Overview
- Texas Tech University System issued a memo on April 9 that imposes a strict ban on sexual orientation and gender identity content in core and other lower-level undergraduate classes, requiring substitute materials even for incidental mentions.
- The directive orders campuses to phase out programs centered on sex and gender after teach-outs and blocks degree-culminating student work that centers on those topics, with universities required to identify affected programs by June 15.
- The memo carves out exemptions for routine term papers and student-selected performances, but it leaves undergraduate theses in a gray area that it does not define.
- Faculty must list covered topics in course syllabi and stick only to those contents, and the memo says instructors may not advocate or validate frameworks that describe gender identities as fluid.
- Texas Tech’s AAUP chapter, PEN America, and FIRE condemn the policy as censorship and warn that unclear enforcement and hiring signals could chill teaching, research, and student speech.