Texas Tech chancellor Creighton goes past the campus laws he wrote, as faculty exits and enrollment both rise

Nearly a year after leaving the Texas Senate to lead the Texas Tech University System, Chancellor Brandon Creighton is using the job to push past the higher education laws he wrote as a lawmaker, and he says other states are taking notice, according to a Texas Tribune profile published Thursday.

As chair of the Senate's education committee, Creighton carried the laws that closed diversity, equity and inclusion offices at public colleges, widened the grounds for firing tenured professors and gave governor-appointed regents more control over university leadership and required courses. One of those laws, Senate Bill 37, requires regents to periodically review the courses all undergraduates must take. It does not ban any topic.

Going beyond the statute

Within two weeks of taking over last fall, Creighton directed faculty across the system's five universities to get approval before teaching material on gender identity, sexual orientation or certain ideas about race and sex. In April, he and the regents barred sexual orientation and gender identity content from core and lower-level undergraduate courses, the Tribune reported.

"We don't have to use state statute as a ceiling," Creighton told the Tribune. He described the restrictions as common sense tied to data the system reviews and said courses on those subjects are not the best use of students' tuition.

Supporters say the overhaul makes degrees worth their cost. John Colyandro, a conservative policy adviser who worked for Gov. Greg Abbott, said Creighton set out to restore public confidence that higher education is a good investment. Sherry Sylvester of the Texas Public Policy Foundation said officials from about a dozen states have asked her about the Texas laws.

Critics say professors are losing the freedom to teach. Teresa Klein, president of the Texas conference of the American Association of University Professors, said she worries the effects will be long-lasting. Faculty groups have sued Creighton and the regents, alleging unconstitutional censorship; Texas Tech's lawyers argue in court filings that classroom teaching is the university's own speech and is not protected by the First Amendment.

By the numbers

• 78 faculty separations from the Lubbock campus between Creighton's arrival in November and mid-August, up from 65 a year earlier, including retirements and expired contracts.
• 46,296 students enrolled at the Lubbock campus this fall, a record.
• $25 million that Texas Tech says it is investing in Nvidia computing technology for AI research; the project could reach $40 million. The university has not released the agreement and has asked the attorney general what can be withheld.
• $136 million in new public money Creighton is seeking: $8 million for corporate partnerships and enforcing reforms, $28 million for commercial research and startups and $100 million for a building to house that work.

Creighton and two regents reported owning Nvidia stock; Creighton and a system spokeswoman said all complied with disclosure law.

Sources

The Texas Tribune