ACADEMIC APOCALYPSE: Texas University Faculty Fear Entire Liberal Arts Departments Face the Axe

ACADEMIC APOCALYPSE: After the University of Texas at Austin secretly created a committee to examine the reorganization of its liberal arts programs, faculty members worry whole academic departments might be at risk.

The largest university in the public University of Texas system has not announced any layoffs or reorganizations, but faculty members have been informed that a committee was formed earlier this semester and given the task of conducting a review that they believe is centered on ethnic and regional fields like women’s and gender studies, Mexican American and Latina/o studies, and African and African diaspora studies.

Faculty who questioned officials about the committee claimed they had not gotten definitive answers, and the institution did not reply to the Guardian’s request for comment. The president of UT Austin wrote in an email on Thursday that a taskforce would carry out a “thorough review” of the university’s core curriculum, which consists of a set of required courses taken by all students, “to better fulfill the purpose of this curriculum and identify gaps in quality, rigor, or intellectual cohesion.”

None of the 18 academics on the group are from the departments where cutbacks are expected. In private emails and conversations, students have shared a picture that makes fun of the fact that almost all of the faculty members are white.

Julie Minich, a professor at UT Austin’s English, Mexican American, and Latina/o studies departments, said, “We’re hearing bits and pieces.” We’ve heard that a reorganization committee was established by the dean. There are speculations circulating about who is on it. After that, we are attempting to decipher the tea leaves.

After a new state legislation that abolished the long-standing faculty senates in the public university system and gave administrators near-total authority over questions of university administration took effect on September 1st, worries grew. institution senates are often the main forum for faculty to participate in decisions pertaining to the institution, even if they serve advisory functions at the majority of schools.

Following the law’s implementation, the newly appointed president of UT Austin, who was the first to be chosen without consulting the faculty, declared the creation of a 12-member faculty advisory board that would be “charged with advising on institutional matters and focusing on the best interests of the entire University.”

On a university campus, people stroll.

Indiana University dismisses the student media director and orders the school newspaper to stop publishing in print. Although UT Austin officials have not discussed their intentions for the future of the institution much, William Inboden, the new provost, recently laid out his ideas in a 7,000-word manifesto that was published in the right-wing journal National Affairs. In the article, he bemoans the “ideological imbalance” and crisis of “legitimacy and trust” in US higher education, partially attributing these problems to the “identity-studies framework.”

He reiterated a viewpoint frequently cited by conservatives, such as Donald Trump, who have denounced colleges as strongholds of woke liberalism: “Too many American history courses present the American past as a litany of oppressions and hypocrisies, leaving students with an imbalanced view of the United States.”

Craig Campbell, a professor of anthropology at UT Austin, stated that Inboden’s manifesto “really outlines his sense that the humanities and liberal arts are full of pathology and rot.” “That is what they are pursuing.”

He went on to say that this semester, the uncertainty has been a big distraction. “The current climate is terrible, terrible, terrible.”

Referring to Inboden’s piece, Minich said, “We really took this article as an indication of hostility for our field.” “A lot of people are really on edge because of the combination of this committee’s formation without any faculty communication and the provost’s article.”

UT Austin was likewise targeted earlier this year by the Trump-affiliated America First Policy Institute. The conservative think group seems to have hinted at the targeting of the same departments that teachers now worry are under danger in a paper titled “Are the ‘Studies’ Worth Studying?”

The study ends by asserting that the “Studies”—such as “Women’s Studies,” “Asian American Studies,” “Critical Disability Studies,” etc.—are activist rather than academic subjects and are plagued by “grade inflation.” Eliminating disciplines with low levels of rigor, like the Studies, is one of the “low hanging fruit” solutions to grade inflation.

Minich categorically disagreed with the report’s findings

“I would vehemently contest any portrayal of ethnic studies or area studies as ideologically involved in student brainwashing,” she said. “I never try to dictate to my pupils what they should think in the classroom. It’s to provide kids with skills to help them think about a complex world, and I believe it’s a serious issue that I feel like I’m being stopped from doing that.

Texas has long spearheaded conservative attempts to transform US higher education, as have other Republican-led states like Florida and Ohio. The state’s lawmakers were among the first to do away with diversity and inclusion programs and to erode safeguards for tenured academics. The president of Texas A&M University’s main campus resigned last month due to a dispute about “gender ideology” in the classroom.

Prior to Trump’s return to office, UT Austin eliminated its diversity efforts and let go of around 60 employees who were working on related projects. Additionally, it canceled the usual bilingual graduation ceremony for Spanish-speaking pupils and dissolved its Multicultural Engagement Center.

The university was one of the first to get preferential access to federal funds from the Trump administration in return for changing its policies to support the administration’s goals. Since then, all colleges nationwide have been given this opportunity. It has been rejected by Brown, the University of Southern California, MIT, the University of Virginia, and the University of Pennsylvania.

UT The president’s offer has not yet received a response from Austin officials. About 200 students demonstrated their objection to it earlier this week by chanting “do not sign” in front of the main administrative building.