The University of Texas at Austin has eliminated degree majors in several ethnic and gender studies disciplines, the latest step in a broader restructuring of the state’s public university system. The move followed an earlier decision to consolidate the same departments, and last week the flagship campus removed Women and Gender Studies courses from its core curriculum.
UT Austin is not acting alone. According to reporting by The Daily Wire, UT San Antonio has consolidated its Race, Ethnicity, Gender and Sexuality Studies department, Texas A&M has closed its Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies program, and both Texas A&M and Texas Tech University have announced system-level restrictions on what they describe as “race or gender ideology.”
A System-Wide Transformation
What distinguishes Texas from other states that have pared back similar programs is the systemic nature of the changes. Florida moved first, using a 2023 governance law to eliminate New College’s Gender Studies program in 2024. Schools in Maryland and Georgia have dissolved comparable departments, though those institutions cited declining enrollment rather than political pressure.
In Texas, the legislature passed SB-37 in 2025, a law that reduced faculty senates to advisory roles and shifted authority over curriculum and hiring to governor-appointed boards of regents. That restructuring gave UT regents the authority, one year later, to revise and reorganize academic programs. The Texas Tech University System’s chancellor, who previously authored SB-37, took similar action, as did Texas A&M’s Board of Regents.
The Case Against “the Studies”
Christopher Schorr, Ph.D., who directs the Higher Education Reform Initiative at the America First Policy Institute, argues in a new report that fields such as African American Studies, Latin(o/a/x) Studies, and Gender and Sexuality Studies — collectively referred to as “the Studies” — are fundamentally ideological and activist-oriented rather than scholarly.
Schorr points to how several of these disciplines describe themselves. The National Women’s Studies Association, he notes, proclaims a commitment to “feminist education and change,” including a world free from sexism, racism, and other forms of bias. The Association for Asian American Studies, while citing scholarly work such as conferences and publications, describes advocacy on behalf of Asian American and Pacific Islander communities as “equally important.”
By contrast, Schorr writes, mainstream professional associations in political science and psychology do not frame their missions in comparable terms. He attributes this not to political balance — which he says is largely absent — but to the fact that those disciplines remain oriented toward the pursuit of knowledge, even if imperfectly. The Studies, in his view, aim at power rather than truth, a distinction rooted in what he describes as neo-Marxist perspectives on domination.
Schorr also cites grading data. In a 2025 report, he found that 90% of students in Critical Disability Studies and Asian American Studies courses at UT Austin between 2020 and 2024 received A grades, which he characterizes as evidence of lax academic rigor.
Public Interest vs. Academic Freedom
Defenders of the programs argue that ethnic and gender studies departments serve legitimate scholarly and educational purposes, and that the restructuring amounts to political interference in curriculum. Schorr’s position is that public university course offerings should serve the public interest as determined by citizens through their elected officials, not by what he calls activist employees with personal agendas, including tenured faculty.
He contends that governance reforms like those in Texas allow institutions to prioritize public interests while preserving academic and institutional integrity. The Manhattan Institute has drafted a model bill that goes further than SB-37 in some respects, and Schorr has proposed additional measures addressing bias in classroom instruction.
The question now is which states will follow Texas’s lead — and how far the next phase of higher education reform will go.
Source: www.dailywire.com — https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-this-red-state-university-system-is-purging-radical-disciplines