Universities across the state are restricting how professors are able to teach race and gender on campuses. (Photo via Shutterstock)
Union members across Texas are asking political candidates to formally adopt and run on a new policy platform that centers the needs of workers and students over billionaires and corporate interests at higher education institutions ahead of the 2026 midterms.
A coalition of educators from the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers, along with Texas Democrats, have launched a new policy platform aimed at countering attacks on higher education and academic freedom.
The platform, which union members announced in Austin on Monday, is titled “A Blueprint for Strengthening and Transforming Higher Education” and encourages candidates in the 2026 midterm elections to fight for higher education, promoting it as a public good instead of a privilege.
”What we’re seeing are deep, deep cuts to research funding, we’re seeing attacks on academic freedom and free speech,” AAUP President Todd Wolfson said. “Here in Texas, hundreds of classes are canceled because of what teachers are putting on their syllabi. We’re seeing efforts to dismantle diversity and eliminate support from minority serving institutions, and we’re seeing growing interference in teaching and research.”
“These are not just funding battles, they’re battles over the right to learn and the right to teach,” he added.
The platform rests on four pillars: A students’ right to learn; affordability, accessibility, and completion; strengthening communities; and respecting and empowering faculty, staff, and student workers.
Both unions are calling on local, state, and federal candidates and elected officials to run on the platform ahead of the 2026 midterm and commit to making higher education a central issue throughout this election cycle.
State Rep. Gina Hinojosa (D-Austin), who is the Democratic gubernatorial candidate, pledged to adopt the framework and called on other statewide and local candidates to do the same.
”What we’ve seen in the last two years is a hijacking of our world class universities,” Hinojosa said. “These are universities that have worldwide respect and reputation, and have now been hijacked by Greg Abbott and his Republican political leadership to play out culture wars.”
The platform will aim to restore funding and a “sustained reinvestment in public higher education to ensure college degrees are accessible and can be earned debt-free” and create labor reform by providing collective bargaining rights for all faculty and staff at public institutions.
It also aims to create new safeguards for academic freedom, shielding researchers and faculty from political interference and “ideological thought-policing,” and ensuring faculty and staff—not corporate administrators—make final decisions on curriculum, research priorities, and institutional priorities.
“ Our colleges and universities exist to sustain free inquiry, advance knowledge, and cultivate the informed citizens that a vibrant democracy depends on,” said Dr. Leonard Bright, a professor at Texas A&M whose ethics class was canceled earlier this year. “But today, that mission is under a direct threat and attack.”
Bright is just one victim in an on-going string of on-going attacks on higher ed in the state.
Several universities across Texas have audited their course catalogs and implemented new policies restricting how professors are able to teach race and gender on campus after State Rep. Brian Harrison urged Texas A&M to fire a professor for discussing LGBTQ+ topics in class—a move that created a firestorm of censorship and turmoil across the university system.
After the professor was fired, university President Mark Welsh resigned amid Republican lawmakers’ criticism in not moving quickly enough to fire the professor.
The move resulted in Texas A&M regents unanimously approving a new policy requiring campus residents to sign off on any course seen as “advocating for race and gender ideology.”
Texas colleges and universities are also facing significant funding shortfalls. The consequences have included clinical trials being halted, research funding being slashed, and entire programs being shut down.
“Instead of investing in the next generation, the federal government is stripping hundreds of millions of dollars in research grants, attacking diversity, saddling millions of borrowers with student debt and abolishing minority-serving institutions—all in a cynical attempt to punish political enemies and control knowledge,” AFT President Randi Weingarten said.
State Rep. Donna Howard (D-Austin) said advocating for academic freedom and funding higher education used to be a bipartisan issue, but that’s no longer the case.
“ I’ve had a lot of work on bipartisan legislation to strengthen higher education across our great big state, including increases in state funding and tuition assistance for students,” Howard said. “This has been a bipartisan effort until the past two legislative sessions. This past legislative session continued the Republican-led legislative erosion of confidence in our higher education system, which is as we’ve already been hearing, the foundation of our enviable workforce and our economic powerhouse.”
“Higher ed has become the scapegoat for so-called wokeness with the reframing of critical thinking to be instead classified as indoctrination,” she added.“Politicians, not experts, are determining what can be taught, which ironically means that they’re actually doing the indoctrination.”
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