Texas Tech Moves to Limit Academic Discussion to 2 Genders

The Texas Tech University system, one of the largest in the state, took steps to restrict academic discussions of gender, directing faculty in a letter circulated on Friday that they “must comply” with an executive order from President Trump recognizing only male and female genders.

The move, apparently a first among large institutions of higher education, raised alarm among professors and advocates of academic freedom across Texas. It signaled that an effort to restrict teaching about transgender people and other gender topics in K-12 classrooms — explicitly prohibited by Texas law — was expanding to colleges and universities, where no such ban exists.

Several other public universities and community colleges have been exploring similar changes regarding the teaching of gender, according the Texas conference of the American Association of University Professors. But outside of Texas Tech, none appeared to have put their guidance into writing yet.

Earlier this year, the Mississippi Legislature passed a law banning diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as “promoting transgender ideology,” in the state’s schools and universities, but a federal judge put it on hold.

On Friday, 16 states led by Democrats, along with the District of Columbia, filed a lawsuit in Oregon to block the Trump administration from requiring them to remove all references to “gender ideology” from sexual education in order to receive federal grant funding.

In a letter to all five of the Texas Tech system’s universities, dated Thursday but circulated widely on Friday, Chancellor Tedd L. Mitchell said that the direction had been part of an effort to remain in legal compliance. It followed weeks of behind-the-scenes discussions among administrators and some faculty.

The letter ricocheted across the state’s universities, far beyond Texas Tech’s hub in Lubbock. It followed the rapid firing this month of a professor at Texas A&M over her handling of a debate with a conservative student in her classroom, who objected to a discussion of gender identity and then shared a video of the encounter with a Republican lawmaker. The university’s president, Mark Welsh, resigned soon after.

Word of the impending restrictions had been spreading among Texas professors for days through encrypted apps, according to interviews with six professors, who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of punishment, including termination.

“I’m emotionally shellshocked right now,” said one professor in the Texas Tech system. “What does it say about academic freedom? It says we don’t have it.”

The professor spoke by phone from the inside of a car to avoid being overheard by colleagues.

Brian Evans, the president of the Texas conference of the American Association of University Professors, said that restrictions on discussions of gender would not only chill speech among professors but also impair classroom conversations with students.

“On a banned topic, the instructor cannot lead a discussion,” he said. “They’d either have to be silent, or leave the room, or redirect the conversation to another topic. This is crazy.”

At the same time, some professors were holding out hope that the traditional ideas of academic freedom, and an absence of direct instruction from Texas Tech administrators on how to adjust their teaching, meant that the chancellor’s guidance would not affect the classroom.

“There’s a lot of questions that are simply not answered, that the president and provost intend to answer about what faculty are expected to do,” said Andrew Martin, a longtime professor of art at Texas Tech. “As it stands right now, we are not being told to change our teaching.”

A spokeswoman for Texas Tech University said administrators were “working to provide further clarification” after the chancellor’s letter.

Republicans in the Texas Legislature have pushed for greater limits on the instruction at state-funded universities. But the State Legislature has so far stopped short of trying to outlaw instruction that includes discussion of transgender people or other gender topics. An effort to constrain classroom discussions of race, gender and sexuality in universities failed during the last legislative session.

Hard-line conservatives have instead turned to public pressure as a means of curtailing such instruction.

“END ALL DEI AND LGBTQ INDOCTRINATION IN TEXAS!!” State Representative Brian Harrison, the Republican lawmaker who posted the video from Texas A&M, wrote on social media after the university president resigned.

In his letter, Mr. Mitchell, the Texas Tech chancellor, cited Mr. Trump’s order from January, a letter from Gov. Greg Abbott that directed state agencies to follow Mr. Trump’s order and a state law that requires government agencies to only collect data on two biological sexes, male and female.

“While recognizing the First Amendment rights of employees in their personal capacity, faculty must comply with these laws in the instruction of students, within the course and scope of their employment,” Mr. Mitchell wrote.

Even before the system adopted its policies formally, university administrators had been told that the changes were coming. Some began making changes in advance, including at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, which is part of the Texas Tech system.

This week, a department chair at Angelo State instructed staff members in an email, obtained by The New York Times, to avoid assigning or discussing a particular portion of the course if it covers topics that were advised to be avoided. The email added that students were permitted to turn in work that discusses gender identity but that those works should be graded only on syntax.

A spokeswoman for Angelo State referred questions about the school’s policy to a spokesman for the Texas Tech system, who referred back to Mr. Mitchell’s letter in which he described the situation as a “developing area of law.”

Melissa McCoul, the Texas A&M professor who was fired, has challenged her termination, which the university said had been because the description of her course, an English department class called “Literature for Children,” did not did not match its content. Addressing the resignation of Mr. Welsh, the Texas A&M president, the university said that it was “the right moment to make a change.”

Mr. Mitchell is the outgoing chancellor at the Texas Tech system. His successor, set to take over soon, is a Republican state senator, Brandon Creighton, who sponsored legislation this year restricting discussions of gender in K-12 public schools.