State taxpayers funded classes at the University of North Texas that pushed intersectionality and feminism. The university also employs a “Marxist Geographer” and a history professor that used a textbook with a bias against former President Donald Trump.
As explored in part one of this series, the Denton-based university has already shown an apparent willingness to reform. Similar efforts displayed at another taxpayer-funded university proves that such changes are possible when enough public pressure is built.
“Marxist Geographer”
Dr. Waquar Ahmed is an associate professor in the University of North Texas’s (UNT) Department of Geography and the Environment. He is also listed in the Women’s & Gender Studies page of UNT’s College of Liberal Arts & Social Sciences. “He engages with feminist theories, particularly socialist feminist theories in most of his research (along with Marxist and post-structuralist theories),” that page stated. “He is also the managing editor of the journal Human Geography that theoretically and politically favors feminist and queer approaches (in addition to other left approaches).”
Dr. Ahmed,though, takes his political beliefs into his core field of geography. In March 2022, Human Geography published an article by him titled “Marxist geography: A personal journey.”
“I am fascinated by Marx’s openness to learning and engagement with diverse intellectual traditions … Marxism for me, hence, is engagement and conversations with eclectic ideas, with fidelity to the communist manifesto, and in turn, its commitment to equality and justice,” Dr. Ahmed wrote, “And following Marx, I too do not adhere to orthodoxy in my scholarship, but rather rely on knowing through engagement and conversations with eclectic ideas, yet with fidelity to the communist manifesto (Marx and Engels, 2002 (1888); Badiou, 2010), and in turn its commitment to equality and justice.”
UNT Associate Professor Dr. Waquar Ahmed
He wrote that it was at Jawaharlal Nehru University, a government higher education institution in New Delhi, India, that he unlearned and “re-learned my Marxism and began my journey as a Marxist geographer.”
Dr. Ahmed co-wrote a 2019 paper with another UNT colleague in the geography department, Ipsita Chatterjee, titled “Dialectical materialism: Marx’s method in human geography?” In this paper, the two confirm their goal of transforming geography into a field that advances Marxism. “Dialectical materialism, we argue, is a philosophical praxis that guided Marx’s critique of capitalist political economy,” they wrote. But Ahmen and Chatterjee aren’t just advocating political Marxim, but cultural marxism as well. “Human geography has evolved to include, among many radical/critical schools of thought, Marxism, post-structuralism, feminism, and postmodernism,” they wrote.
Finding such an individual as Dr. Ahmed in Women’s & Gender Studies is no surprise to Scott Yenor, Senior Director of State Coalitions at the Claremont Institute’s Center for the American Way of Life. He previously told Texas Scorecard that since the 1970’s, colleges of education have pushed “dismant[ling] the previous white heteronormative culture, and build respect for a new non-white, non-heterosexual culture.” This he said is called a “multicultural education,” and is something that Women’s and Gender Studies promote. It also trains activists to work in the archipelago of non-governmental organizations in the United States.
UNT did not directly mention Dr. Ahmed in their response, which is printed in full at the end of this article.
Taxpayer-funded Classes
There is evidence that UNT has created an environment where Marxist professors can imprint their personal views on students and charge the state’s taxpayers for it. In this, UNT and Texas A&M appear to be the same. In February 2023, Texas Scorecard reported on woke classes at Texas A&M being funded by state taxpayers.
Texas Scorecard sent an open records request to determine the source of funding for certain classes offered by UNT. The university provided a spreadsheet. No dollar amounts were provided for how much was spent to fund each class, only to identify the source of the funds. The spreadsheet itself contains embedded files with descriptions of the classes listed.
UNT billed state taxpayers for every single one of the classes below.
First is Chicana Feminism to Xicanisma (a modern term for Chicana Feminism), under Topics in Women’s and Gender Studies 4260:003. Offered in Fall 2023 and taught by Dr. Elisha Oliver, the course description states that “using an intersectional lens, race, class, gender, sexuality, and ‘borderlands’ will shape examinations of daily lived experiences.” The class applied “the critical lenses of women’s and gender studies to local, state, national, and international debates, controversies, and conundrums.” The class goal was to “identify opportunities for advocacy and allyship.”
