Texas Colleges Reviewing Courses in Push to Limit Gender Identity Instruction
“Faculty and LGBTQ+ advocates fear the directive will limit classroom discussion of transgender and nonbinary identities.”
Gender studies programs are seemingly useless, unless you just plan to stay in academia for the rest of your life.
The Texas Tribune reports:
Texas colleges launch course reviews amid push to limit gender identity instruction
Last month, a viral video showing a Texas A&M University student confronting a professor over a discussion of gender identity during a children’s literature class sparked a firestorm in Texas higher education that has led other schools to review their academic offerings.
Texas A&M fired the professor in the video and former university President Mark A. Welsh III resigned. Seeking to preempt any similar controversy, the Texas Tech University System issued guidance last week instructing faculty to ensure that their courses comply with a federal executive order, a letter from Gov. Greg Abbott and a new state law that recognizes only two sexes.
Faculty and LGBTQ+ advocates fear the directive will limit classroom discussion of transgender and nonbinary identities. They warn the universities’ actions are the byproduct of political interference that threatens academic freedom and the quality of higher education in the state.
No law explicitly bars teaching topics like gender identity or the existence of more than two sexes. But Texas universities know their courses are under the microscope, with politicians and activists combing through catalogs and syllabi and demanding changes to any material they consider objectionable.
In the heels of Texas Tech’s guidance, at least three public university systems — the University of North Texas, the University of Texas and Texas Woman’s University — have ordered course reviews. They have framed the effort as ensuring compliance with state and federal law. But UT, UNT and TWU, unlike Texas Tech, did not specify which laws triggered the reviews. The systems did not say what actions their schools would take after the reviews.
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Comments
schools still refuse to have cameras in the classrooms
and the public goes along with that
sick
Two things (n=1):
1. Three students (out of about 50) in my class are authorized to do audio recordings of my lectures as an accommodation for their disabilities. I don’t record my lectures, but I don’t really mind because I am not saying anything in my class that would make for a good viral tiktok video.
2. Most of the junior/senior level classes and all of the graduate level classes in my department are conducted either fully via Zoom or with a mixture of in-class lecture and Zoom. During the summer sessions, only two of our classes have any face-to-face interaction at all.
“Faculty and LGBTQ+ advocates fear the directive will limit classroom discussion of transgender and nonbinary identities.”
I was already sold, you don’t have to convince me.
Other than in psychology and psychiatry classes, why should there be any discussion of the “identities” of the mentally ill? Do I need to somehow understand the identity of some dude who likes to dress up as a dog to learn how to build a bridge or program a computer or dig up a dinosaur bone? If not, it has no place in the classroom at $1,000 a credit hour. Talk about it on your own time.
“Faculty and LGBTQ+ advocates fear the directive will limit classroom discussion of transgender and nonbinary identities.”
Last time I had an office job, our rules limited office discussion of the performance of the local sports teams and news of recent sexual conquests by the employees. However, we were free to discuss them during lunch hour or after work in the local tavern. We didn’t find it grossly oppressive. Perhaps this generation should try it.