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For years, Texas Republicans wielded power over public universities with little political resistance as they banned DEI efforts and tightened their grip on what students can learn, leading in a nationwide conservative overhaul of higher education.
Now, a stunning political shift could upend the vision those leaders fought for. But whether Democrats will try to undo those changes is another question.
Gov.-elect Gina Hinojosa and Lt. Gov.-elect Vikki Goodwin campaigned on K-12 education but offered few specifics about how they would change Texas colleges and universities, beyond Hinojosa’s pledge to appoint regents who would expand financial aid to cover living expenses. Democrats will control the House, but the GOP retained the Senate, where they could block efforts to repeal those laws.
The changes Republicans enacted extended far beyond a DEI ban that predated President Donald Trump’s own federal crackdown. Legislators expanded the grounds for firing tenured professors, restricted campus protests, weakened faculty senates and gave governor-appointed regents greater control over academic decisions.
Democratic state Sen. Royce West, of Dallas, said lawmakers should revisit two major Republican-backed laws: Senate Bill 17, which banned diversity, equity and inclusion programs at public college campuses, and Senate Bill 37, which expanded university system regents’ authority over academic decisions.
West, who opposed the DEI ban, worries the laws went too far. “It throws the baby out with the bathwater,” said West, who has served on the Senate’s higher education committee.
But he stopped short of calling for repeal, saying legislators should first examine how the restrictions have affected schools.
Hinojosa will have a chance to replace regents, starting with 20 whose terms expire next year. Regents make critical decisions across seven university systems, from choosing leaders to deciding which academic programs they offer.
SB 37 expanded regents’ authority in 2025, allowing them to review undergraduate course requirements and giving them greater say over the hiring of top administrators beyond chancellors and presidents.
Among the system regents who are up for reappointment are three influential board chairs: Robert Albritton, of Texas A&M; Kevin Eltife, of the University of Texas; and Cody Campbell, of Texas Tech.
Campbell warned what Democratic wins could mean during an October rally that featured Trump in Lubbock. If Republicans lost, he told the crowd, “we will have, again, three blue-haired weirdos on the board at Texas Tech.”
“And all the great work we’ve done, and all the values that we’ve preserved and all the things we have cleaned up around the university, I don’t know what happens to it,” he said.
At Texas A&M, Albritton helped push President Mark A. Welsh III out amid conservative backlash over a professor’s classroom discussion on gender identity. Regents subsequently restricted teaching about race, gender and sexuality.
At UT, Eltife and fellow regents required universities to ensure students can graduate without studying “unnecessary controversial subjects.”
At Texas Tech, regents hired former Republican state Sen. Brandon Creighton, the architect of many of the state’s recent higher education laws, as chancellor. He has since gone further than those laws require, restricting what professors can teach about race, gender and sexuality and ordering the phaseout of academic programs centered on sexual orientation and gender identity.
UT and Texas A&M also hired former Republican lawmakers as chancellors in 2025: John Zerwas and Glenn Hegar, respectively. Both systems appointed new university presidents, too.
Hinojosa inherits two layers of Abbott-era leadership: the regents he appointed and the presidents and chancellors they hired. She can replace regents as their staggered six-year terms expire, but only governing boards can remove university leaders. Abbott’s appointees could retain board majorities for years.
Hinojosa’s appointments require Senate confirmation, where outgoing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick wielded considerable influence. In 2023, he personally interviewed more than a dozen of Abbott’s regent appointees before their confirmation votes, questioning them about DEI and pressing for a tougher stance against what he viewed as liberal indoctrination on campuses.
Goodwin will preside over the Republican-controlled Senate in January though the senators could dial back the authority the new lieutenant governor has. However, Patrick’s departure alone could change higher education debates, said Michael Harris, dean of the Simmons School of Education and Human Development at Southern Methodist University. SMU is a private school that does not have to adhere to the same restrictions as public universities.
Patrick drove many of the fights over tenure and faculty senates, Harris said. Even if Republican lawmakers pursue the same policies, “just taking him out may change the tenor of them.”
University officials may not need to wait for lawmakers before they act.
Harris said some schools went “above and beyond what was legally required” in restricting academic programs and classroom instruction. Their leaders could reconsider those restrictions under the new political landscape, he said.
But Barrett Taylor, a professor at the University of North Texas who studies higher education policy, cautioned that the election could play out differently across campuses.
Some administrators might feel less political pressure while supporters of the Republican restrictions could see themselves as the last line of defense for conservative policies and become more vigilant about reporting perceived violations, Taylor said.
SB 37 created a new office to investigate complaints that public universities violated state higher education laws. However, Hinojosa could move quickly to replace Brandon Simmons, whom Abbott appointed as Texas’ first higher education ombudsman that oversees that office. Unlike regents, Simmons serves at the governor’s pleasure.
The election could also change how Texas fights higher education battles in court.
When the Trump administration challenged a decades-old policy that allowed undocumented students in Texas to pay in-state tuition, outgoing Attorney General Ken Paxton joined the federal government in asking the judge to strike it down, without a vote by the Legislature.
Attorney General-elect Nathan Johnson, also a Democrat, pledged to challenge the Trump administration, though it’s unclear whether he could restore aspects of the Texas Dream Act.
Johnson also inherits legal battles over the GOP-led restrictions imposed on universities. Faculty groups are suing Texas Tech and Texas A&M, arguing that limits on teaching about race, gender and sexuality violate their First Amendment rights. Students at UT-Austin and UT-Dallas are challenging a state law restricting campus protests and other expressive activity, with the case now before a federal appeals court.
Meanwhile, Democrats could also take a different approach to funding universities. Patrick threatened to cut state dollars as he pressured them to eliminate DEI initiatives. In 2025, lawmakers initially proposed stripping universities of more than $400 million before restoring the money.
Hinojosa’s legislative record offers clues about her priorities. During her five terms in the Texas House, she supported the community college funding overhaul that rewards student outcomes, authored legislation to reduce transcript fees and opposed expanding regents’ authority.
The Legislature was slated to consider rewarding universities with additional money when students make progress toward degrees and graduate. Whether Democrats will prioritize the proposal remains unclear.
Hinojosa could reverse some of Abbott’s executive orders that impacted public universities, including a requirement to obtain state approval before sponsoring certain foreign workers through the federal H-1B visa program, which she has criticized.
Harris said the election offers an opportunity for lawmakers to move beyond ideological fights and focus on the economic value of college degrees, workforce needs and affordability. Many Republican leaders said such concerns drove their decisions to back sweeping changes in Texas.
“Probably my best hope as somebody who studies higher ed and cares about higher ed is if we could turn the temperature down and get back to the things we agree about,” he said.
The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
Disclosure: Cody and Tara Campbell and Open Campus have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune within the past five years. The Texas Tribune is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in our journalism. Find a complete list of them and more information about our financial and disclosure policies here.