University of North Texas Should Reverse Course Censorship

Statement from AAUP president Todd Wolfson:

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) stands with the Texas AAUP conference, the Texas Faculty Association, and the Texas Association of College Teachers in expressing our deep concern over recent developments at the University of North Texas (UNT). The reported censorship of the content of more than 200 academic courses by the UNT central administration and UNT system, including the removal of words such as “race,” “gender,” “class,” and “equity” from undergraduate and graduate course titles and descriptions, appears to represent a troubling departure from widely accepted standards of academic freedom and shared governance.

Under the Statement on Government of Colleges and Universities, a joint formulation of the AAUP, the American Council on Education, and the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, the faculty has “primary responsibility for such fundamental areas as curriculum, [and] subject matter and methods of instruction,” based on the fact that the faculty’s “judgment is central to general educational policy.” In these and other areas, the Statement continues, the administration should “concur with the faculty judgment except in rare instances and for compelling reasons which should be stated in detail.”

In addition, The Freedom to Teach, a statement of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, provides for the right of the faculty “to select the materials, determine the approach to the subject, make the assignments, and assess student academic performance in teaching activities for which faculty members are individually responsible, without having their decision subject to the veto of a department chair, dean, or other administrative officer.”

The UNT administration should reconsider their overcompliance with SB17 and suspend and reverse all previous course content changes including the restoration of the words “race,” “gender,” “class,” and “equity” that the administration unilaterally censored from course content.