Texas Senate Higher Education Priority Bills Will End Tenures, Diversity Politics

A bill filed Friday in the Texas Senate would bar public colleges and universities from awarding professorships hired after September, legislation that critics say would make it extremely difficult for the state to recruit the best faculty and hurt the reputation of its higher education institutions. .

The bill, introduced by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, is one of three pieces of legislation on Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s higher education priority list for this session.

Creighton also filed a bill to prevent Texas higher education institutions from considering diversity, equality and inclusiveness when hiring new employees. A third bill, filed by Senator Brian Hughes, R-Mineola, would ban educators from teaching that any race, ethnicity, gender, or political belief is “inherently superior to others.”

If they are passed as they were submitted, the bills will markedly change how the state’s universities operate.

Critics argue that the law will create a chilling effect in college classrooms as faculty and students try to determine what is acceptable for discussion by imposing restrictions on core principles of higher education such as academic freedom and free inquiry.

“Terms of office and academic freedom were designed to protect scientists, who sometimes study unpopular things, from the very political influence that Texas, Florida and other states are trying to exert on the audience,” said Victor Ray, a professor at the University of Iowa. who wrote a book on critical race theory. “[This] damages the US ability to create new ideas and innovate, and to do what the conservatives claim they are interested in. If there are whole branches of ideas that aren’t being discussed, you can’t discuss them, figure out what’s right, and move forward.”

Last year, Patrick announced a proposal to abolish tenure for prospective staff as a way to combat faculty who, he said, “indoctrinate” students with teachings about “critical race theory.”

Critical race theory is an academic discipline that studies the impact of race and racism on America’s legal and social systems. Over the past few years, conservatives have used “critical race theory” as a broad label to attack progressive teachings and books in colleges and K-12 schools that discuss how racism and racism are taught in schools.

When Patrick unveiled his list of legislative priorities earlier in this session, he called Hughes’ bill a ban on “critical race theory” in higher education. Patrick’s banning statement was also a response to a resolution issued by the University of Texas at the Austin Faculty Council in February 2022 affirming faculty’s right to teach racial justice and critical racial theory in the classroom.

Since then, several leaders of the university system have expressed concern that the abolition of tenure may hurt their ability to hire the best faculty. Last year, Speaker of the House Dade Phelan said he did not agree with Patrick’s proposal to terminate his powers. Gov. Greg Abbott has been largely silent on the matter.

As filed, Creighton’s bill would allow employees who received or received a tenure before September 1st to retain benefits. And it allows the board of trustees of the university system to set its own “tiered employment status for faculty.”

In a press release Friday, Creighton criticized tenure as “a costly perk that harms innovative research and quality teaching.”

“At a time when colleges and universities have unprecedented endowments, inflated administrative costs and inflated tuition fees, it is time for lawmakers to rethink outdated practices that guarantee lifetime employment at taxpayer expense,” he said.

Creighton also filed a bill to ban the use of diversity claims in employment; ban offices that focus on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts; and expand the powers of boards of trustees to hire top administrators at their universities.

The bill states that universities cannot require students or faculty to “endorse an ideology that promotes different treatment of an individual or group of individuals based on race, color, or ethnicity.”

Last month, Abbott’s office sent a letter to public universities and state agencies stating that considering diversity, fairness and inclusion in hiring violates federal and state employment laws and prohibits them from hiring for reasons other than merit. Legal experts said the Governor’s administration mischaracterized the legal methods used by employers when considering diversity in hiring.

In response to the Governor’s order, many university systems have banned diversity claims from future job applications. These statements are short essays in which a potential employee can describe their experience of working with different student groups or share their experience of working with different populations and their commitment to helping a diverse group of students succeed. Conservative critics have described them as political litmus tests.

The bill states that the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Council will maintain a list of people found to have violated this section of the law and that universities cannot hire people from that list. If the coordinating board finds that the university is in violation of this section, it may recover up to $1 million or 1% of the institution’s operating expenses for the previous financial year from the school.

“The location of DEI offices on campuses has only exacerbated divisions and created a deterrent effect on open dialogue,” Creighton said in a press release. dialogue and encourage intellectual discourse”.

Also on Friday, Sen. Joan Huffman, D-Houston, filed another bill to create a new donation stream for Texas Tech University, the University of Houston, Texas State University, and the University of North Texas.

Texas voters must approve a constitutional amendment allowing the change and add $2.5 billion to the donation before the state can formally establish the fund.

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