🚨🚨UT Regents may vote to limit teaching of 'controversial topics' this week. 👇 www.statesman.com/news/educati...

Gender Studies gives people the tools to question the exploitation of women and exposes elite men's abuse of power, money, and sex.

Some of the best departments, some of the best teachers, scholars, and students in the US and worldwide are at UT in these programs. As far as I am aware, the programs enroll well, are in demand, produce award-wining scholarship. Why in the world would anyone make this decision? @aaup.org

if you are a faculty member in Texas and you haven't joined @texasaaup.bsky.social yet you should have done that yesterday. (actually this applies to faculty everywhere, join @aaup.org

Devastated to learn that Univ of Texas at Austin is closing the American Studies dept. The years I spent there earning my PhD were formative, making me the teacher, thinker, and writer I am today. I've passed on what I learned at UT to thousands of students over the past 20 years. Just awful.

NEW: One of the most progressive institutions in the U.S., The New School, has begun destroying its humanities departments. They have cancelled one of their most popular classes, "Global Soccer and World Politics." We are going to teach it anyway. karenattiah.substack.com/p/the-new-sc...

"The unelected Board of Regents will decide what topics students should be taught, how topics should be taught, and what topics to exclude, instead of relying on instructors who know the field and trusting students to explore topics." Alarming for academic freedom not just at UT but across the US

Another crucial step in the process: Eliminate shared governance and faculty control over curriculum.

🔔PRESS RELEASE: UT System Board of Regents to vote on new course content restrictions just days after UT Austin collapses ethnic and gender studies departments. 👇 aaup-texas.org/blog/f/ut-re...

Coming soon to a “university” near you when the far right authoritarian power gains control of your state

Julie Minich, the secretary of the American Association of University Professors at UT Austin: “I just never could have imagined that the university would effectively cut off one of its crown jewels.” www.kvue.com/article/news...

Prof. David Widder: “learning about controversial issues yields courageous + careful thinkers. Professors should be encouraged rather than dissuaded from discussing difficult topics.…I urge the Board of Regents to…reject this unnecessary + destructive proposal.” 👏 www.statesman.com/opinion/colu...

“Abolishing gender programs & the lessons they have taught, will, Trump & his acolytes hope, undermine our ability not just to condemn, but also to critically analyze the policies & practices they want to impose.” Must Read by Joan Scott, member of the AAUP’s Committee on Academic Freedom.

On Feb 23, @aaup.org hosts a conversation about activism and academic freedom, inspired by legacy of Chandler Davis (fired after upholding his 1A rights). Featuring Isaac Kamola, Henry Reichman, Marjorie Heins + Melanie Tanielian #academicfreedom @isaackamola.bsky.social @hankreichman.bsky.social

🚨 AAUP has received reports that, in at least one UH college, a dean has already implemented a course review process “to ensure alignment with SB37” and “academic integrity” and has directed faculty to remove or modify syllabi content on race, LGBTQ+ and other issues. aaup-texas.org/blog/f/uh-pr...

Listen up. We're getting another round of accountability & over-compliance at UH and TX generally. Disseminate far and wide.

The University if Houston joins in the contest of which Texas University can destroy higher education fastest. aaup-texas.org/blog/f/uh-pr... cc: @texasaaup.bsky.social

Just submitted online testimony to the board of regents opposing this. Gonna paste the text of it below:

Yani Ayala is in his third year and is majoring in International Relations and Race, Indigeneity and Migration. The latter is being consolidated. He argues the reason behind doesn't add up. "We have a bunch of people from different disciplines that take these courses. My classes are always full."

Academic freedom is not an abstract concept.

"There's no information. There's no indication that jobs will be secure, so faculty jobs, these people's livelihoods, careers and degrees that are on the line, there's no clarity about it at all." —Julie Minich, Secretary of @utaustinaaup.bsky.social

Texas students deserve to learn controversial topics. We should trust professors to teach carefully and creatively about problems we face in society. The UT Board of Regents is considering curtailing professors teaching controversial topics on Thursday; I am proud to speak up in response:

My Latest: Texas Takes a Flamethrower to Higher Ed (and calls it "reform"). The enshittification of Texas universities by legislators who are aura farming has begun! abovethelaw.com/2026/02/texa...