Next is Queer Theory, under Topics in Women’s and Gender Studies 4260:002, offered in Spring 2024 and taught by Dr. Katherine Ritter. The course description stated that the goals were to “Expand students’ awareness of queer theory/ scholarship and the history of its emergence in the US /trans/nationally,” and to “educate students on the diversity and commonality among gendered subjects.”
Dr. Ritter also taught Feminist Methods, under Feminist Methods and Methodologies 5300. UNT offered this class in Spring 2024 as well. The course description stated that the class would “provide a historicization through the lens of race, gender, class, sexuality, ability, etc. of how certain methods become privileged and legitimized over others.” It posed the question to students of “how can we deploy the ethos of feminist methods and methodologies across a multiplicity of interdisciplinary fields?”
Left to Right: Dr. Özlem Altıok; Dr. Elisha Oliver
Finally there’s Gender & Sustainable Development, also found under Topics in Women’s and Gender Studies 4260.003, which is another class UNT offered in Spring 2024. “Participants in the course will engage in feminist political economy and feminist ecological perspectives to understand international development,” the course description states. Students will “Reflect on their own place and responsibility in an interconnected, unequal, and violent world.” This class was taught by Dr. Özlem Altıok. Her UNT profile states that “she is also a women’s rights, peace, and environmental activist and a dedicated member of Equality Watch Women’s Group (EŞİTİZ) and Women’s Platform for Equality, Turkey (EŞİK).”
State Rep. Brian Harrison (R–Midlothian) reviewed the UNT spreadsheet and said classes like this aren’t what Texas taxpayers are supposed to be paying for. “Taxpayer-funded indoctrination has no place in the freedom loving state of Texas. The purpose of taxpayer-funded higher education is to train the workforce of tomorrow and to strengthen the economy of the state of Texas,” he told Texas Scorecard.
UNT did not directly address these classes in their response, which is printed in full at the end of this article.
Biased History
J. Todd Moye is a Professor of American History at UNT. He is also the director of the UNT Oral History Program. The syllabus for his spring 2024 American History class identified their textbook as The American Yawp, a free online document that is described as an “evolving, collaborative text,” much like Wikipedia. Below is an excerpt from the material regarding the events of January 6, 2021.
“The U.S. Capitol was stormed on January 6, 2021. Thousands of right-wing protestors, fueled by an onslaught of lies and fabrications and conspiracy theories surrounding the November 2020 elections, rallied that morning in front of the White House to ‘Stop the Steal,’” the textbook authors stated. The document also has a clear bias against former President Donald Trump. “Trump smashed many of the norms of the presidency and raged on his personal Twitter account. And he refused to be governed by the truth,” it stated. “Perhaps no president ever lied so boldly or so often as Donald Trump, who made, according to one accounting, an untrue statement every day for the first forty days of his presidency.”
UNT Professor J. Todd Moye
His syllabus also revealed his support of LGBTQ ideology. “Just as we ask and don’t assume someone’s name, we should also ask and not assume someone’s pronouns,” Moye’s syllabus stated. “Pronouns (she/her, they/them, he/him, etc.) are a public way for people to address you, much like your name, and can be shared with a name when making an introduction, both virtually and in-person.”
UNT did not directly address Moye in their response, which is printed in full at the end of this article.
Opportunity for Reform
The University of North Texas has billed state taxpayers to fund Marxist classes. Taxpayers are also funding Marxist professors at the state institution.
Scott Yenor expressed concern about the presence of DEI in class offerings, and recommended that Texas universities conduct program reviews. “Programs like sociology where DEI are sown into their professional standards should be removed from the general education requirements and should be considered on the chopping block from the university as a whole,” he said.
