AAUP chapter @UT Austin
@utaustinaaup.bsky.social
We fight for academic freedom at UT Austin, UT System, and Texas higher education. Member @aaup.bsky.social, @TexasAAUP.bsky.social. Affiliated with @TexasAFT.org, @texasaflcio.bsky.social. We do not speak for our employer. Follows❤️sRTs🚫endorsement.✊🏽🗣️
Stories behind UT’s now-closed ethnic and gender studies departments www.statesman.com/news/educati...
Four UT departments are gone. Their histories span decades
Their names are gone from UT’s doors, but faculty and alumni say the academic communities they built will endure.
statesman.com
Our colleagues at TTU are doing a book club this semester that they’ve invited us to join. Register here: forms.cloud.microsoft/r/w8ZAT2Db2Y
“A dystopian academic nightmare.” A Texas University Is Using A.I. to Cut Left-Leaning Content www.nytimes.com/2026/08/18/u...
Texas Tech University Is Using A.I. to Cut Left-Leaning Content
The politician behind Texas’ conservative overhaul of higher education is now running a university system. Some say his effort to ferret out forbidden topics is a dystopian academic nightmare.
nytimes.com
Professors sue Texas A&M System to block restrictions on race, gender teachings www.dallasnews.com/news/educati...
Texas A&M System sued over limits on race, gender teachings
Professors want to block Texas A&M's policies that ban advocacy of race and gender ideology in the classroom.
dallasnews.com
“Censorship doesn’t always begin by banning ideas,” student Rivas Labarca said. “Sometimes it begins by making those ideas impossible to study.” www.texastribune.org/2026/07/28/u...
Increased scrutiny of Texas colleges detailed in hearing
Students and professors who say SB 37 led to censorship are holding a news conference before the Texas Senate’s hearing.
texastribune.org
www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty...
Under UT’s New Core Curriculum, Faculty Are Limited
The new core will include a list of approved authors that faculty must select from to build their syllabi for certain courses, including Great Questions of Human Life and Masterworks of Literature.
insidehighered.com
Censoring lessons robs students of the opportunity to learn, debate, & think. The chilling effect of memos like Texas Tech Chancellor Creighton's drives faculty away from higher ed, leaving students w/o expertise. Thank u @texasaaup.bsky.social for standing up. www.tpr.org/education/20...
'Censored education': Faculty groups sue Texas Tech over curriculum rules targeting race, gender topics
Faculty groups say the Texas Tech University System's new curriculum policies are unconstitutional and unlawfully restrict classroom instruction on race, gender identity and sexual orientation. But un...
tpr.org
“It’s not like they were directly censored,” Schrader said of UNT. “There were no politicians that directly came and said, ‘You cannot have this show.’” Schrader said that’s where the real story is. apple.news/AI6xwRwp_QWm...
An artist brought 'I.C.E. pops' to a Texas campus. The show was shut down in days — NPR
The Trump administration's executive orders have meant that administrators are questioning what art can — and can't — be seen on campus.
apple.news
AFT, @texasaft.org, and @hft2415.bsky.social call for independent investigation into ICE killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo: "Yet another reminder that [ICE] has no interest in treating people with the dignity, humanity, and respect they deserve." — @rweingarten.bsky.social
AFT, Texas AFT, and HFT join calls for independent investigation into killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo
Houston, Texas – AFT, Texas AFT, and HFT (Houston Federation of Teachers) abhor in the strongest terms the extrajudicial killing of Houston resident and father Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, and is calling f...
aft.org
⭐️⭐️An incredible syllabus on the Right wing takeover of higher education using UT Austin as a case study. ⬇️ open.substack.com/pub/highered...
Syllabus: The Right-Wing University Takeover
The Higher Ed Advocate is dedicated to two goals: 1) documenting and analyzing attacks on higher education in Texas and beyond, and 2) defending students’ right to learn and professors’ right to teach...
open.substack.com
Gutting our scientific research infrastructure is NOT in the best interest of the American people.
Ryan Quinn@ryanequinn.bsky.social · 2mo agoThe Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality sent researchers letters this week saying they wouldn’t receive long-awaited funding continuations. The agency cited the “best interest of the federal government.” www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...
🚨Lauren Gutterman, former chair of the American Studies department and AAUP UT Austin Chapter VP: “Iván’s case is a warning for all faculty across the university, because it suggests that achieving excellence in your field is no longer enough to secure tenure and promotion.” ⬇️
UT border surveillance scholar was a shoo-in for tenure. UT denied him.
American Studies scholar Iván Chaar López fears UT’s unexplained tenure denial violated his academic freedom amid scrutiny of controversial fields.
statesman.com
“Two courses for the fall of 2026 were canceled outright, while several more had to alter their syllabi to comply. Professors teaching those courses told The Chronicle they weren’t provided with any rationale for why their “exception requests” were partially or fully denied.”