Please read. The sidelining of scholars from our distinguished Department of Mexican-American and Latinx Studies, alongside the rise of billionaire-funded new programs in “civic leadership,” in a state that is 40% Latino, is a shameless assertion of white supremacy. latinopia.com/latino-liter...

The AAUP hired a high-powered attorney for Dr. Melissa McCoul after she was attacked then fired for talking about gender in her Texas A&M class. Union dues protect you and your colleagues - join! College students deserve to be trusted to have difficult conversations with respect and maturity.

🤠 Texans: Plesse contact the Board of Regents! Please consider testifying at this week’s meeting! Let’s make ourselves heard!

University of Texas is set to curtail teaching of "Controversial Topics", per agenda item added before the holiday weekend for Board of Regent's meeting Thursday. Texas students deserve to learn to think critically about pressing concerns of our day. @aaup.org archive.is/rvbwz

“Abolishing those programs and the lessons about gender they have taught, will, Trump and his acolytes hope, undermine our ability not just to condemn, but also to critically analyze the policies and practices they want to impose.” ⬇️ apple.news/AKMfWvNjjS8i...

AAUP UT Austin Chapter Pres. Karma Chavez: “We can anticipate it’s going to involve major slashing of budgets…It likely will eventually lead to firing faculty. It’s definitely going to mean lower quality of education for students who want to study this major.” www.reportingtexas.com/ut-restructu...

Glad to see this book because of what's in it, and also because it's the book a bunch of people expected me to write and I didn't want to, and now I don't have to. H/t to @thetattooedprof.bsky.social, @drlisacorrigan.bsky.social, @theabsentprofessor.bsky.social, and lots of other new comrades.

I co-chaired the AAUP special committee on UNC a few years ago and this is shocking even to me

Loved the newest piece from @bakerdphd.bsky.social's Inside Higher Ed blog today, and appreciated its attention to both historical context and the current power dynamics which make "institutional neutraility" far from neutral.

Texas A&M University announced it will cut its women’s and gender studies degree program. Limiting what students can learn doesn’t protect anyone — it restricts opportunity and weakens education. Academic freedom isn’t optional. It’s foundational.

“This is a grave threat to the educational liberty of students, faculty, staff + the people of Texas and an attempt to appease the state’s right-wing elected officials and Board of Regents,” leaders for the TX conference of the American Association of University Professors wrote.

Texas AAUP press release: aaup-texas.org/blog/f/ut-au...

Measles Outbreak Hits Florida College www.nytimes.com/2026/02/13/w... “We are now starting to see a group of individuals in their early 20s who are not protected…They never had measles, they’ve never been vaccinated, & they’re in large enough numbers that we’re going to start seeing more outbreaks”

Students Across the U.S. Are Protesting ICE. Texas Wants to Punish Their Schools. www.nytimes.com/2026/02/15/u...

AAUP President Todd Wolfson issued the following statement in response to Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt's Executive Order issued today immediately eliminating academic tenure at the state’s public regional universities and community colleges.

On February 10, PEN America, joined by a broad group of 36 organizational partners, wrote to the Board of Regents of Texas A&M University to request that they rescind two policies…that have resulted in the censorship of academic courses across the institution. 👇 pen.org/pen-america-...

“AAUP-AFT, a union of faculty members which advocates for faculty rights, academic freedom, and shared governance, reports membership doubling statewide on 100 campuses in the last year.” 👏👏👏 2026/01/27/texas-no-rest-in-the-ivory-tower/

Scholars at Risk is one of 37 organizations writing to the Board of Regents of Texas A&M University today to request that they rescind policies that have resulted in censorship of course content. Read and sign: www.scholarsatrisk.org/2026/02/lett...