UNT Alumnus Kathy Villafuerte reviewed our findings for this series, and said she felt “ashamed” of her alma mater. She said she graduated back in 2013-2014. “It makes me feel very disappointed and ashamed that I went to UNT,” she told Texas Scorecard. “It’s just very frustrating because they’re wanting to say that they’re inclusive to everyone when they’re not, because for those of us that don’t have the same values or ideologies as what they’re wanting to portray, they’re more so excluding and pushing us out … I am not proud to call myself an eagle.”
Professor Jonathan Turley, the Shapiro Chair of Public Interest Law at George Washington University, on February 13, 2024, pointed out how leeway for free speech in universities is only given to one particular side. “My greatest concern is not that offensive views are being shared on campus. Rather, my concern is that such tolerance only seems to run to those on the far left,” he posted. “It is not evidence of the diversity but the hypocrisy and orthodoxy in higher education.”
UNT has shown such bias in the past. In March 2022, UNT President Neil Smatresk sided with a leftist mob against a conservative student organization on campus. He went so far as to say that “If I could snap my fingers and remove [Young Conservatives of Texas @ UNT], I would do it.” Smatresk announced in February 2024 that he would be retiring in fall 2024.
Examples have shown that serious reform of higher education is possible. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has worked to transform the formerly pro-DEI New College of Florida, and West Texas A&M opened the Hill Institute to promote the “founding values of our nation.” On March 1, 2024, it was widely reported that the University of Florida “fired all employees related to DEI” in accordance with a new state regulation.
Texas Tech showed their intention to hold faculty accountable when they suspended one of their professors for ‘hateful, antisemitic, and unacceptable’ social media posts.
As shown by the efforts of Bill Ackman, investor and CEO/Founder of Pershing Square Holdings, to hold former Harvard President Claudine Gay accountable for not standing against antisemitism on campus, a university’s board of regents are the ones who hold the power and are accountable for a university’s direction. Ackman demonstrated the power alumni and donors have over universities and that they can move a board of regents to take action. Gay resigned as Harvard president on January 2, 2024, after Ackman published an open letter he wrote to the Harvard Governing Board. By leveraging his connections and financial resources, he was able to build enough public pressure to force Gay’s hand.
State Rep. Harrison himself pointed to the regents of Texas government universities as being accountable for these institutions engaging in indoctrination. “At a time when my constituents are struggling to put food on their tables and gas in their tanks, the regents at these universities have a duty to ensure hard-earned dollars aren’t being spent on liberal woke indoctrination of the next generation.”
Universities also rely on the funding of their alumni. UNT alumnus Villafuerte told Texas Scorecard she will not donate. “They have called me in the past to join the alumni association, and knowing now more so the bigger changes that have been done with the White Accountability Group, the Gender and Sexuality Employee Resource Group, the LGBTQ faculty network, just all of these things, I do not agree with any of that,” she said.
Texans concerned about UNT may contact their Board of Regents through board secretary Rachel Barone via email: Rachel.Barone@untsystem.edu
Below are the names of the UNT Board of Regents.
Carlos Munguia
Terri West
Ashok (A.K.) Mago
Laura Wright
Lindy Rydman
Melisa Denis
Daniel Feehan
John Scott Jr.
Adbeola “Serah” Sulaiman
UNT Statement
In response to Texas Scorecard’s questions on the findings of parts one and two of this series, UNT Director of Media Relations Devynn Case wrote the following:
The University of North Texas is in compliance with SB 17. The new Texas law prohibits universities from having a DEI office, employees or third-party agencies who perform the duties of a DEI office, and from engaging in certain activities related to DEI.
To comply with the law, UNT dissolved its Division of Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access in Fall 2023.
The Center for Belonging and Engagement’s mission is to provide opportunities for connection and involvement that empower all our students. The CBE includes support for nontraditional student services, the First-Generation Student Center, and Student Veteran Services.
The law does not apply to academic course instruction, research, or student organizations.
The University of North Texas is committed to continued compliance with SB 17.
Source Documents
For this article, Texas Scorecard reviewed the following document.
UNT Records of Source of Funds for Certain Classes
This article contains highlights from this document. Citizens wishing to conduct a deep dive should click the link above.
