{"id":266194,"date":"2026-04-25T19:41:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:41:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/266194\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T19:41:22","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:41:22","slug":"texas-tech-establishes-draconian-new-censorship-policies-on-lgbtq-topics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/266194\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Tech Establishes Draconian New Censorship Policies on LGBTQ Topics"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A new memo<\/a> at Texas Tech University establishes a sweeping and draconian censorship policy toward LGBTQ+ people, creating a campus equivalent of \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d in one of the most extreme anti-speech policies ever imposed at a public university. The memo bars professors from discussing LGBTQ+ topics in core and lower-level courses and eliminates entire fields of study across the five-university system. It even requires that if an industry-standard textbook includes content on sexual orientation or gender identity, instructors must skip over it and avoid discussion around it. Most troubling, however, is that the censorship regime extends beyond professors to students themselves: the memo states that \u201cno degree-culminating student research within the TTU System will be permitted to center on SOGI topics,\u201d a total ban on LGBTQ+ mentions in dissertations or graduate thesis work.<\/p>\n

The memorandum, which was issued by Chancellor Brandon Creighton<\/a> \u2014a former Republican state senator who authored Texas\u2019s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs<\/a> at public universities and a campus protest restriction law<\/a> that a federal judge blocked as unconstitutional \u2014 went out to the presidents of all five universities in the Texas Tech University System this month. The system serves approximately 64,000 students across Texas Tech University, Angelo State University, Midwestern State University, and two Health Sciences Centers. Under the new policy, all majors, minors, certificates, and graduate degrees \u201ccentered on\u201d sexual orientation or gender identity will be eliminated. Provosts at each university must identify every affected program and submit finalized lists to the chancellor\u2019s office by June 15, 2026, at which point an immediate admissions freeze will take effect \u2014 no new students will be allowed to enroll in or declare any of the targeted programs. Currently enrolled students will be allowed to finish their degrees through a teach-out process, but once the last of them graduates, the fields will cease to exist at Texas Tech entirely.<\/p>\n

The censorship policy directly targets all sexual orientation and gender identity content. \u201cThe Alternate Materials Rule requires that\u2026 in courses where course materials (inclusive of all assigned works, readings, case studies, peer-reviewed research, videos, etc.) are centered on or include sexual orientation or gender identity, alternate materials must be utilized,\u201d reads the memo. \u201cIf instructors choose permissible works that do not center on or include these topics, instructor-led discussions, class assignments, and instructional materials must not focus on sexual orientation or gender identity.\u201d Even passing mentions are policed: the memo instructs that \u201cincidental references should be avoided\u201d when selecting primary materials for core courses, and that if a history book or novel happens to include LGBTQ+ content, professors \u201cmust not highlight, assess, or allocate instructional time to it.\u201d The memo adds that \u201cthere are no exceptions to the Alternate Materials Rule for core, undergraduate courses.\u201d<\/p>\n

The implications are profound \u2014 and at times border on absurd. In core and lower-level courses, there are no exceptions at all. A history professor course could not allocate instructional time to the Stonewall riots or the gay rights movement. If a U.S. history textbook includes a chapter on the AIDS crisis, the professor must skip it. An English professor assigning Oscar Wilde cannot lead a discussion of the trial and imprisonment that defined his later work and legacy. A professor teaching Virginia Woolf\u2019s Orlando \u2014 a novel whose entire premise is gender fluidity \u2014 would appear to be in direct violation of the policy. A core literature class reading Walt Whitman\u2019s \u201cCalamus\u201d poems could not explore their homoerotic themes. Sappho \u2014 the ancient Greek poet from whom the word \u201clesbian\u201d derives \u2014 could not be taught with any meaningful analysis of her work\u2019s content. A professor teaching Shakespeare\u2019s Twelfth Night or As You Like It could not discuss the cross-dressing that is central to the plot, nor the long theatrical tradition of male actors performing female roles\u2014because analyzing gender performance in Shakespeare would constitute allocating \u201cinstructional time\u201d to gender identity themes. A political science class could not examine the Supreme Court\u2019s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges as anything other than a passing reference. A psychology professor in a core course could not discuss why homosexuality was removed from the DSM. Even a music appreciation course discussing Tchaikovsky or Freddie Mercury would need to avoid any sustained discussion of how their identities shaped their art.<\/p>\n

