A professor’s union at Texas Tech published a letter attacking the university system for upholding biological reality. The union demanded that their employers backtrack and give faculty input in policymaking.
On October 8, the Texas Tech chapter of the American Association of University Professors published a letter to university leaders.
Authors criticized Chancellor Tedd Mitchell’s September 25 memo, which mandated faculty adherence to laws recognizing only two biological sexes and announced a system-wide curriculum review.
The union letter stated that TTUS has followed through. Faculty reported that administrators guided them to erase “specific searchable terms” and “potentially targeted content,” and pressured them “to cancel courses or remove curriculum content related to gender, sexuality, and diversity topics.”
The authors of the letter objected to the pushback against this aspect of the LGBT agenda. “Transgender and gender-nonconforming individuals are part of our university community,” they wrote. “They teach our classes, conduct research in our labs, study in our classrooms and libraries, and contribute to the intellectual life of our institution.”
Mitchell cited President Donald Trump’s January 2025 executive order, Gov. Greg Abbott’s January 2025 letter to state agencies, and new state law House Bill 229 as the backing for his memo.
The authors objected to Mitchell’s memo, claiming it’s “a gross misstatement” to assert federal and state laws affirm there are only two sexes. They argue neither Abbott’s letter nor HB 229 applies to university classrooms.
The primary author of HB 229, State Rep. Ellen Troxclair (R–Lakeway), disagreed. “The Chancellor is correct – in accordance with science and biological reality, HB 229 recognizes that there are only two sexes,” she told Texas Scorecard on September 26. “While it is sad that a law had to be passed to recognize this truth, all State schools and universities must be in compliance with the law, and claims to the contrary are simply false.”
The letter’s authors raised additional objections, claiming Mitchell’s memo and TTUS’ actions threatened their First Amendment rights and citing court cases.
Mitchell’s memo addressed free speech, stating, “While recognizing employees’ First Amendment rights in their personal capacity, faculty must comply with these laws when instructing students within the scope of employment.”
The authors alleged the TTUS reform risks Texas Tech’s accreditation. “Some professional accreditors in health education require that a program’s curriculum cover the care of transgender patients.”
In June 2025, Republican-run state universities launched the Commission for Public Higher Education as an alternative. Texas A&M Chancellor Glenn Hegar called it a “more objective option for accreditation,” as TAMUS joined systems in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
Near the end of the letter, the authors demanded that their employers provide faculty “clear, written guidance” specifying state and federal law requirements, distinguishing between binding and non-binding executive orders, agreeing with the author’s framing of First Amendment protections in this matter, and citing underlying legal theories.
This request echoed tactics in a recent letter to Texas A&M faculty from the Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which urged them to “resist” accountability efforts and slow reforms by demanding written policies, using existing rules to push back, and insisting on due process—including filing grievances.
Another AAUP-Texas Tech demand was for TTUS to “acknowledge that in matters of scientific and scholarly consensus‚ including the recognition that biological sex exists on a spectrum, that gender is understood as distinct from sex in many academic disciplines, and that various cultures have recognized non-binary gender systems.” They said Trump’s executive order contained “unscientific ideas.”
Dr. Andre Van Mol, a board-certified family physician and transgenderism scholar with the American Academy of Medical Ethics, disputed the authors’ assertions. “The AAUP statement conflates ideology with science. There are only two sexes, male and female, just as there are only two gametes/sex cells, sperm and ova. There is no third,” he wrote to Texas Scorecard. “The current ideological application of the word gender is at odds with history, wherein gender and sex were synonymous. The fact that there exists disorders of sexual development does not undercut the reality of two human sexes. After all, the colloquialism for DSD is intersex, not an extra sex.”
Leaders of the AAUP-Texas Tech chapter signed the letter, indicating they wrote it in their individual capacities. University profiles of all but one of the signatories lacked indications of specialization in the medical field. The signers were studio art professor Andrew Martin, entrepreneur in residence Dr. Mike Ryan, history professor Dr. Matthew Pehl, and accounting professors Dr. Andrea Romi and Dr. Suzanne Shoukfeh. Dr. Shoukfeh implements “various DEI efforts” into her teaching.
Music professor Kim Walker’s profile is the lone exception that mentioned any connection with the medical field. In 2007 she and the dean of medicine created a “Music and Medicine” degree program.
The AAUP-Texas Tech leaders demanded that TTUS publicly promise not to hold faculty accountable for teaching content referenced in Trump’s executive order, and to “solicit faculty input before finalizing any guidance.”
After years of revelations of faculty nationwide engaging in ideological indoctrination, state lawmakers reformed how universities work. In 2025, state lawmakers passed Senate Bill 37, a reform measure that abolished shared governance, a system where regents delegated authority to university presidents who shared power with faculty senates. The measure took effect on September 1, though regents may reconstitute faculty senates as advisory bodies.
On August 15, Texas Tech regents reconstituted faculty senates as advisory bodies. In September, they appointed SB 37 author, former State Sen. Brandon Creighton, as chancellor and CEO to replace Mitchell, effective November 10.
Mitchell’s original memo came after former Texas A&M President Mark Welsh was criticized for his handling of a children’s literature course that included instruction on introducing LGBT and gender identity material to children as young as three. Welsh resigned on September 19.
Neither AAUP-Texas Tech nor The Texas Tech University System responded to a request for comment before publication.
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