Key Takeaways
- Proponents argue that the audit reflects a broader accountability effort to align curricula with state priorities, while critics, including academic freedom advocates, warn it undermines faculty autonomy and academic integrity.
- The audit comes shortly after the Texas Tech System Chancellor announced a mandate that in-class instruction must note there are only two sexes.
A recently announced audit of the University of Texas System’s gender studies course has academic freedom advocates sounding the alarm and conservatives defending a broader agenda for accountability and reform under a recently passed anti-DEI law.
“It has been a priority for lawmakers in Texas to return our universities to their role as institutions of free speech, merit-based achievement and open inquiry and end the culture of ideological indoctrination that has proliferated on many campuses, dividing students by race and gender and stifling debate and free expression,” Texas Public Policy Foundation spokesperson Sherry Sylvester told The College Fix in an interview.
Senate Bill 37, signed into law last year, gave the Board of Regents oversight powers to review and approve the curricula and degree programs within the system, which enrolls some 260,000 students at academic and health institutions across the state.