Across the United States, the rapid shift in equity work and initiatives has had a substantial impact on universities' functions and operations. Amid backlash and the rollout of anti-DEI efforts, higher education stakeholders have seen state and federal governments push to neutralize “gender and race ideologies.”
Specifically in Texas, university professors in gender and ethnic studies are navigating a tense sociopolitical climate, as many professors in the fields of Women’s and Gender Studies, African and African American Studies, Latino/x Studies, American Studies, and other ethnic studies are being heavily attacked and surveilled by state and university policies. Increasingly, Texas institutions are beginning to condense their identity-based programs in ethnic and gender studies under broader administrative department names.
At the University of Texas at Austin, the African and African Diaspora Studies; Mexican American and Latino Studies; Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and American Studies departments are being consolidated as the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis. At the University of Texas at San Antonio, the Department of Race, Ethnicity, Gender, and Sexuality Studies is being absorbed by the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies – a department that has traditionally focused on education and language acquisition. UTSA faculty and students have noted that this specific umbrella effectively "erases" the explicit visibility of race and gender studies from the departmental directory. And Texas A&M University chose to completely eliminate its Women's and Gender Studies program rather than rebranding or consolidating it under a broader social science department.
Some argue that consolidating gender and ethnic studies is a means of protecting these programs from scrutiny in the current political climate by clustering them together, while others say the strategy will only accelerate the erasure of their cultural histories. However, Dr. Karma Chávez, the Bobby and Sherri Patton Professor of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies and chair of the Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at the University of Texas at Austin, called the approach is a “political takeover,” saying the consolidation is “not protecting anyone because all of the targeting has not happened to the same bodies of thought, but actually to the same groups of [minoritized] people.”
“When you lump [the disciplines] in together as one thing, you’re actually erasing decades of scholarship and independent intellectual thought,” she continued. “The only thing that brings them together is the fact that they’re targeting marginalized people, especially on the lines of race, gender, and sexuality.”
One UT San Antonio faculty member, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, shared her concerns about how the pressures surrounding gender and ethnic studies are creating new tensions at her institution, saying the current guidance from UTSA administrators is to “stay under the radar and not bring attention to themselves,” which she called a “survival strategy” for faculty who are otherwise instructed to “be grateful and not complain or contribute to attention being brought upon the [institution and departments].”
While UTSA’s administration sees this as the best way to stay the current political climate, the faculty member says it has created “in-fighting” among her colleagues. She pointed to a lack of guidance from the institution as it prepared for the departmental merger, saying, “They want the task force to come up with the guidelines. … But I don’t know if it’s to make it look like they’re giving control to faculty to have some oversight. But it’s causing friction, unfortunately, between faculty that doesn’t have to be there.”
As a basis for the consolidation, some systems have cited low enrollment rates, faculty-to-student ratios, and even workforce readiness. However, each professor shared that their courses have high enrollment and strong interest among their student communities.
Dr. Lauren Gutterman, chair of the American Studies department at UT Austin and an affiliated faculty member in the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies; LGBTQ Studies, and History departments, said the language around the shift is disingenuous.
“Consolidation is a misnomer,” Gutterman said. "Our departments are being closed, and resources are being taken away from us and our students. This is a politically-motivated, top-down defunding of teaching and research that centers issues of race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, and citizenship. Students fought for these areas of study, and they are losing the most.”
The faculty members highlighted the need to bring broader communities, both within and outside higher education, into the conversation to understand the purpose of these fields and build a larger coalition of support.
The UTSA faculty member said her students spoke up during a meeting with her department’s dean. She recalled how the dean “came with sort of his prepared points, all of it in a positive manner, right? Like this is a great opportunity. But the students, of course, weren't here for that. And they were very honest with him. And [both of my] classes had him there for about an hour and a half. They were being really honest about their concerns about the fact that they pay tuition, and they specifically want these things on their diploma and their transcript that they're being trained and that they don't want to be erased, and they don't want to lose these opportunities.”
The faculty members agreed that the frustration around the administrative push to consolidate the departments is exacerbated by a lack of autonomy, vague definitions, and the need to expedite processes to comply with new changes. In particular, the shift in staffing and governance at UT Austin has created greater uncertainty for department chairs.
Chávez stated that the disrespect and devastation felt by her colleagues stemmed from the UT Austin administration's failure to engage in collaborative efforts on the merger. The opaque changes to program managers, course schedules, and degree plans have been a source of frustration for faculty across the state. “People feel very disrespected, like we've been kept in the dark,” Chávez said. “Information has leaked out, not [coming] from formal channels often.”
A recurring theme among each faculty member interviewed was how difficult it is to plan for upcoming semesters while also shouldering the burden of course audits and the reduction in course offerings. They have invested countless years developing knowledge in these fields, and now these attacks against the studies make it difficult to envision the future of Texas's higher education.
Dr. Kristan Poirot, an associate professor of Communication who is affiliated with the Africana Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies programs at Texas A&M University, pointed to the system policy authored by the TAMU Board of Regents, Policy 08.01, which states that faculty are “not allowed to teach anything about gender identity, or sexuality in the core curriculum.” She further explained that if the course discusses gender identity or sexuality, the instructor would need permission to teach it. At TAMU, Poirot said, “it’s just a really hostile environment to teach gender and race.”
The UTSA faculty member said she is feeling a “deep grief and heartbreak” over the state “of higher education as a whole.”
“When this [first] started happening, a lot of [faculty] were like, ‘Should we be looking for other jobs? Well, would it make sense to even go to another job in Texas? Would it make sense to go to another job in California if this is probably going to happen to them in a different way, maybe in a couple of years, right,’” she said.
These conversations make it clear that this is an overt attack on academic freedom and the freedom to learn. Unfortunately, students, staff, and faculty are witnessing the consequences of these attacks in real time, and many fear the erasure of these fields creates a knowledge gap that will take years to counteract.
