A funeral procession will wind through Texas Tech University’s campus in Lubbock this week-complete with black-clad mourners, a eulogy and a horse-drawn carriage bearing an urn-but there will be no body to bury. Organizers say they are mourning something less tangible: the death of academic freedom in Texas.
Cameron Samuels, executive director of Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, said the funeral at Thursday’s Texas Tech University System Board of Regents meeting reflects grief shared by students across the state.
“This is not just symbolism but a true reflection of how students are feeling, that our universities are not what they used to be, that our degrees have been cheapened, that our courses have been erased,” Samuels told Chron on Monday. “We are not receiving the same education. We’re not receiving what we deserve as students.”
Texas Tech University System and Texas Tech University did not immediately respond to Chron’s request for comment.
Texas Tech University in Lubbock. Students plan to hold a protest Thursday to mourn the ‘death’ of academic freedom at the university. (David Kozlowski/Moment Editorial/Getty Images)
The ‘death’ of Texas’ public universities
The event, hosted in collaboration with Raiders Against Censorship, will feature a memorial wake, press remarks and a staged procession across campus. Concerned participants are calling out what they describe as a “slow and deliberate erosion” of academic freedom across higher education systems in Texas.
“There is a clear trend that, especially since September, universities have faced a death by 1,000 cuts to academic freedom,” Samuels said. “We feel as we are hosting these funerals that our university systems, at Texas Tech University and across Texas, are essentially dead.”
The executive director and co-founder of SEAT said the event is meant to send a message to the Board of Regents that their policy decisions have grave real-life consequences for students and faculty members.
Students point to years of policy changes that have replaced curiosity with constraint.
“Policies affecting marginalized groups-particularly transgender students-became flashpoints, interpreted by many as signals about who belonged and who did not,” an event news release reads.
Beyond Texas Tech
Samuels, a current student at UT Austin, said the impact extends beyond the Texas Tech system and applies more broadly to public university systems across the state.
“It’s not just about what you could say or teach and learn in a classroom,” Samuels said. “It’s about our very essence of being, the dignity that we have when we show up authentically as ourselves when the university doesn’t see us as who we are and doesn’t want us to thrive.”
Event announcements have drawn thousands of likes across social media and hundreds of thousands of views, Samuels said. Organizers expect a strong turnout, including students eager to feel heard-some even planning to tailgate in true Texas Tech fashion.
“Everyone is just showing up…they’re bringing something to the table,” Samuels said. “This is not just an effort led by one person, this is a message that people can get behind and it’s a message that people really are feeling resonates with them at this moment in time.”
As mourners gather Thursday at 1508 Knoxville Ave., organizers say the death of Texas’ university systems is survived by those still willing to ask the hard questions.
“It’s really important that we are on the frontlines of democracy rather than on the sidelines,” Samuels said. “If we just remain in classrooms and in our dorms, if we’re not showing up to the Board of Regents, then we have less of a say in the education that we have…and that is going to influence our futures.”
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This article originally published at Funeral procession, but no body: Students mourn Texas Tech ‘death’ of academia.