TWIBS: Former TX Senator Ruins Texas Tech
Another belt notch for conservatives in their culture war against people who are different: making it impossible for students and teachers to get by at Texas Tech.
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This Week in Barrel Scraping (TWIBS) is Assigned Media’s longest running column! Every Friday, Aly Gibbs digs deep from the well of transphobia and finds the most obnoxious, goofy thing transphobes have said or obsessed over during the week and tears it to shreds.
The Texas Tech University system, a series of public universities spread throughout the state of Texas, has been overcome with confusion and jackassery in the wake of their Chancellor’s brave decision to eradicate evil woke DEI nonsense from the schools’ curriculum.
Shortly after taking office as Chancellor of the TTU System, Brandon Creighton issued a December 1st memorandum that prohibits faculty members from “[promoting] or otherwise [inculcating] the belief” that: One race or sex is superior to another; individuals, because of their sex or race, are inherently oppressive; any person should be discriminated against because of race or sex; moral character or worth is determined by race or sex; individuals bear guilt for the actions of members of the same race or sex; or that meritocracy or “a strong work ethic” are racist, sexist, or constructs of oppression.
According to Creighton’s memorandum, “Advocacy or promotion means presenting these beliefs as correct or required and pressuring students to affirm them, rather than analyzing or critiquing them as one viewpoint among others.”
Doesn’t that all sound so nice? No more gender or race-based oppression! Yay! Brandon Creighton has singlehandedly eliminated discrimination in the TTU System, and that’s just so wonderful. Oh no, hold on… I’m getting word now that these rules are actually a thinly veiled suggestion that Black, brown and LGBTQ+ people are widely trying to “oppress” cisgender, heterosexual white men for being so superior and awesome?
Oh fucking no!
This is not a new thing. DeSantis similarly distorted normal inclusivity programs in Florida’s higher education system to “ban DEI” back in 2023, and Texas picked up the same torch the very next year. In fact, Brandon was a Texas Senator when that bill was passed, and he was one of its sponsors to boot! He’s clearly got an axe to grind against the concept of wokeness, or like… common human decency, I guess. No disadvantaged folks will be receiving equity if Charles Brandon Creighton can help it!
As if that wasn’t enough, Creighton of course insists that, pursuant to “state law and federal policy,” only two sexes (male and female) are recognized, and any curriculum relating to gender identity must be sent to the system’s Board of Regents for review before it can be included in a classroom.
The memorandum ends with an ominous threat: “Noncompliance may result in disciplinary action consistent with university policy and state law.”
So, now that the new year is well underway, what are the effects of these policies?
Per Jessica Priest at The Texas Tribune, Texas Tech students are finding pages mid-required reading stamped with DO NOT READ. They’re being assigned, and then abruptly unassigned, textbooks that presumably are discovered to contain heresy after the fact. School staff, when asked for clarification on the new rules, could only shrug their shoulders and gesture at the memo; it was all the information anyone had.
Two classes with a combined 139 enrolled students, Ethnic Minority Psychology and Close Relationships, were canceled. This has impacted students who are set to graduate in May. Other courses have been dramatically altered so as to be functionally useless to the students who wanted to learn from them, thanks to changes in course materials and topics teachers are allowed to discuss in class.
Even worse, no guidance has been provided by the Board of Regents so far… because they aren’t scheduled to meet until later this month.
What we’re looking at is a complete failure to think through the consequences of a political war against science. Textbooks can’t be read because, lo and behold, they contain too much consensus information from modern scientists about queer people. Nobody knows what’s going on because this memo was put into place without a real plan; what guys like Creighton and Governor Greg Abbott want is a blanket excuse to punish anybody who falls on the “wrong” side of their culture war, and this gives them just the excuse to do that. It’s as pathetic as it is despicable.
Here’s my advice: If you have any options at all, do not seek higher education in Texas for the next few generations. You simply won’t find it there.
Aly Gibbs (She/They) is a trans writer who reports on news important to the queer community.
