The University of Texas at Austin has cut all Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies courses from counting toward its core curriculum.
The news was first reported by the Austin American-Statesman.
In an email obtained by KUT News, classes like "Women and the Holocaust," "Slavery and its legacies" and "Mexican American Women 1910 to Present" were all not approved by the university for core curriculum status.
UT Austin created a core curriculum task force in the fall of 2025 to review and recommend changes. The last review and update to the curriculum was in 2004, over 20 years ago, according to a report by the group. The report stated that the choices had become too expansive.
"Highly specialized courses have an important place in UT Austin's curriculum, but not as parts of its core," the report said. "Student leaders reported to us that students do not see a clear rationale behind the current system, and thus they experience the core more as a set of random boxes to be checked than as something tied together by a vision of what educated human beings should know."
The course catalog will be finalized on Oct. 1, according to a letter from the provost, William Inboden.
The move comes after the university consolidated several departments in February. In a letter to students, faculty and staff, UT Austin President Jim Davis announced that four departments, including the African and African Diaspora Studies, American Studies, Mexican American and Latina/Latino Studies and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, were going to be consolidated into one Department of Social and Cultural Analysis.
Three other departments in the College of Liberal Arts were consolidated into the Department of European and Eurasian Studies.
Last week, KUT reported that UT planned to cut Mexican American, Black, women's and gender studies majors.
The provost said new courses as part of the curriculum redesign will be available in fall 2027, with a full implementation in fall 2028.
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