As first reported by Inside Higher Education, representatives with the Texas A&M and Texas Tech chapters of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) — a left wing organization — will consider filing complaints "in the coming months" to the accrediting body Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS).
Texas Scorecard says the issue centers around a series of prohibitions on academic programs in so called "grievance studies," an umbrella term that refers to various subjects such as critical race theory and modern gender ideology.
In response, Texas A&M University abolished its Women's & Gender Studies programming in January, and Texas Tech followed suit later. Both universities adopted restrictions that comply with federal law and executive orders but, however, go against their left-leaning accrediting body.
Sherry Sylvester is a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
“What we're seeing from the faculty is not unexpected because what Senate Bill 37 did and what the leadership at Texas Tech and the leadership at Texas A&M has done is say, ‘You know, we are going to review the core curriculum, and we are going to determine what classes are relevant to providing students with a degree of value,'” Sylvester says.
Regarding any possible complaints filed about both universities, she said both schools have said they will follow state law.
"A small percentage of faculty at these universities, less than 10%, belong to the American Association of University Professors. And of course, we also passed a law that allows universities to sign on with new accreditors because we knew that SACS was requiring DEI in order to get accreditation,” Sylvester states.
The Texas A&M System plans to create a new accreditation agency with public universities in Republicans states.
“Universities can now — if SACS tries to come down and push them to return to these divisive and racist systems — the university has a path to just get rid of that accreditor and get another accreditor," Sylvester says.
