found 90% of LGBTQ+ people between the ages of 13 and 24 said their well-being was negatively impacted due to recent politics.

“If I had known a policy like this was a possibility, I wouldn’t have chosen Texas Tech,” the student said.

Transgender people consider themselves the gender opposite of the sex assigned to them at birth. Gender identity is distinct from sexual orientation, which refers to the gender or genders someone is emotionally or sexually attracted to.

Brad Pritchett, interim chief executive officer of LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Texas, said Mitchell’s letter is a political move to make “scapegoats” out of transgender people in an attempt to divert attention from other issues. He also said the letter’s citing of an executive order, which is not law, is a purposeful misrepresentation of legal policy to create animosity against trans people.

“The reality for anyone is that our communities exist, we contribute to the state, we are valuable Texans, just as anyone else,” Pritchett said. “The idea here, of trying to erase entire swaths of community because you don't like the fact that we exist, is not something that anybody should be supportive of.”

A physician who works for a medical school in Texas, and who asked not to be named because of the heightened scrutiny teaching faculty across the state are now experiencing, also does not believe the state and federal directives cited in Mitchell’s directive prohibit teaching about gender identities. He stressed that ignoring transgender health in academic settings would be irresponsible since transgender individuals face higher rates of cancer and cardiovascular disease linked to hormone treatment.

“And so every academic institution around the state is trying to decide, how do we still teach and comply with the laws?” the physician said.

“No directive can override the Constitution”

Mitchell’s memo asked the presidents of the Texas Tech system’s five universities to review course materials, syllabi and curricula and make “timely adjustments where needed.” He called the issue “a developing area of law.”

But legal experts and free speech advocates disputed that characterization that the law is unsettled.

Academic freedom is the concept that professors and students should be protected from political interference in the classroom. Courts have recognized it over the years as a First Amendment right.

“You can’t place these kinds of limitations,” said Kelly Benjamin of the American Association of University Professors. “That’s what you might see in authoritarian states. But in a democracy like the United States, this is particularly egregious.”

Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said “no directive can override the Constitution.”

Jonathan Friedman, of PEN America, said students need to be free to engage with facts and discuss the reality of gender diversity.

“What kind of university tells faculty and students what topics are prohibited in its classrooms? This is an ideological diktat, masked as legal compliance, to obscure its brazen unconstitutionality,” Friedman said. “Muzzling faculty at the whims of the president isn't just a violation of academic freedom and human decency. It's dangerous.”

The Texas Tech professor who asked not to be named said they will no longer be on campus aside from their office hours. While the professor has tenure, they said they are searching for a new job and looking to move their family out of Lubbock. A recent survey found that a quarter of Texas professors are looking for jobs outside the state, citing fear and anxiety amid growing political interference on campuses.

The professor said the university has struggled to keep faculty in recent years and retention rates have been “problematic” because they are under-resourced and overworked. They worried the new restrictions will affect Texas Tech, which is in its biggest faculty hiring season of the year and is accepting applications for open positions.

Even before Mitchell’s memo was released, faculty at Texas Tech were bracing for new restrictions. One department chair who attended a meeting with their dean and other department heads on Thursday evening said they went in expecting guidance from the system on classroom speech about transgender issues. The chair asked not to be named because faculty were instructed not to talk to the media and could lose their jobs.

Instead, administrators reminded faculty of longstanding university policy and a 2009 state law that syllabi be updated and posted publicly online by the 10th class day, and include specific elements, such as learning outcomes, assessment methods, grading criteria and required policy statements.

Texas Tech Provost Ron Hendrick emphasized the need for up-to-date syllabi in an email sent to faculty early Friday.

“Planned course content must be reflected in the syllabus through, at minimum, the course outline and the expected learning outcomes from the course,” he wrote. “The syllabus functions as a commitment between the university, the academic unit, the faculty and the student … Failure to follow these requirements places the university out of compliance with state law and may result in corrective measures at the unit or college level.”

The focus on syllabi appeared to be in response to the Texas A&M controversy. In the university’s termination notice for McCoul, the children’s literature professor, Texas A&M alleged she was "instructed on multiple occasions to change the course content to align with the course description ... and chose not to follow the directive."

It was not immediately clear how Mitchell’s directive will impact the system’s academic offerings. Texas Tech’s flagship campus in Lubbock offered eight Introduction to Women’s and Gender Studies courses this semester, each with a capacity for about 40 students, according to a public listing of courses online. Three of those courses were full and only a handful of seats remained in the five others.

In a follow-up memo obtained by The Texas Tribune on Friday, Hendrick, the Texas Tech University provost, said they will be working with deans and department chairs whose programs or courses may be affected by the chancellor’s directive. The memo emphasized that “instruction should remain neutral” and that faculty must teach “without compelling students to adopt a particular belief.”

Democratic state Rep. Donna Howard of Austin said because Texas universities are institutions run by the state — and their funding depends on federal and state dollars — school leaders are beholden to people in higher office.

“Their legal and financial solvency, if you will, it depends upon them following the dictates that are being given to them,” she said.

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

Disclosure: ACLU Texas 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.

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