What Texas A&M Will — and Won’t — Let You Teach
Newly obtained records reveal that two courses for the fall were canceled outright, while administrators demanded changes to others. Instructors say the deliberative process is a black box.
chronicle.com
Texas public universities have become walking lawsuits waiting to happen. Here's A&M selectively purging course content about racism & the LGTBQ+ community. If only there were a national panic about free speech crises on campus. www.chronicle.com/article/thes...
On Saturday afternoon, the Higher Education Committee spoke to delegates about the AFT & the American Association of University Professors’ “A Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education” and the importance of making higher education a key issue in the 2026 midterms. @psc-cuny.org
Keeping higher education in focus in the 2026 midterms
The Higher Education Committee spoke about the AFT/AAUP Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education and the importance of making higher education a key issue in the 2026 midterms.
aft.org
“A brand new accreditor, called the Commission for Public Higher Education, or CPHE, has been created by and for the Southern states. Effectively, the states have concocted a way in which they can oversee themselves.” Texas is among impacted southern states. ⬇️
Next in Florida's war on 'woke': Becoming its own higher ed watchdog
Accrediting agencies have long fought to keep politics out of higher education, but a new Florida-created accreditor could open the political floodgates.
wlrn.org
✴️Tenure is neither a privilege or a right. It is a time-tested safeguard of academic excellence, awarded only to faculty who undergo a rigorous review of their research, teaching, and service. A fair and transparent practice that respects the opinion of experts is essential to UT Austin’s stature.
Texas Conference of the AAUP@texasaaup.bsky.social · last mo.UT Austin doubles down on denial of tenure to leading borderlands tech scholar: “In an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed, a UT spokesperson said, ‘Tenure is privilege, not a right.’” www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...
This paternalistic language makes it clear that the faculty are not considered the custodians of academic departments and the curriculum. The state - through its administrative vessels - is in control.
Texas Conference of the AAUP@texasaaup.bsky.social · last mo.UT Austin doubles down on denial of tenure to leading borderlands tech scholar: “In an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed, a UT spokesperson said, ‘Tenure is privilege, not a right.’” www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...
Tenure exists to safeguard #academicfreedom, which is necessary for all who teach & conduct research in higher ed. When faculty members can lose positions because of their speech, publications, or research findings, they cannot properly fulfill their responsibilities to advance & transmit knowledge.
Texas Conference of the AAUP@texasaaup.bsky.social · last mo.UT Austin doubles down on denial of tenure to leading borderlands tech scholar: “In an emailed statement to Inside Higher Ed, a UT spokesperson said, ‘Tenure is privilege, not a right.’” www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...
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.
White House admits it used keywords to kill billions worth of California research grants
Federal agencies that terminated more than a thousand research grants at the University of California last year admitted that they used keywords related to diversity, gender, vaccine hesitancy and COV...
apnews.com
I’m joining the Attitude w Arnie Arnesen today at 12:30p ET to discuss Texas’ right wing legislature’s war on its own universities. Listen live @ WNHN FM: www.wnhnfm.org/programs-2/a...
Jonathan Feingold@jpygold.bsky.social · last mo.UT leaders choosing ideology over excellence. Iván’s case is a warning for all faculty across the university,” said Lauren Gutterman, former chair of the American Studies department. “Because it suggests that achieving excellence in your field is no longer enough to secure tenure and promotion.”
“Three years after Texas reinvented how community colleges earn state funding to reward them for getting more students to graduation, the schools are delivering. But now the colleges are short the millions they planned to receive as their successes outpaced what state lawmakers budgeted.” 😡
Texas may limit community college's incentive funding
A formula designed to reward colleges for student success generated larger payouts than budgeted. Now, Texas’ higher education agency may limit how schools receive such funding.
texastribune.org
Texas spent billions recruiting scientists from around the world to turn the state into a cancer-research powerhouse. Now, Abbott’s H-1B visas restrictions may stall research, some warn. bit.ly/3RuRI6Z
Cancer research could stall amid Texas’ limits on foreign workers
MD Anderson is a global leader in cancer research, tapping hundreds of foreign-born scientists. Now Gov. Greg Abbott’s restrictions on H-1B visas may limit the talent pool.
bit.ly
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.”
Prof Denied Tenure: Academic Freedom at UT Being Dismantled
Border-surveillance researcher Iván Chaar López received a near-unanimous recommendation from faculty and outstanding external support letters. Still, he was denied tenure without explanation.
insidehighered.com
OUT TODAY, the AAUP just released the first comprehensive account of how the Trump administration has taken the same playbook it's used on law firms & foreign governments & turned it on American universities. US higher ed has, in effect, become a target of a massive extortion racket. 🧵
New Report on Extorted Compliance Charges “Massive Extortion Racket” Against Higher Ed
A new AAUP report, "Extorted Compliance: A Threat to Institutional Autonomy, Academic Freedom, and Shared Governance," exposes how the Trump administration has extended its pay-to-play approach to gov...
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
