A priority proposal to reform Texas’ higher education institutions has cleared a key legislative hurdle in the House on Saturday, but several key provisions were jettisoned in the process.
In its original version, Senate Bill 37—proposed by State Sen. Brandon Creighton (R-Conroe)—limited the decision-making power of faculty senates and placed them in advisory roles. It also established strict guidelines for faculty senate composition and meetings and mandated online transparency.
In state universities, “shared governance” describes a system in which universities’ boards of regents share power with the faculty, which is represented by a faculty senate—or, in the case of the University of Texas-Austin, a faculty council.
Boards of regents are accountable to Texans through the governor, who appoints them, and state senators, who confirm their appointments. Faculty senates have no such accountability.
Critics have argued that university faculty have been a source of woke ideologies at universities, leveraging “shared governance” to advance their activist agendas both in the classroom and on campus.
State Rep. Matt Shaheen (R–Plano), the sponsor of the proposal in the Texas House, introduced a committee substitute during a legislative hearing earlier this month. Shaheen altered or removed several key provisions. These include removing the Senate’s return-on-investment-based review of all degree programs, leaving only one of minor degrees and certificates, removing regent oversight on tenured faculty positions, and swapping the Senate’s proposed civil penalty enforcement mechanism with funding restrictions.
The House version also omits publication of noncompliance by higher education institutions investigated by the proposed Office of the Ombudsman, to be placed in the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.
But the House version explicitly places final decision-making authority over degree programs and curricula with the boards of regents, and both versions include restrictions on the faculty’s involvement in hiring decisions.
State Rep. Gene Wu of Houston, the leader of the House Democrat Caucus, withdrew an amendment he had filed for the measure “out of respect for the negotiations that have gone on.”
The House passed the measure 83-53.
The measure now heads back to the Senate. Senators can either concur with the House’s rewrite or request a conference committee. The process for the latter is time-consuming as the legislative session enters its final week.
The session ends June 2.
