{"id":365735,"date":"2026-07-08T19:17:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:17:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/365735\/"},"modified":"2026-07-08T19:17:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-08T19:17:09","slug":"texas-tech-board-of-regents-sued-over-restrictive-course-content-guidelines-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/365735\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Tech Board of Regents sued over restrictive course content guidelines"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | article-text\">LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aaup.org\/news\/aaup-texas-aaup-aft-sue-texas-tech-over-restrictive-course-content-policies\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.aaup.org\/news\/aaup-texas-aaup-aft-sue-texas-tech-over-restrictive-course-content-policies\">The American Association of University Professors and its Texas affiliate, Texas AAUP-AFT, filed a lawsuit Wednesday<\/a> against Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton and members of the board of regents over two system memoranda restricting course content on race and gender identity.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The lawsuit challenges two memoranda Chancellor Creighton issued in the past eight months, one in December 2025 and a second in April 2026. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Under the memoranda, a mandatory review process was set up in which professors must disclose whether their course materials touch on prohibited subject matter regarding race, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity. If a course is flagged, the instructor must stop teaching that material until the board of regents rules on it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The lawsuit brings three claims. First, it argues the restrictions outlined in the memos violate the First Amendment by barring professors from teaching certain ideas about race or gender. Second, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2025\/10\/07\/texas-tech-systems-vague-guidelines-gender-identify-spur-more-questions-than-answers\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2025\/10\/07\/texas-tech-systems-vague-guidelines-gender-identify-spur-more-questions-than-answers\/\">it claims the guidelines violate the 14th Amendment with vague policies that faculty can\u2019t reasonably tell what\u2019s allowed and what\u2019s not<\/a>. Lastly, it alleges the memoranda were created and implemented to target Black faculty.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Creighton previously served on the Texas Senate before he was appointed as chancellor. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2026\/01\/10\/texas-universities-implementing-changes-race-gender-discussions\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2026\/01\/10\/texas-universities-implementing-changes-race-gender-discussions\/\">He authored Senate Bill 37, requiring state curriculum to serve as the foundation for a student\u2019s future, particularly in the workforce<\/a>. It states classes may \u201cnot endorse specific public policies, ideologies, or legislation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">These course content changes have been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/video\/2026\/05\/08\/protest-over-academic-freedom-outside-ttu-regents-meeting\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/video\/2026\/05\/08\/protest-over-academic-freedom-outside-ttu-regents-meeting\/\">criticized by students<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2026\/04\/28\/former-texas-tech-professors-criticize-course-content-changes-cite-academic-freedom-concerns\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2026\/04\/28\/former-texas-tech-professors-criticize-course-content-changes-cite-academic-freedom-concerns\/\">faculty<\/a> over academic freedom concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2026\/04\/16\/texas-tech-chancellor-defends-new-course-content-guidelines-lgbtq-advocates-criticize-changes\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.kcbd.com\/2026\/04\/16\/texas-tech-chancellor-defends-new-course-content-guidelines-lgbtq-advocates-criticize-changes\/\">Creighton defended these guidelines<\/a>, saying the course content review process is a requirement to ensure students are ready to step into the workforce with curriculum that is relevant. <\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The lawsuit is asking a federal judge in El Paso to declare the memoranda unconstitutional and to block the university system from enforcing them.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2026 KCBD. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LUBBOCK, Texas (KCBD) &#8211; The American Association of University Professors and its Texas affiliate, Texas AAUP-AFT, filed a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[109081,129570,319,251,168,170,169,1769,129569,299],"class_list":["post-365735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-lubbock","tag-chancellor-brandon-creighton","tag-course-content-guidelines","tag-kcbd","tag-local-news","tag-lubbock","tag-lubbock-headlines","tag-lubbock-news","tag-texas-tech","tag-texas-tech-lawsuit","tag-ttu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365735","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=365735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}