As part of a mandatory review implemented by state lawmakers, the University of Texas at Austin has removed a key designation from three courses with a history of promoting far-left content.
Removal of the U.S. history core designation means that these courses no longer fulfill general education requirements.
As first reported by The Daily Texan, university officials removed the core designation from power and place in making Texas history, taught by Edmund Gordon; South Asian migration to the U.S., taught by Mohit Mehta; and history of the Southeast Asian diaspora in the U.S., taught by Kevin Gibbs.
This designation was removed due to the “narrow topical focus” of the courses in question, per university officials.
According to emails obtained by The Daily Texan though an open records request, the university began a review of history courses last fall based on four standards: the “breadth and foundational approach expected for Core Curriculum offerings,” if they were taught by faculty with the “appropriate expertise,” whether the courses were “consistent with the Core Objectives,” and whether the courses provided “a general education perspective” as opposed to a “highly specialized or narrowly focused approach.”
The review in question is required under Senate Bill 37, a measure state lawmakers passed in 2025.
In a September 28, 2025, email to Executive Vice President and Provost William Inboden, Interim Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Juan Dominguez explained that revisions to the university’s core curriculum were being made to comply with SB 37, which grants universities greater authority over academic program oversight.
The university currently mandates six credit hours in U.S. history, fulfilled through courses with the 060 core U.S. history designation.
Dominguez’s notice about the curriculum review came roughly two weeks before UT-Austin President Jim Davis announced the formation of the Core Curriculum Task Force on October 16, 2025. The newly formed task force was charged with recommending updates to the core curriculum and identifying areas for improvement in quality, rigor, and intellectual cohesion.
The first course to lose the core designation, power and place in making Texas history, is taught by Professor Edmund Gordon.
According to the syllabus from a 2021 version of this course, it discusses concepts such as “Power and Identity, Racism, Patriarchy,” “Settler Colonialism,” “Resistant Anti-Blackness,” and “Black Agency.”
A notorious figure on the forty acres, Gordon was a key faculty ringleader during the “Eyes of Texas” controversy that roiled Longhorn Nation in 2020.
Gordon is the founder of a racial geography tour, which claims to discuss the racial history of the “built environment” on campus. In addition to its discussion of the school fight song and legendary football coach Darryl K. Royal’s “checkered racial history,” Gordon’s tour refers to UT-Austin as a “neo-Confederate campus.”
The tour even discusses alleged “phallic symbolism” of the university’s iconic tower “as the gendered seat of power, the seat of male power of the university.” He contrasts this with Gearing Hall, which he calls “gendered…both anatomically and otherwise.”
The next class, South Asian migration to the U.S., is taught by Mohit Mehta. The course syllabus includes required readings such as “Making Ethnic Choices” and “The Karma of Brown Folk.”
According to his LinkedIn profile, Mehta spent three summers working at the Ramallah Friends School in Ramallah, Palestine.
The final course, history of the Southeast Asian diaspora in the U.S., is taught by Kevin Gibbs.
While a substantial portion of this course discusses historical events such as nineteenth century colonization and the wars in the Philippines and Vietnam, it nevertheless veers into discussions of “racialized citizenship.” Gibbs argued in a recent Daily Texan op-ed that Inboden canceled his course to avoid discussion of losing campaigns by the U.S. military.
Gibbs lists his pronouns as he/him on the syllabus.
The core curriculum review is expected to continue throughout 2026. SB 37 requires the UT System Board of Regents to prepare a report for the Higher Education Coordinating Board by the end of the year.
UT-Austin is a component institution of the University of Texas System. The UT System is overseen by a Board of Regents that is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate. Kevin Eltife of Tyler is the current board chairman.
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