Texas Tech University students and faculty gathered at Memorial Circle Thursday afternoon to protest the current course review policies enacted by the system’s newest chancellor, Brandon Creighton.
Shortly after taking office, Creighton instituted a new course review process in which any class that discussed topics related to race, gender, and sexuality would have its content reviewed by the Board of Regents. This memorandum is often cited as adhering to the outlines provided in Creighton's SB 37.
The Board of Regents met on Feb. 26th at the Texas Tech University Health Science Center campus in Dallas.
A social media post entitled “From Here it’s Redacted” encouraged students and faculty to join in protest against the recent administrative policies affecting classes. A handful of professors were seen in graduate memorabilia, advocating that their students deserve a proper education.
Dr. Sarah Spurgeon, a professor of American Literature, has been teaching at Texas Tech for over 20 years. She talked about how much of an effect the local community had on her decision to stay in Lubbock when she started teaching in 2005.
“I've stayed because I just love Tech students. They are open-minded. They are earnest and genuinely willing to encounter ideas they may never have been exposed to before, and to meet those ideas with an open mind. And that is kind of the definition of education, right?” she said. “That's what a university, an institute of higher education, should be offering our students, not a censored education directed by non-experts who are simply here to impose their narrow political views on 40,000 students.”
Students themselves have been heavily affected by the course review system. Kaylee Jackson, a junior studying Human Development & Family Sciences, said she had received an email in December, stating that she would have to choose a new class to fulfill her credits for her gender development studies, as it was no longer a part of her degree plan.
“I know a bunch of family life people who are worried they're not getting jobs after this,” she said. “They're getting denied immediately because we aren't getting taught. We're supposed to be taught.”
Another Human Development & Family Sciences student, Makenzie Lozano, is close to completing her degree, and she said she is more concerned for new and incoming students.
“I'm worried for my little sister, because my little sister, she's a freshman here,” Lozano explained. “I'm worried about the future generations that are going to come in here and be pretty much silenced and not given the full curriculum that they need, especially if they're in human sciences.”
The Texas Tech University System Board of Regents did not publicly discuss the curriculum review process in its meeting.
