Texas Tech Prof. Deena Varner on the Creighton memoranda and the administrative takeover of higher education. 👏👏⬇️

How to Occupy a University

Project 2025, Texas Tech, and the Administrative Remaking of Higher Education

open.substack.com

BOOM. The AAUP is suing Texas A&M University System over their censorship policy that prohibits faculty from discussing topics & viewpoints related to race, sexual orientation, & gender. www.aclutx.org/app/uploads/... 1

Anticipatory obedience will 👏 not👏work👏. Extremists attacking higher education in Texas will not be pacified. ⬇️⬇️ www.texasobserver.org/university-o...

University of Houston Nixed Its Gender and Sexuality Classes. That Won’t Stop Texas’ Crusade Against Higher Ed

College administrators wrongly hope that anticipatory obedience will satisfy a GOP-run Texas Legislature that is increasingly hostile toward education.

texasobserver.org

It's us! #BTHOcensorship #LetUsTeach

Texas A&M sued over teaching limits on race, gender

This is the second Texas university system sued over teaching restrictions in recent weeks.

texastribune.org

President Trump is banning students majoring in degrees that don’t make enough money from taking out college loans. Degrees for social work, art, religious studies, teaching aides, and music will be hit the hardest. trib.al/aaAEu6v

Trump Moves to Cut Off Student Loans for Tons of Degrees

Under a new rule, if your degree doesn’t make enough money, you won’t be able to get a student loan.

trib.al

The Trump admin is back with version 2.0 of its higher ed compact. The reason is simple: The first one failed. Compact 2.0 lacks egregious elements of its predecessor. That’s a victory & affirms that the answer to authoritarianism is organized resistance—not compliance. www.aaup.org/news/new-com...

New Compact Shows Resistance Works, but Fight for Higher Ed Isn’t Over

The Trump administration is back with a second version of its higher education compact. As with its predecessor, the best path forward is for higher education workers to organize and demand that their...

aaup.org

according to Texas A&M system policy - Plato, the movie Moonlight, and the 14th Amendment are out but Phyllis Schlafly and the movie Barbie are in

Everything is big in Texas. Including the racism, bigotry & law breaking across Texas’ public universities. And the resistance. The lawsuits are here. First one hit Tech. This one hits A&M. UT just matter of time. @texasaaup.bsky.social @aaup.org

Gautam Hans@gshans.bsky.social · yesterday

Another banger from @aclu.org @aaup.org www.aclutx.org/press-releas...

“The American Association of University Professors is joined in the Texas A&M lawsuit by four faculty plaintiffs, each of whom says the policy prompted their course to be canceled or not offered.” www.chronicle.com/article/what...

‘What Are We Even Doing Here?': New Lawsuit Challenges Ban on Race and Gender Topics at Texas A&M

Plaintiffs included four faculty members whose courses were canceled or not offered.

chronicle.com

for anyone earnestly concerned about "learning loss" please direct your energies to the ~25 states aggressively trying to prevent half the nations students from learning about racism and gender. below stats from 2024 are now stale (and miss higher ed entirely) papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

Word to the wise: any president or board that responds to this letter without formally consulting their faculty and staff through established governance bodies and after a public comment period is abdicating their fiduciary responsibility. #MakeSharedGovernanceMatterMore www.ed.gov/media/docume...

⭐️⭐️Gift link. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/03/u...

After Colleges Reject ‘Compact,’ Trump Officials Try a Letter (Gift Article)

The open letter from Education Secretary Linda McMahon fell far short of the attempt at a compact last year that dangled research money in return for embracing the Trump administration’s agenda.

nytimes.com

Antonio Ingram, Senior Counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund “unelected Chancelors + Board of Regents are implementing a vision for higher education not mandated by Senate Bill 37…we are here to call out the harms professors + students are experiencing under the guise of SB 37 implementation.” 👏

SB37 Never Required Classroom Censorship

CONTACT: Troi Barnes, media@naacpldf.org

aaup-texas.org

Often my academic friends ask how they can help when they learn how Texas is restricting teaching and denying tenure. The answer: Join AAUP. Your dues—small as they are (~$30)—help build collective power to fight for legislation, policy, and in the courts for students, faculty, & staff. Join us!

⭐️”At a competing press conference held by the American Association of University Professors, students and faculty presented a different view. They said their universities are acting beyond the law’s bounds and curtailing politically unpopular courses, degree programs and departments.” ⬇️

Texas lawmakers call SB 37 a success. Professors say it limits teaching.

Texas lawmakers say SB 37 is working. Professors argue some universities are going beyond what the law requires.

statesman.com

Very interesting article, especially for my TX faculty friends.

Dominique Baker@bakerdphd.bsky.social · last wk.