The memo also imposes what it calls a \u201cTwo Human Sexes Requirement,\u201d stating that \u201cstate and federal law and TTU System guidance dictate that only two human sexes, male and female, are recognized.\u201d It goes further, declaring that \u201cinstructors may not teach that gender identity is a fluid spectrum, endorse the existence of more than two genders, or decouple gender from biological sex as a factual or scientific baseline.\u201d There is a narrow carveout for intersex conditions \u2014 the memo says instruction on \u201cchromosomal variations, Differences of Sex Development (DSDs), and intersex biological conditions is expressly permitted\u201d \u2014 but even here, it adds that \u201cfaculty may not use these biological conditions to advocate for or validate sociological frameworks of fluid gender identities.\u201d In practice, this means a biology professor could teach students that intersex conditions exist but would be barred from drawing the obvious scientific conclusion that biological sex is more complex than a strict binary. As Inside Higher Ed columnist John K. Wilson observed<\/a>, the policy \u201cis so extreme that it would seem to prohibit any professor (or any assigned reading) from asserting that trans people even exist, since that would mean recognizing \u2018fluid gender identities.’\u201d<\/p>\n

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Perhaps most draconian of all are the policies targeting graduate students. Under the memo, graduate students will be permanently barred from writing theses or dissertations centered on LGBTQ+ topics once current teach-out programs conclude. This is the first policy at any major American university system that extends content censorship to student work itself \u2014 not even Florida\u2019s \u201cDon\u2019t Say Gay\u201d law, which restricted classroom instruction in K-12 schools, attempted to dictate what students could write about in their own research. The memo states that \u201cgraduate theses and dissertations may only center on SOGI topics as a strictly temporary teach-out exception, explicitly limited to currently enrolled students completing their degrees within formally identified teach-out programs,\u201d and that \u201cupon the conclusive termination of all designated teach-out programs, no degree-culminating student research within the TTU System will be permitted to center on SOGI topics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Policies barring students from writing on specific topics at public universities have a long and well-established First Amendment history \u2014 and they almost always lose. In Keyishian v. Board of Regents<\/a> (1967), the Supreme Court declared that \u201cthe classroom is peculiarly the \u2018marketplace of ideas’\u201d and that \u201cthe Nation\u2019s future depends upon leaders trained through wide exposure to that robust exchange of ideas.\u201d In Healy v. James<\/a> (1972), the Court ruled that a public university could not suppress a student organization based on its viewpoint, holding that First Amendment protections apply with no \u201cless force on college campuses than in the community at large.\u201d In Rosenberger v. Rector<\/a> (1995), the Court struck down a public university\u2019s refusal to fund a student publication based on its viewpoint, establishing that viewpoint discrimination at a public university is per se unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

More recently, a federal court blocked Florida\u2019s Stop WOKE Act \u2014 which imposed content restrictions on higher education strikingly similar to the Texas Tech memo \u2014 calling the law \u201cpositively dystopian\u201d<\/a> and holding that professors\u2019 in-class speech is protected by the First Amendment. However, Texas Tech sits in the Fifth Circuit, which has proven to be the most hostile federal appeals court in the country toward LGBTQ+ rights and has consistently upheld restrictions that other circuits have struck down. Whether the Fifth Circuit would extend the same First Amendment protections to students and faculty challenging an anti-LGBTQ+ censorship policy remains an open and deeply uncertain question.<\/p>\n

The policies have come under fierce criticism from faculty and academic freedom organizations alike. Jen Shelton<\/a>, an associate professor of English who has taught at Texas Tech for 25 years, told the Texas Tribune, \u201cI think the whole university has been betrayed. I think even the provost did not expect it to look like this.\u201d Kelli Cargile Cook<\/a>, a professor emeritus who founded Texas Tech\u2019s Department of Professional Communication, said the policies at Texas Tech led her to cancel a class and draft a resignation letter. \u201cI can\u2019t stomach what\u2019s going on at Texas Tech,\u201d she said. A statement from the Texas Tech chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)<\/a> decried the policies in a public letter to Creighton: \u201cWe have collectively dedicated many decades of our careers to Texas Tech, proud to be part of an institution where students learn and faculty teach in an environment of rigorous inquiry, open debate, and intellectual freedom. Under this policy, the Constitution of the United States of America is rendered irrelevant, academic freedom and the core mission of our university are sacrificed, and the Texas Tech University we knew no longer exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

The policy is already being implemented. Provosts at each of the five universities must submit finalized lists of programs to be eliminated to the chancellor\u2019s office by June 15, 2026, after which an immediate admissions freeze will take effect. The memo also directs the TTU System to develop standardized syllabus templates so that \u201ccourse materials can be efficiently evaluated by both students and component institution leadership and compliance teams\u201d \u2014 creating a permanent surveillance apparatus for course content. Artificial intelligence has already been used<\/a> to target hundreds of course materials, and further crackdowns are expected.<\/p>\n

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