Faculty groups sued Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton and members of the Board of Regents over two memos that they say have a chilling effect on classroom speech.
In December Creighton, a former Republican state senator, sent out a memo directing faculty to follow a review process if their course materials touched on the topics of race, sexual orientation or gender identity. Then, in April, he sent another memo with “established criteria to govern this review process at the discretion of the Board of Regents.”
“This case presents an extraordinary system of censorship in higher education, in
which professors in the Texas Tech University System are prohibited from teaching the most basic
scholarship, while at the same time not fully comprehending the contours of prohibitions that place
them under threat of losing their employment and livelihood,” the lawsuit said. “Under this censorship regime, professors cannot teach Plato’s Republic, the Pulitzer-Prize-winning book Between the World and Me, the fact that gay and bisexual men were persecuted in Nazi Germany, or the existence of health disparities in rural communities in Lubbock and border communities in El Paso. Indeed, one professor was barred from even using the word ‘systemic.’”
A spokesperson for Creighton’s office said in a statement to USA TODAY that the Texas Tech University System “is confident its policies are lawful, constitutionally sound and fully compliant with state and federal law.”
