The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sent letters to the presidents of each campus in the Texas Tech University System on Friday, expressing concern over the recent memorandum from System Chancellor Brandon Creighton regarding classroom instruction of race and gender.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of free speech, particularly on college campuses.
The letters state that the new policy put forth in the memo "clearly violates the First Amendment's protections for academic freedom."
Graham Piro authored the letters; he is the faculty legal defense fund fellow with FIRE's Campus Rights Advocacy team.
"Academic Freedom protects the right of faculty to determine how to best approach the topics that they're teaching about in the classroom," Piro said in a phone call with KTTZ. "Even when those topics are controversial or potentially upsetting."
Piro is concerned over the broad language used in the memo, which he said has the potential to create a chilling effect within the classroom. The memorandum outlines that faculty members may not "promote or otherwise inculcate" certain beliefs in their professional capacity.
The memorandum defines promotion:
"Advocacy or promotion means presenting these beliefs as correct or required and pressuring students to affirm them, rather than analyzing or critiquing them as one viewpoint among others. This also includes course content that promotes activism on issues related to race or sex, rather than academic instruction."
Self-censorship among faculty members could "significantly degrade the quality of the education at one of these member institutions of the Texas Tech University System, and that will affect students in the class," according to Piro.
With the guidelines, Piro argued the university system is singling out specific viewpoints.
"And that is textbook viewpoint discrimination, and that runs afoul of the First Amendment," he said.
Another one of FIRE's concerns is the quick turnaround for instructors who need their materials reviewed by their department chair, dean, and provost – especially when the policy is so new and may cause confusion.
The memorandum, sent by Creighton on Dec. 1, was "effective immediately." And in his letter, Piro explained that a faculty member "at one of Texas Tech's sister institutions" was directed on Dec. 8 to complete a course content review for their courses in the upcoming semester by Dec. 22.
"Our concern is always going to be when someone in a position of authority or public official starts telling faculty what they can and cannot say in the classroom," Piro said.
Piro compared the memorandum to Florida's Individual Freedom Act, also known as the "Stop WOKE Act," which the state passed in 2022, regulating the teaching of race, gender, and class-related topics in schools and in workplace training.
In 2023, a temporary injunction was placed on the Florida bill's enforcement over higher education institutions. And a block on the restrictions for private businesses was made permanent by a federal judge in 2024. Piro said parts of the law are still in litigation.
In the letters to Tech-system presidents, FIRE explained that as a public institution, the universities are "legally obligated to protect faculty expression" from violations of their autonomy as educators.
At a time when many higher education professionals are thinking about leaving the state of Texas to work elsewhere, Piro said universities considering these kinds of policies should be particularly aware.
"We would urge these universities to be mindful of how their treatment of certain ideas in the classroom and the targeting of specific viewpoints for extra attention – or restriction – would discourage certain faculty from teaching," he said.
FIRE requested that university presidents respond to its letters by Dec. 18.
"We're hoping to hear that they're not going to violate the First Amendment and they're going to narrow or rescind the memo," Piro said. "Or that they will be mindful and be very aware of the First Amendment's impact and the protections that the First Amendment has for academic freedom."
He said that FIRE will be watching closely to see if faculty start reporting getting into trouble for material concerning the topics covered in the memorandum.
KTTZ reached out to the office of the president of Texas Tech University and had not heard back at the time of publication.
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