Regents of the University of North Texas System approved dozens of tenure applications, without public discussion, as part of their recent quarterly meeting.
The tenure applications cover all UNT institutions, with the bulk coming from the main campus in Denton. Supporting documents for these applications covered more than 30 percent of the 155-page agenda book for the meeting.
The applications were passed on the consent agenda. Consent agendas are a tool designed to allow governmental bodies to quickly move through non-controversial items but are frequently abused to hide controversial measures.
Texas Scorecard performed a basic search on these applications and found several with backgrounds in far-left “scholarship” covering areas like critical race theory and LGBT activism. Much of this material is also available in the regents’ agenda book.
Several others obtained bachelor’s degrees from institutions in communist China.
Joanna Davis-McElligatt is currently an assistant professor of “Black Literary and Cultural Studies” at UNT Denton. She is currently working on a monograph “which offers a critical introduction to and study of Wonder Woman’s Black twin sister.”
Davis-McElligatt authored “Black Aliens: Kinship in the Cosmic Diaspora.” This work “examines extraterrestrial and interdimensional aliens in Black speculative media and culture, reading them as figural representations of a cosmic diasporic experience and charged metaphors for Black fugitivity and escape.”
In 2023, Davis-McElligatt won the Dr. Marilyn Morris Award for Outstanding Academic Contributions to LGBTQ+ Studies from the College of the Liberal Arts and Social Sciences (CLASS) and the Women’s and Gender Studies Program.
Nicole Sankofa is currently an assistant professor of educational psychology at UNT Denton. In 2025, she wrote a journal article on “Enhancing equity in gifted education.”
Sankofa has previously received research funding from the Hillary Clinton Center for Women’s Empowerment.
Nirmala Naresh is currently an assistant professor of mathematics at UNT Denton. Naresh has a long history of promoting far-left materials including “the Ethics of Diversity, Social Justice and Total Peace,” “Toward Equity and Social Justice in Mathematics Education,” and “Using Technology to Rethink the Intersection of Statistics Education and Social Justice.”
Karisma Morton is currently an assistant professor of faculty, teacher education and administration at UNT Denton. She has previously written about “Disrupting anti-blackness with young learners,” “Developing STEM ambitions: An examination of inequality by gender and race/ethnicity,” and “Inquiry-based instruction in science and mathematics in middle school classrooms: Examining its association with students’ attitudes by gender and race/ethnicity.”
Wesley Edwards is also currently an assistant professor of faculty, teacher education and administration at UNT Denton. He has written about “Examining pathways to a teaching position for Paraeducators of Color and Indigenous Paraeducators,” “Racialized teacher tracking,” and “Investigating work environments for Black and Latinx teachers” during the past three years.
Danielle “Teo” Keifert is currently an assistant professor of educational psychology at UNT Denton. A social media account linked to UNT’s early childhood education program lists “equity-as-transformation approaches toward noticing, centering, and cultivating children’s diverse repositories” as her “research foreground.”
Keifert also has a personal website where she lists her pronouns as “they/them.”
Marques L. A. Garrett, currently an associate professor of choral studies, lists his pronouns as “he/him” in his official UNT biography.
Joseph Locke is currently an associate professor of history at UNT Denton. He recently published “One State Under God: A History of Religion in Texas,” which assails Texas’ current political leadership as “Christian nationalists.”
Locke has written a series of other works that are hostile to Christianity and friendly to critical race theory.
Chad Pearson, currently an assistant professor of history, uses critical race theory to promote labor unions.
Regents also approved tenure for several professors: Xiao Li, Ting Xiao, Heejun Kim, and Hao Yan, all of whom obtained undergraduate degrees from Chinese universities.
Another professor, Chin-Hao Ku, does not disclose his undergraduate alma mater anywhere on the internet, but lists “Native…proficiency” in “Mandarin” as one of his “skills” on LinkedIn:
While none are accused of specific acts of wrongdoing, Chinese researchers in higher education have received extensive scrutiny due to potential security risks.
Senate Bill 18, a law passed in 2023, requires boards of regents to approve all new tenure designations. That law also placed several new restrictions on tenure, while leaving the basic structure in place.
“Tenure is granted through a rigorous multi-year probationary period where faculty are evaluated on teaching, scholarship/research, and service,” a UNT system spokesperson told Texas Scorecard.
“Candidates must demonstrate ‘sustained excellence in teaching and scholarship’ and ‘sustained effectiveness’ in service before the provost recommends them to the President who makes the final recommendation to the UNT System Board of Regents, who officially confer the tenure.”
The University of North Texas System includes two academic institutions and one health care institution. The UNT System is overseen by a Board of Regents that is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate. Carlos Munguia of University Park is the current board chairman.
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