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yesterday

Faculty Sue to Block Texas Tech Memos Limiting Teaching on Race and Gender

The federal complaint says mandatory course reviews, including automated scans, have led to removed readings and restricted clinical training and asks a judge to halt enforcement as a constitutional violation.

Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton walks back to his seat during a board of regents meeting at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center in Dallas on Feb. 26, 2026.
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Texas Techn University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton limited how professors could teach about race and gender at the system's five universities. On Wednesday, a national professors union sued the system for the limits.
Students and faculty held a mock-funeral outside of the Texas Tech Board of Regents meeting on May 7 in protest of recent policy changes.

Overview

  • The Texas American Association of University Professors and the national AAUP filed a federal suit on July 8 in the Western District of Texas seeking declaratory relief and injunctions to stop two memoranda from being enforced.
  • Chancellor Brandon Creighton’s December 1, 2025 memo required faculty to disclose and submit course materials that address race, sex, gender identity or sexual orientation for review and warned of discipline for noncompliance, and his April 9, 2026 memo ordered phase-outs of programs “centered on” sexual orientation and gender identity and narrowed their place in core courses.
  • The complaint documents enforcement steps that plaintiffs say included automated syllabus scans, hundreds of courses flagged, removal or alteration of canonical readings such as Plato’s Republic and Between the World and Me, limits on teaching Dred Scott material, and restrictions on clinical instruction involving transgender patients.
  • Plaintiffs argue the directives violate the First Amendment by discriminating against disfavored viewpoints and the Fourteenth Amendment for vagueness and due-process failures, and they contend the policies have disproportionately targeted Black faculty and LGBTQ+ scholarship.
  • The case could set a federal precedent on academic freedom and regental curriculum control tied to 2025 state law changes that expanded regent authority, and it highlights immediate harms to students and faculty including censored courses, disrupted medical training, and faculty departures.