LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) – Former Texas Tech professors say system leaders are harming the future of the university by what they believe is stifling academic freedom in the classroom.
They claim the recent system-wide change is forcing Tech to take a step backward. The professors told KCBD they need to talk about this since current faculty are afraid to do so.
The Texas Tech Board of Regents imposed the changes on April 9. Since then, critics of the new standards have come forward against the changes.
“I’ve talked to some of my colleagues who are Republican, independent, and Democrats. All spectrums are frightened by what’s happening at Texas Tech,” said Gary Bell.
He helped create the Texas Tech Honors College in 1998. He says the new standards are limiting academic freedom and will jeopardize the future of the university.
“I feel very strongly about Texas Tech. I love Texas Tech,” Bell said, “and I think what the Chancellor is saying, quite frankly, threatens the entire purpose for why universities exist.”
Chancellor Brandon Creighton wrote the state law imposing these changes when he was in the Texas Legislature, building off of the state restrictions on DEI in the classroom.
“It was the next iteration of addressing governance reforms and how our regents and our top level university leadership would have more say in traditional governance sense over upper level hiring and over course content that would match expectations for today’s economy that’s quickly evolving,” Creighton said.
Creighton said the new changes are meant to be efficient for students in the labor market.
“Our curriculum should match for an immediate hire for a position with a company that would pay a very good starting salary, extremely competitive or greater,” Creighton said. “That’s what our students expect. Our students are working so hard day in and day out.”
Retired professor Ted Reid said the “efficiency model” created by Chancellor Creighton under Senate Bill 37 removes a university’s learning environment.
“If you want to be the most efficient possible, you would just give the student a book or four books and say, read these books,” Reid said. “This is what you need to know and you can be prepared for a job. Period. Why go to a university? What’s the point?”
The former professors are concerned with academic freedom. Chancellor Creighton said it was protected throughout the review process of the 14,000 courses in the system.
“I teach history. What happens if someone decides that it’s not efficient, it’s not necessary information for me to teach about because someone has determined a different perspective than I happen to have,” Bell questioned. “This is the danger. This is the horrific outcome of what the chancellor’s saying.”
Both Bell and Reid said current faculty members are afraid of critiquing the new plan, fearing backlash for any comments.
“When I heard, I had just retired from the medical school, and I heard that they told the people in the medical school, you cannot talk about these things, period. There was an uproar, but it had to die down because, what are you going to do? These are the rules. And that’s censorship, pure and simple,” Reid said.
Bell believes these changes will impact the future of the entire state.
“Ultimately, this is going to throttle academic freedom and future progress coming out of Texas Tech University,” Bell said. “It’s also incidentally going to prevent a whole lot of brilliant minds from coming into Texas. It’s quite literally going to stifle Texas’s ability to attract the best and brightest people to teach our students.”
Courses flagged by the Academic, Clinical, and Student Affairs committee will be phased out of the Texas Tech system. Of the 14,000 courses offered by the system, less than 5 percent of the courses offered were pulled.
A freeze is now in place for admissions into degree programs and classes deemed to “center on” sexual orientation and gender identity.
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