Faculty unions accuse Texas Tech of lecture hall censorship

(CN) — Two faculty labor unions sued the Texas Tech University System on Wednesday over recent restrictions on what professors can and can’t teach about race, sexual orientation, and gender in their classrooms.

The Texas American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers and the National American Association of University Professors sued Brandon Creighton, the current chancellor of the Texas Tech University System, and the university’s board of regents over two memos Creighton issued after becoming chancellor late last year. The unions say the vague memos constitute a blatant First Amendment violation to suppress viewpoints the system disagrees with and “ban materials by Black authors and about Black people, including their experiences with racial inequality and the need to remedy those racial inequalities.”

The first memorandum, issued on Dec. 1, 2025, targeted course content oversight — requiring faculty to submit course material related to topics involving race, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity. Those who did not comply with new limits were subject to discipline.

Four months later, the second memorandum provided course content guidelines mandating the elimination of academic programs focused on sexual orientation and gender identity.

The memoranda quickly changed the system’s curriculum. The unions say faculty were instructed to stop teaching certain materials, ideas, and historical content, including books such as Plato’s Republic and information about race related to the landmark Supreme Court case Dred Scott v. Stanford.

“For over a year, higher education institutions across Texas have gone above and beyond what the law requires in these restrictive curriculum crackdowns,” Texas AAUP-AFT president Teresa Klein said during a press conference after the filing on Wednesday. “Many of them, including the Texas Tech system, are led by former politicians who know how to take a directive from state leadership, but don’t understand what it takes to make a university work for its students and faculty.”

Before serving as chancellor, Creighton was a state senator representing the 4th District for over a decade. During the press conference, Antonio Ingram, the senior counsel at the Legal Defense Fund, said Creighton has been attempting to limit inclusive curriculum about Black communities, though his efforts to pass Senate Bills 16, 17, and 37 — all of which deal with censoring curriculum about racial minorities — failed. While Senate Bill 37 did ultimately pass, the final version was different from what Creighton initially spearheaded.

“Chancellor Creighton is trying to do what he couldn’t accomplish in the Texas Legislature: erase the history, identities, and lived experiences of LGBTQ people and people of color from the classroom,” Nicholas Hite, a senior attorney at Lambda Legal, said. “Faculty at Texas Tech are being barred from teaching that gay and bisexual men were persecuted during the Holocaust, medical students pulled out of exam rooms rather than learn to treat transgender patients, and an entire Women’s and Gender Studies program shuttered by administrative decree.”

The unions say the vague wording of the policies further complicates the situation, leaving professors unable to determine which topics or language are allowed. The result is an environment where educators are hesitant to engage in open discussion or address certain subjects for fear of violating the policies.

“I think it’s really important to note what the impact of this is,” Ingram said. “I think about our professors across the system, including El Paso, that has a large African American population due to the military. The fact that we have professors there who are told you can’t use the word ‘disparities’ means that Black women and their disproportionate impacts of maternity issues and mortality issues related to their race cannot be talked about when you’re training medical students in border communities that have such a high military presence.”

The unions want the court to rule Creighton’s memos unconstitutional and prevent the Texas Tech University System from enforcing them or any similar policies, claiming that continuing restrictions will harmfully deny students necessary instruction.

“The truth is, the world around us exists as it is, regardless of Texas Tech policy,” T J Geiger, vice president of the Texas AAUP-AFT chapter at Texas Tech University, said. “Telling professors they can’t acknowledge race or gender doesn’t make either disappear — it just makes students less prepared to engage with the real world after graduation.”

When asked whether the labor unions plan to pursue litigation against Texas A&M University over similar restrictions, Klein said that while this lawsuit is their focus at the moment, the groups will be exploring all options.