As I previously reported, earlier this year, the University of Texas at Austin (UT) went off the deep end of all things “woke” and politically correct.
Despite warnings from alumni, faculty, and organizations like the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education and the National Association of Scholars, UT quietly adopted a “Strategic Plan for Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity” that is genuinely chilling. Among other questionable practices, this plan institutionalizes the Critical Race Theory version of “equity” (equality of results, as opposed to equal opportunity, nondiscrimination, and meritocracy) as the paramount driver of decisions on hiring, promotion, tenure, leadership positions, and even teaching awards and endowed chairs at UT. It also creates a bureaucracy of diversity commissars in each college to enforce the new orthodoxy and mandates re-education of virtually all faculty in the new catechism.
UT insiders tell me this plan was the brainchild and pet project of UT Vice Provost Edmund Gordon, a pronounced CRT advocate. UT’s adoption of this extraordinarily ill-considered plan was the last straw for me (and, based on responses I have received to my article, apparently many other UT alumni as well). UT President Jay Hartzell’s response to this criticism has been to ignore it, which seems to be his preferred modus operandi. President Hartzell’s calculus appears to be that, with the Texas legislature now safely adjourned from its biennial session. UT can continue on its merry way, unmolested by the unenlightened peasantry.
He may be in for a rude awakening.
The visceral public backlash against CRT in education is emerging as one of the hottest political issues of recent times, cutting across just about all demographic lines. Indeed, even advocates of CRT now apparently recognize it is politically radioactive. Their new go-to defense is not to defend the CRT principles they have loudly espoused and demanded be implemented in curricula and administration, but instead to assert that CRT is not being taught or institutionalized at all.
Politicians across the country have felt this prevailing political wind and are acting accordingly. Texas politicians have also sensed the rising public anger, and late in the 2021 session, added and quickly passed HB 3979, which bans the teaching of certain CRT concepts in public K-12 schools.
But what of Texas’ flagship public educational institution, the University of Texas at Austin, that is much farther down the CRT road than any K-12 school in the state? Like his predecessor Greg Fenves, President Hartzell is quite happy to adopt CRT principles as official UT policy, either because he agrees with them or because he is afraid of or unwilling to stand up to campus activists. The Board of Regents remains, as it, unfortunately, has been for many years, too cowardly to exercise any meaningful oversight or control over what goes on at UT. Will Texas public officials step up and address what is happening at UT, like their counterparts in Idaho recently did regarding comparable “diversity” practices at the University of Idaho?
It appears that they may. In researching this article, I requested comments from Texas Governor Abbott’s office and the campaign of former Texas State Senator Don Huffines (a conservative critic of Gov. Abbott who is challenging him for the GOP nomination) regarding their thoughts on the situation at UT.
Senator Huffines issued the following statement:
CRT has been slowly seeping into our education system over the last 40 years. Greg Abbott has allowed public institutions like my alma mater, The University of Texas, to implement CRT openly and proudly. CRT eradicates freedom and diversity of thought. It is a harmful indoctrination being forced on our children, and I will not tolerate it. As governor, I will ban CRT at all levels of education, including colleges and universities. Any public school that does not comply will lose their state funding. All state agencies and contractors will additionally be banned from implementing CRT. In my administration, this Marxist drivel won’t receive even a penny of taxpayer money.
Regarding Gov. Abbott’s role in UT’s decline, Senator Huffines makes a fair point. For quite some time now, every member of the UT Board of Regents has been appointed by Gov. Abbott. Yet, his appointees have done absolutely nothing to arrest UT’s long march toward wokeness over scholarship, “equity” over equal opportunity and meritocracy, and political correctness over free speech and free inquiry. Indeed, noted commentator and UT critic Mark Pulliamindicates that he met with a senior advisor to Gov. Abbott three years ago and raised precisely these issues—but Gov. Abbott’s adviser dismissed Mark’s concerns, and nothing was done.
Gov. Abbott’s office, in turn, referred me to his signing statement on HB 3979:
House Bill 3979 is a solid move to abolish critical race theory in Texas, but more must be done. The issue will be added to a special session agenda.
Whether in response to critics like Senator Huffines or his own belated recognition of the problem and public sentiment, Gov. Abbott may finally be willing to take concrete action. Suppose he follows through and takes the extraordinary step of including CRT in higher education in the agenda for the special session scheduled for later this summer. In that case, UT could find itself with a serious problem.
Unlike a regular session of the Texas Legislature, where thousands of bills compete for time and attention on a very short clock (140 days every other year), bills introduced in special sessions tend to sail through. With the GOP in firm control of both houses of the Legislature and with red-hot public anger over CRT sweeping through public education, the stars may be aligning for some long-overdue legislative oversight of UT.
What should the Texas Legislature do? For starters, President Hartzell, Board of Regents Chairman Eltife, and especially Vice Provost Gordon should all be called to testify under oath regarding what is going on at the Forty Acres, and in particular to address the hard questions about the “Strategic Plan for Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity”that UT has studiously avoided answering. In advance of the hearing, legislative committee staffers should also obtain and release for public review Dr. Gordon’s (and President Hartzell’s) communications regarding the development of the DEI plan, as UT would undoubtedly invoke the “deliberative process” privilege to block any efforts by the public to obtain them via Texas Public Information Act requests. (As I learned from my investigation of activities at UT Law School, sweeping invocation of “deliberative process” is apparently UT’s standard technique to frustrate TPIA inquiries into questionable activities. However, if the Legislature demands these documents, the “deliberative process” privilege in the TPIA does not exist, and it would be exceedingly foolish and counterproductive for UT to try and resist legislative oversight efforts on that basis.)
The simplest legislative action would be to immediately cut UT’s budget for the amounts it intends to spend on its institutionalization of CRT principles (including its “Strategic Plan for Faculty Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity”), with provisions for automatic future cuts if UT responds by reallocating other resources to cover those cuts, and to redistribute such funds to other Texas higher education institutions. (If other public universities in Texas see that even UT is not immune from legislative oversight, I suspect they will be dissuaded from following in its footsteps.)
Other suggestions for curative legislation that the Texas Legislature should consider:
One thing I would encourage the legislature to avoid: purport to ban the teaching of CRT in public universities entirely. Unlike K-12 public education, where schools have a captive audience of children who are compelled by law to attend, I view the teaching of CRT in higher education the same way I view the teaching of Marxism, Lamarckism, eugenics, or astrology: I have no issue with adult students choosing to learn about these subjects if they want. (Making CRT courses mandatory, adopting CRT principles as official university policy, or spending large amounts of state funding on CRT courses are different matters.) Unlike much of the UT administration and faculty (such as “Larry and Friends” at the UT Law School, and a certain dean in the School of Business), I do not demand a monopoly of acceptable ideas or expressions, or believe that university students must be shielded from words and ideas that they dislike: both are anathema to the fundamental basis of higher education. Frankly, students who are unwilling or unable to deal with opposing viewpoints or the people holding them lack the maturity required for higher education in the first place, particularly in graduate programs at what is supposed to be an elite university.
As I have with past NAS articles about UT, I requested an interview of President Hartzell or someone else at UT for this article. Once again, UT’s press office confirms that it declines to respond.
With a special session on the horizon, however, UT’s days of simply ignoring critics and disgusted alumni may be numbered. To paraphrase Joe Louis, UT can run but it cannot hide.
Louis K. Bonham is an intellectual property litigator. He is a graduate of the University of Texas (BA ’83, JD ’86), was an Articles Editor on the Texas Law Review, and served as a law clerk to the Hon. Edith H. Jones of the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. This article previously was published by the National Association of Scholars and is cross-posted with permission.
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