This week, the House Higher Education Committee heard more bills aimed at addressing health care workforce shortages by incentivizing students and funding health institutions. While the House committee continues its important work to support our higher education institutions, the Senate continues its rampage against academic freedom.
Senate Bill 37, the full force attack on academic freedom and shared governance, was debated and voted on by the full Senate on Tuesday. During a heated floor debate, several senators brought up concerns with how the bill would restrict academic freedom. Sen. Brandon Creighton, the bill’s author, introduced a 13-page amendment on the floor, citing it as a “clean-up,” despite that amendment imposing even more restrictions on faculty.
Sens. Borris Miles, Roland Gutierrez, Royce West, Sarah Eckhardt, and Molly Cook all voiced concerns about potential infringements on academic freedom and the risk of censorship within universities.
In response, Creighton assured the chamber that the bill included safeguards to protect academic integrity and that the newly proposed committees would be “diverse” and “objective”. Our Texas AAUP-AFT members and their students beg to differ. We predicted the downstream effects from last session’s anti-DEI bill SB 17, and we know what the consequences of SB 37 will be.
Now that SB 37 is making its way to the House, we need all hands on deck to make sure we stop it in its tracks. This legislation, if passed, would be as disastrous for higher education institutions in Texas as we fear private school voucher legislation will be to our K-12 schools.