The rule revision also allows the president to eliminate individual faculty positions for “bona fide academic reasons.”
Jay Janner/The Austin American-Statesman/Getty Images
Faculty members at the University of Texas at Austin say new systemwide personnel policy changes could pave the way for politically motivated program closures and further disenfranchise faculty from decision-making related to their own departments. And, according to the Board of Regents’ recent meeting agenda, more policy changes are on the way.
The revised rule 31003, approved unanimously last week by voice vote, establishes new grounds to close academic departments. In addition to academic reasons—such as low enrollment or poor program quality—and financial exigency, presidents can now shutter programs due to “extraordinary circumstances” that necessitate “accelerated program closure due to regulatory requirements” and bypass typical review procedures.
The revisions are an effort by the board to “improve efficiency and usability” of the rules, which the board revisits periodically. They were developed “in collaboration with stakeholders throughout the U.T. System,” the agenda states.
But faculty members were not made aware of the changes, said Brian Evans, an engineering professor at UT Austin and president of the Texas American Association of University Professors–American Federation of Teachers. Most faculty learned about the proposed revisions when the board posted the agenda 72 hours before the board meeting, which is the minimum notice period required by Texas law, Evans explained.
“They already got rid of faculty senates. There is no faculty group to circulate these proposals. It does not exist,” Evans said. “If you really want a discussion, you want all four major stakeholders inside the campus community to have a discussion, that’s not possible. There’s no such mechanism anymore.”
If faculty had known about the revisions, they would have pushed back earlier, he said. Still, several faculty members spoke ahead of the board’s vote against the change.
“This new policy has made it possible that any department that engages in teaching or research that attracts negative attention from state political leaders could be vulnerable,” said Lauren Gutterman, chair of the American studies department at the University of Texas at Austin.
Gutterman has firsthand experience with program downsizing—her department is undergoing consolidation right now. In February, UT Austin announced it will fold four departments—African and African diaspora studies; Mexican American and Latina/o studies; women’s, gender and sexuality studies; and American studies—into a new Department for Social and Cultural Analysis Studies. Three other departments—French and Italian, Germanic studies, and Slavic and Eurasian studies—will become the new Department of European and Eurasian Studies.
Karma Chávez, chair of the Mexican American and Latina/o studies department, spoke before the board at Thursday’s meeting. She is concerned that the introduction of an “extraordinary circumstances” option was created in anticipation of the 2027 legislative session, which could result in more legislation that dictates what faculty can and cannot teach and research.
“I can only imagine elected officials on the right side of the aisle look to make Brandon Creighton’s authoritarian attack on Texas Tech and the teaching and researching about gender and sexuality state law. This ‘extraordinary circumstance’ would effectively mean that faculty in [the] new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis—a department [UT Austin] President Davis claims to be committed to—would find themselves subject to termination,” Chávez said at the board meeting. “I have to ask, when did faculty, staff and students—the lifeblood of our beloved institutions—become your enemies?”
The board chair thanked Chávez for her comments, but otherwise did not respond to them.
The changes to Chávez’s and Gutterman’s departments were announced before this latest policy update. At the time, administrators cited low major enrollments as a reason to consolidate the programs, Gutterman said. Faculty were hardly involved in real decision-making, she added.
“They did set up a committee … but the committee had no power. We never took a vote; we had no meaningful input on the consolidation plan that was ultimately announced,” she said. “These seven departments were the target from the beginning, and I feel in retrospect that the purpose of the committee was just to create a veneer of faculty complicity in this process.”
The revision to rule 31003 also allows the president to eliminate individual faculty positions for “bona fide academic reasons,” which include, but are not limited to, “poor program quality or effectiveness, misalignment with the institution’s mission, failure to meet student or societal needs, low enrollment and demand, and redundancy with other existing more effective programs,” according to the rule. Previously, faculty eliminated for academic reasons had 30 days to appeal the decision. Now, they have 15 days.
“How these criteria are defined and applied to existing programs remains to be seen, but past course curriculum restrictions suggest they will be weaponized against academic disciplines that state leaders have spent the last two years trying to weed out,” the UT Austin American Association of University Professors chapter warned in a news release.
All the policy changes are also “contributing to a chilling environment in which faculty don’t need to be told directly that they can’t teach or research about certain subjects,” Gutterman said. “The message is that if you engage in research or teaching that challenges the political messages and beliefs of our administrative leaders at UT or the Board of Regents or our state political leaders, you could lose your department and you could lose your job at this university.”
Even though her department is merging, Gutterman has no plans to leave Texas.
“I’ve been at UT for 10 years, and to watch this institution that I have loved teaching at and loved being a part of being destroyed is really heartbreaking,” she said. “[But] my whole extended family is here. My kids love growing up in Texas. I want to raise my children in this state … So I’m going to stay here and fight as long as I can.”