Rufo was "supplying policy blueprints and social-media firepower for an ambitious conservative overhaul. In return, FL became Rufo’s proving ground, elevating the up-and-coming activist into one of the movement’s most influential cheerleaders." www.chronicle.com/article/flor...

www.texastribune.org/2026/07/28/t...

Colleges brace for cuts as Texas refines performance-based funding

Hiring and spending will be impacted, college administrators say. The performance-based model is proving unpredictable in its early years.

texastribune.org

Trump is waging a “Khmer Rouge-esque war on American science & intellectual achievement writ large,” escalating the climate crisis while systematically gutting the research needed to predict, mitigate, & survive it. #academicsky

The Strongest El Niño in History Is Coming. Get Ready. - The American Prospect

Donald Trump has no ideas, but America is ready for a U-turn on climate change.

prospect.org

@aaup.org President @proftwolf.bsky.social is right.Chancellor Creighton's memos are meant to scare staff away from teaching subjects some lawmakers disagree with. Texas Tech's restrictions are about ideological control, not academic oversight. @texasaaup.bsky.social www.aft.org/news/america...

American Association of University Professors and Texas AAUP-AFT fight back against academic censorship

The American Association of University Professors and Texas AAUP-AFT are suing the Texas Tech University System, claiming its policies restrict professors from using course material about race, gender...

aft.org

The AAUP stands with Mohsen Mahdawi & other faculty members, graduate students, & academic workers whose speech the federal government is attempting to censor. An injury to one is an injury to all. Full Statement: www.aaup.org/news/we-stan...

⭐️⭐️Open Letter Concerning the Tenure Denial of Dr. Iván Chaar López⭐️⭐️ “The future of academic freedom depends upon institutions demonstrating that difficult scholarship will be evaluated on its merits and that faculty governance remains a meaningful safeguard against arbitrary decision making.”

Open Letter Concerning the Tenure Denial of Dr. Iván Chaar López

The denial of tenure to Dr. Chaar López has become a national concern because it raises questions that extend far beyond one faculty member or one institution. Scholars across disciplines depend upon ...

actionnetwork.org

It's come to this. The people are standing up to protect Texas' public universities from their own administrators & government. *People’s Hearing on Protecting Ethnic and Women’s and Gender Studies in Texas Higher Education* Wednesday, August 12, 2026 9:00 a.m.–12:00 p.m.

NEW: In response to Texas SB37, the University of Houston might cut 40% of the classes in its core curriculum. Classes like "Intro to LGBT Studies" would be removed. Professors say the process has been secretive and that the cuts would be a loss for students: www.chron.com/culture/arti...

LGBTQ+, women's studies may be cut from UH core classes

Some courses would no longer be a required part of UH's curriculum under the proposal.

chron.com

The White House didn’t weigh scientific merit or alleged noncompliance of grant terms when they cut billions in life-saving research, they just looked for words they didn’t like. Blue states were specifically targeted for defunding.

Sarah T Roberts, PhD@ubiquity75.xyz · 2w ago

A reminder that UC _faculty_ and Faculty Associations — not the universities themselves nor their administrators — are waging this battle in court, demonstrating great bravery and moral clarity.

We have to fight like never before. Want to fight? Join @aaup.org today and get organize with tour colleagues wherever in the country you are!

Texas Conference of the AAUP@texasaaup.bsky.social · 2w ago

Dr. Iván Chaar López: “If you want a productive university…that supports the state, its citizens, its neighbors, I’m not sure that you want the workers in this institution to be nervous, to be looking over their shoulders… Academic freedom is not under duress—it’s being dismantled.”

As the report concludes, "Resistance has been, and will be, most effective — indeed, it may only be effective — when faculty members mobilize and take independent action." Download the full report below. 7/7 👇

Extorted Compliance: A Threat to Institutional Autonomy, Academic Freedom, and Shared Governance

Published July 2026.This report was prepared by a joint subcommittee of the Association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom andTenure and the Committee on College and University Governance and was appro...

aaup.org

Litigation led by Harvard AAUP forced Harvard itself to join a suit that restored billions in frozen funding. A parallel effort by the AAUP & @cucfa.org led a federal judge to bar the government from conditioning further support on new payments. 6

It's the faculty, not the people running these institutions, that the report credits with the only real wins. "If there has been a silver lining to the cloud that is the Trump compliance campaign," the report emphasizes, "it has been the mobilization of the faculty." 5

“What’s made clear in this report is that the Trump administration's efforts to upend higher ed institutions builds upon a larger series of assaults on higher education by congressional committees, state governments, & feckless trustees and entitled donors.” 4

“These findings spotlight the enormous breadth with which the Trump admin is trying to shake down institutions of higher education," said Hank Reichman, AAUP Committee on College & University Governance member who co-authored the report. @hankreichman.bsky.social 3