The Texas Education Agency is prohibiting future Texas teachers from discussing and learning about race and gender while they prepare to become educators.
This month, the leadership of Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) at both public and private colleges across Texas were forced to sign a form that vows higher education students in teacher prep programs will follow the state’s K-12 anti-diversity, equity, and inclusion law—or face legal repercussions.
According to a recent report from Texas Public Radio, the three-page form had to be signed by Sept. 1 and requires EPP leaders to verify that courses taught to future educators don’t “discuss a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs.” The mandate also requires EPPs to prohibit advocacy-oriented service learning, and instruction concerning race and gender. Leadership had to include their full name, birthdate, and address, and pledge that their staff will comply with all the limitations.
In one section, the TEA states that an EPP can’t teach that one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex; an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously; an individual’s moral character, standing, or worth is necessarily determined by the individual’s race or sex; an individual, by virtue of the individual’s race or sex, bears responsibility, blame, or guilt for actions committed by other members of the same race or sex; and the advent of slavery in the territory that is now the US constituted the true founding of the US.
The TEA is also prohibiting teaching one specific journalistic work, The 1619 Project, which is a series by The New York Times Magazine marking the 400th anniversary of the beginning of slavery in America.
According to the form, the limitations apply to coursework, training, and program requirements that are part of the EPP and required for educator certification, including any curriculum incorporated into EPP coursework.
Although the law the TEA is referencing, Senate Bill 12, limits course topics in K-12 schools, the Texas Education Agency claims EPPs are required to comply “in the same manner as if the program were a school district.”
The state currently has 119 EPPs, which are certified by the TEA as the authority overseeing teacher certification in Texas. As such, the TEA is allowed to provide oversight and mandates to programs that are located at private higher education institutions.
Faculty and staff at both public and private universities are voicing their concerns over the limitations the document will put on academic freedom—both their own and their students’, according to Texas Public Radio. Others said they’re worried about their legal liability if a student files a complaint, or that not signing the form could put them at risk of losing their jobs.
“We believe this attestation requirement, as currently written and implemented, threatens academic freedom, imposes vague and unworkable standards on faculty members, and extends a K-12-oriented statute into graduate and professional educator preparation in ways the legislature did not adequately consider,” the UT San Antonio AAUP chapter said in a statement.
The UTSA AAUP chapter claims the directives are vague, and a statute written for K-12 school districts being imported into graduate and professional education is problematic.
The Trinity University AAUP chapter, which is a private liberal arts school in San Antonio, also condemned the limitations.
“Universities are different from state school districts in that they have academic freedom,” the group said in a statement. “Our strength lies in our commitment to teaching and research free from state intervention. This commitment cannot exclude confronting complex and even controversial ideas to engaging in difficult conversations.”
The chapter is calling on the university’s president, provost, and deans to “use their influence as leaders of a private university to oppose this encroachment, and to work with other Texas universities and faculty organizations to unequivocally oppose this measure.”
“The issue extends beyond one department, one book or one university,” they said. “The state has steadily expanded its ideological reach from K-12 schools to public universities, and this attestation extends that reach into Trinity’s M.A.T. and M.Ed programs. We do not expect it to stop here.”
