Texas lawmakers on the new Senate and House Select Committees on Civil Discourse and Freedom of Speech in Higher Education met in Austin Thursday to discuss the state’s free speech laws. It was their first meeting since Lt. Governor Dan Patrick and House Speaker Burrows named them in September, days after Charlie Kirk’s murder on a Utah campus.
“The fact that we could not agree in a society that any political assassination needs to be condemned is a point that I wish we would not have to recognize as the obvious, but we're doing that today,” Senate chair Paul Bettencourt said as he opened the hearing.
Lawmakers this year passed a handful of bills centered around discussions and conduct on college campuses. Senate Bill 37 adds controls on what professors can teach and say in class and diminishes faculty senate involvement in course offerings.
SB 2972 set limits on when and where demonstrations can occur on college campuses. Parts of the law are still tied up in court.
Committee members heard testimony from education officials on both laws. Witnesses spoke by invitation only and included the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board Chair, Wynn Rosser, UT Austin president Jim Davis, Rickey Adam, with Turning Point, UT Austin Counsel Amanda Cochran-McCall, and others.
House Chair Terry Wilson said Texas will “defend open expression ... but we will also demand order.”
“We have seen disorder, intimidation and open hostility replace reason and dialogue,” he said. “We have witnessed celebrations of political violence that should be unthinkable in a free society. Students have been intimidated or shamed. Administrators and educators have an impasse on handling situations in a fair and balanced way.”
The hearing showed there are still disagreements about what constitutes free speech on campus.
In one exchange, Democratic Laredo Rep. Richard Pena Raymond asked Cochran-McCall whether a student group of KKK members would be permitted to rally on campus.
“That is not a group that should be allowed,” Raymond said. "I don't care if it's 20 professors that teach at the university or 20 students that go to school there, they should not be allowed to have an event on any, in my opinion, on any campus in the state, public or private.”
Cochran-McCall, while sympathetic to Raymond’s remarks, said the demonstrators would be allowed.
“I'd be working very hard to find if there's a legal way to prevent that, but if there were not, then as a government body, I also think we have to honor what the First Amendment requires,” she said.
The hearing comes after dozens of pro-Palestinian demonstrators were arrested on campuses across Texas last year to protest Israel’s war in Gaza.
The committees will hear testimony from the public next year.
Bill Zeeble is KERA’s education reporter. Got a tip? Email Bill at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on X @bzeeble.
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