This spring semester, the University of Texas at Austin is offering math courses focused on Marxist theory which count toward the university’s core math curriculum.
One of the courses is called Measuring Racial Inequality: Indexes to calculate disparities and segregation.
“‘Measuring Racial Inequality’ is an undergraduate course introducing students to the main calculation methods and theoretical interpretation of indexes for studying socioracial inequality and segregation,” the syllabus reads. “It comprehends the statistical development of these indexes, their theoretical properties, and their practical application to social theory.”
While the syllabus does not elaborate on the “social theory” the class covers, it does include an acknowledgment of Paulo Freire, a Marxist author best known for his book “Pedagogy of the Oppressed.”
“Paulo Freire is one of the most relevant Latin American educators of the last hundred years and one of the most influential educators worldwide,” wrote Marcelo Paixão, the course instructor. “His critical pedagogy focuses on the most significant problems in the students’ lives, using their vocabulary and examples elicited from the community to which they belong.”
Christopher Rufo, whose investigations have exposed the prevalence of DEI in higher education, identified Freire’s influence in universities.
“Freire’s American disciples developed an elaborate framework for categorization and subversion of the ruling order,” author Christopher Rufo wrote in his book “America’s Cultural Revolution.” “Their primary pedagogical strategy was to pathologize white identity, which was deemed inherently oppressive, and radicalize black identity, which was deemed inherently oppressed.”
Another UT Austin class, Numbering Race, injects ideology into mathematics.
The course description states that students will “learn about the origins of the concept race, including the actors (many of whom were scientists and statisticians) and actions that brought race into being and continue to justify racial thinking.”
“We will also discuss how these efforts have impacted our current collective and individual understanding of race, especially as they relate to the quantitative study of race and various social problems,” the syllabus continues.
In the spring 2025 syllabus, the instructor, Ricardo Henrique Lowe, wrote that the sharing of course material is prohibited and that class recordings must be kept confidential among those in the class.
Texas Scorecard first reported on this class in 2018. It continues to be taught and fulfills a core math credit.
The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board sets traditional core curriculum requirements for public universities, and universities must receive approval from the board to implement a course as core curriculum.
Aside from traditional requirements, students at UT must complete “flag” requirements, including one course each in cultural diversity in the U.S., ethics, global cultures, independent inquiry, and quantitative reasoning, and two to three courses in writing.
“It is an optional course for math majors and among several hundred that satisfy a quantitative reasoning requirement,” a UT Austin spokesperson told Texas Scorecard. However, according to the syllabi, both courses count as a quantitative reasoning flag, and Numbering Race satisfies a core math credit.
The university’s website also shows that any student can take the courses to complete a math requirement.
A report from Speech First found that it’s common for core requirement categories to be filled with diversity, equity, and inclusion or critical race theory-infused courses.
Gov. Greg Abbott recently issued an executive order mandating that state agencies comply with the state’s color-blind guarantee, prohibiting DEI, CRT, and other “divisive agendas” in curriculum. It is unclear whether the executive order will affect universities.
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