Texas Tech system’s vague guidelines on gender identity spur more questions than answers

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As a viral video of a Texas A&M student and professor debating the legality of discussing gender identity roiled the College Station university and spurred a political firestorm, deans hundreds of miles away at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Lubbock quietly rolled out new instructions for faculty.

Teaching doctors were told to remove words like “transgender,” “DEI” and “affirmative action” from their curricula, a professor told The Texas Tribune. Simulated patient exams that included scenarios with transgender patients were suddenly in question.

Professors decided to delay lessons that contained those terms, in part because “there isn’t a synonym for transgender.” But they were concerned: Removing such instruction would undercut the school’s mission to prepare health workers for underserved West Texas communities, the professor said.

“The Hippocratic Oath is ‘first do no harm,’ right? But if students aren’t prepared, then they are going to do harm,” the professor said.

Faculty at the medical school hoped for clearer guidance on what they could and couldn’t say. Instead, a sweeping directive for the entire Texas Tech University System dropped. Chancellor Tedd Mitchell told professors that their instruction must comply with a presidential executive order, a gubernatorial letter and a new state law — all of which recognize only two sexes and none of which explicitly restrict teaching. That policy, faculty said, raised more questions than answers.

The Tribune spoke about the changes at the Texas Tech schools with several professors, who asked not to be named because they have been instructed not to speak to the media and for fear of losing their jobs. They described a system that has grown more cautious and top-down, where politics shapes what can be taught and faculty have little protection if they resist.

Many say they are censoring themselves while also fearing the university could punish them selectively if their teaching draws political fire. With faculty governance already weakened under a new law authored by former state senator and incoming Chancellor Brandon Creighton, several professors said they worry administrators won’t defend them if their instruction is challenged.

One faculty member said she decided her safest option was to “stay as silent as possible in order to not run afoul of this very vague directive.” The professor worried that silence would rob students of lessons that “their peers at other institutions are getting the opportunity to learn.”

The Health Sciences Center professor recalled that the school’s deans delivered the guidance limiting faculty’s use of terms like “transgender” in person, something the professor believed was done so that no written record would exist. Although there is no federal or state law that limits those topics from being discussed in classroom teaching, the professor said they were told to take the term out anyway.

The professor linked the timing directly to the controversy that had engulfed Texas A&M two weeks earlier.

On Sept. 8, state Rep. Brian Harrison, R-Midlothian, posted on X a secretly recorded video of a student confronting Texas A&M professor Melissa McCoul for teaching about gender identity in a children’s literature class. The video sparked online furor and McCoul was fired. A few days later, President Mark A. Welsh III — seen by many as a stabilizing figure at the College Station campus — resigned amid criticism over his handling of the incident.

For Texas Tech faculty, Mitchell’s Sept. 25 guidance was a reaction to the Texas A&M controversy and an effort to prevent something similar from happening in the Texas Tech system’s five universities. But because the directive did not specify what compliance should look like or set a process for review, faculty say it has only deepened confusion.

“By being so vague and kind of uncertain, it leaves the door open for interpretation,” a political science professor at Texas Tech said, adding that the directive has lowered faculty morale and made professors feel the university could selectively punish them if their teaching drew political fire.

On Sept. 30, Provost Ron Hendrick emailed faculty a link to a Q&A posted on the provost’s website, where professors could view answers only by logging in with their university credentials.

The questions reflected the confusion that Mitchell’s directive had unleashed. One professor asked whether teaching about chromosomal abnormalities that lead to ambiguous genitalia would still be allowed, or “will TTU allow our teaching to become less scientific based on political whims?” Another asked: “If I am teaching a course on gender and sexuality in classical Greece and Rome, will I be fired if I teach that eunuchs (castrated men) were sometimes considered a third sex?”

The provost’s office reassured faculty that textbook-based teaching on these topics was permitted as long as it was framed as scientific instruction or historical examples presented as scholarly exploration rather than advocacy.

The Q&A also cautioned professors against including personal pronoun policies or statements of allyship in their syllabi, warning that such language could “draw unwanted attention.” Instead, faculty were urged to rely on university-approved wording about respect and civility.

Andrew Martin, an art professor at Texas Tech and the president of that campus’ chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said a meeting with Hendrick and the subsequent Q&A the provost posted initially signaled to faculty that administrators were trying to be collaborative. He said Hendrick agreed with Martin’s view that teaching material outside of the two-sex framework is not illegal if it falls within a faculty member’s area of expertise.

Martin thought the Q&A struck a more consultative tone, using language like “recommended” rather than “must.” He said it was preferable to the blunt directive Angelo State University — one of the Texas Tech system’s schools — issued nearly a week before Mitchell made it a systemwide order.

During a meeting on Sept. 19, Angelo State’s president and academic leaders told faculty that discussions on transgender identities in class were “forbidden,” citing 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. Those same documents were later invoked in Mitchell’s Sept. 25 directive.

Martin noted that while Texas Tech’s Q&A discouraged the use of personal pronouns, it still left room for professors to respect students’ preferred names.

“For some people, that may be a very cold, thin comfort, but it may be one of the only strategies available that will at least honor the idea that everyone should be called what they want to be called in the classroom,” he said.

But by Oct. 2, professors saw a troubling sign when the Q&A link no longer displayed faculty questions and answers. Instead, the page showed a notice saying the FAQs were “currently being updated” and promising that “additional guidance” would be shared soon. No explanation was given for the change, further frustrating professors who were already seeking clarity.

In a statement Monday, a Texas Tech University spokesperson said the Q&A “was removed to allow system leadership to coordinate and develop consistent guidance.” The spokesperson also said Creighton, the system’s incoming chancellor, was not involved in the decision to remove the Q&A.

After hearing from more faculty, Martin said it has become clear that some courses have been altered and instructors have been told to remove language that “could be controversial,” even if it affects how accurately students learn the material. He said the AAUP chapter is finalizing a statement condemning the directive and defending both trans rights and academic freedom.

“We are now going to forcefully oppose the memo for all the reasons that we said it was concerning,” Martin said on Monday. “We’re hearing the curriculum being shaped by pronouncements by politicians. That’s not acceptable.”

At Angelo State University, where faculty have been navigating more explicit restrictions than at Texas Tech, one English professor said the university’s directive has reshaped his teaching, forcing him to cut back on story assignments and narrow how he can respond to students’ work if it challenges gender roles.

“In the classroom, I would have to redirect any conversation around that kind of content towards just matters of style,” the professor said.

Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center Provost Darrin D’Agostino has begun visiting each campus to answer questions and collect others to take back to the system’s legal team and chancellor’s office. According to the health sciences professor, administrators have since told faculty that DEI-related terms are permissible but that “transgender” and related language still cannot be discussed in the classroom, though such terms are acceptable in clinical care.

On Monday, nearly three weeks after Mitchell’s directive was issued, uncertainty persisted even as administrators tried to clarify what’s allowed. The professor said administrators told faculty the Texas Tech University Q&A had been “incorrect” and that if they had read it, “we should not follow it.”

Lindsey Byman contributed to this report.

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

Disclosure: Texas A&M University, Texas Tech University, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center 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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