AUSTIN, Texas — The University of Texas at Austin is moving forward with a significant restructuring of its academic offerings, eliminating four distinct undergraduate degree programs focused on race, ethnicity, and gender. The decision has sparked profound concern among faculty members, who argue that the administrative changes amount to calculated censorship and a systematic dismantling of vital scholarly disciplines.
The university has confirmed that it will phase out four majors: African and African diaspora studies; Mexican American and Latina/o studies; women’s and gender studies; and race, indigeneity and migration. These programs were housed within the newly consolidated Social and Culture Analysis (SCA) Department, a cross-disciplinary administrative unit established earlier this year.
According to faculty members within the department, instructors received no advance explanation or substantive justification regarding why these specific majors were selected for termination. While university administrators have framed the adjustments as part of a broader undergraduate curriculum overhaul and an opportunity to modernize academic offerings, affected professors view the move as part of a continuous effort to gradually undermine their department and restrict student access to critical perspectives on race, gender, and society.
A Rejected Proposal and Disappearing Admissions Options
The friction between faculty and university leadership came to a head when Danielle Clealand, interim chair of the SCA department, informed colleagues on Tuesday that the provost’s office had officially rejected their proposal to maintain the existing majors. In an email shared with Inside Higher Ed, Clealand noted that Dan Brinks, interim dean of the College of Liberal Arts, suggested instead that the department develop an overarching "ethnic studies major with tracks" or a generalized "SCA major with tracks."
The impact of the administrative decision is already visible to prospective students. While urban studies and American studies—two other programs operating under the SCA umbrella—will remain intact, applicants attempting to apply to UT Austin for the upcoming fall semester have found their options curtailed. The Austin American-Statesman reported that students applying to the university no longer see options to select ethnic studies or gender studies as either a primary or secondary major. Mentions of American studies were also reportedly missing from the initial application views, though university officials later clarified its status.
Mike Rosen, a spokesperson for UT Austin, addressed the changes in an emailed statement, explaining that the adjustments to the admissions portal reflect the shifting landscape of degree offerings.
"In recognition of the changing degree offerings in the Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, the University is no longer enrolling new students in three majors: Mexican American and Latina/o Studies, African and African Diaspora Studies, and Women’s & Gender Studies," Rosen wrote. "So, as you might expect, those majors have been removed from the University’s admissions applications to avoid new students enrolling in majors that are changing."
Rosen emphasized that students currently enrolled in the affected majors will be permitted to complete their degrees and graduate under their chosen programs of study. Furthermore, he noted that the department is being encouraged to draft a new degree proposal that reflects its combined academic interests, while reiterating that American studies and urban studies majors remain unaffected.
Prior to these cuts, faculty members in the SCA department had spent the summer developing a new major intended to replace the race, indigeneity and migration program. However, educators say those plans are now being re-evaluated from scratch in the wake of the university’s abrupt elimination of the legacy majors.
Faculty Reactions: Shock and Concerns Over Censorship
For many educators who have dedicated their careers to these fields, the university’s decision, while anticipated, remains deeply distressing. Julie Minich, a professor who teaches literature alongside Mexican American and Latina/o studies, admitted that while faculty members had feared an adverse outcome, the reality of the decision was still jarring.
"We had all been fearing it, but it just seemed so beyond the pale," Minich said. "To me, it’s just such blatant censorship, such blatant viewpoint discrimination."
Lauren Gutterman, an American studies professor, views the elimination of the legacy majors as simply the next milestone in a deliberate administrative strategy to shrink and ultimately close ethnic and gender studies programs. Gutterman recalled that when she and her colleagues were first informed in February that their respective standalone departments were being consolidated into a single administrative unit, they were given assurances that the merger would protect their work.
"We were told that consolidation would be a way for us to continue doing the teaching and research we’ve always done," Gutterman said.
Instead, faculty members point to a series of subsequent administrative actions that have steadily eroded the institutional footing of their programs. In May, the University of Texas system established new governance rules granting university presidents the authority to bypass traditional review procedures and close academic programs under "extraordinary circumstances." These rules were designed to facilitate accelerated program closures necessitated by regulatory requirements.
The revised policies also empower presidents to eliminate tenured and non-tenured faculty positions for "bona fide academic reasons." These criteria include poor program quality or effectiveness, misalignment with the institution’s mission, failure to meet evolving student or societal needs, low enrollment demand, and redundancy with other, more effective university programs. At the time the policy was enacted, faculty across the system expressed widespread fear that the broad definitions would provide a convenient mechanism for shuttering controversial or politically sensitive departments.
Curriculum Changes Compound Faculty Fears
The anxieties surrounding administrative overreach were compounded in August when UT Austin unveiled its newly structured core curriculum, a move that resulted in several SCA courses losing their core status, according to Gutterman. The pressure intensified earlier this month when the provost’s office notified the department that core courses taught within newly consolidated units—specifically SCA and the Department of European and Eurasian Studies—would no longer automatically retain their positions in the core curriculum starting in the upcoming spring semester.
"Only the two new consolidated departments were given this special treatment, and all of our courses were automatically removed from the core starting in the spring," Gutterman noted, highlighting what she perceives as targeted administrative disadvantage.
As a result of these cumulative decisions, the SCA department finds itself navigating a precarious academic reality defined by diminished degree options and a complete absence of guaranteed core curriculum courses. Faculty members warn that this structural weakening is laying the groundwork for severe staffing reductions.
"I think that what this is setting us up for is a mass firing of faculty," Gutterman said, pointing to the Board of Regents’ policy that simplifies the process of terminating faculty members regardless of tenure status if their home program or department is dissolved. She added that once a department is reduced from multiple specialized degree programs down to just one or two, university leadership can easily argue that the existing number of faculty is no longer required to staff the remaining curriculum.
Minich echoed these sentiments, expressing a pervasive sense of institutional abandonment among her peers. "It really feels like we are being sabotaged," she said. "We’re a new department, and we are being set up to fail."
Beyond the professional implications for faculty, both professors emphasized that the dismantling of these programs directly harms students. Many undergraduates pursue SCA disciplines as primary or secondary majors to equip themselves with the cultural competency and analytical tools necessary to serve Texas’s increasingly diverse population upon entering the workforce.
While explicit legislative and administrative restrictions on race, gender, and sexuality courses have been enacted openly at other institutions in the state, such as Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University, faculty at UT Austin argue that their institution is pursuing a parallel objective through quieter, bureaucratic channels.
"The censorship that’s happening at Texas A&M and Texas Tech has been much more explicit and direct, saying, ‘You can’t teach courses about race, gender, sexuality,’" Gutterman said. "Here, what we’re experiencing is an attack on our courses through administrative means. So it might seem less motivated by politics, but the motivations are exactly the same. The mechanism is different, and it is still censorship."
