AUSTIN — The Texas Senate gave initial approval Tuesday to a bill that aims to ban teaching critical race theory from classrooms and lessons on public college campuses.
The bill is the latest challenge from state Republican lawmakers to the academic framework that has become a rallying cry for conservatives in recent years. The proposal would create a process for students and members of the public to file complaints against college professors teaching the framework and have them fired, regardless of tenure.
The proposal from Mineola Republican Bryan Hughes is part of a slate of higher-education bills in the Senate that are among Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s top priorities during this year’s legislative session. Other bills include eliminating tenure at public universities and prohibiting colleges from maintaining offices for diversity, equity and inclusion — also known as DEI.
The bill passed on a 19-12 party line vote Tuesday and was later passed on final reading in the Senate with the same margin.
Critical race theory is an academic philosophy that examines laws and government policies and structures under a lens of systematic racism. The ideas of the intellectual framework have existed since the 1960s and were never officially taught at public schools.
Despite this, critical race theory has remained a political target for Texas conservatives and across the nation. It was a dominant issue during 2021′s session as lawmakers passed bans on teaching it in K-12 public classrooms.
Republican lawmakers have derided the theory as divisive, under a belief that it defines people by their race and teaches hatred of the U.S.
The proposed law, Senate Bill 16, states that a college professor cannot compel a student to adopt a belief that any race, sex or ethnicity is superior to another and that no social, political or religious belief is better than another.
Hughes said the purpose of the bill was to preserve academic freedom and promote discourse at the state’s higher learning institutions.
Critics of the bill have called it overly broad and say they believe it will have a chilling effect on academic discourse involving race and equity and disproportionately affect nonwhite and LBGTQ professors.
Hughes’ proposed law does not name critical race theory explicitly and is far less prescriptive than bans the Legislature passed in 2021. The vagueness of the bill became a point of contention among Democrats.
While the bill was written with critical race theory in mind, Hughes said it would prevent professors from forcing any beliefs upon students. Democratic lawmakers quizzed Hughes with various hypotheticals, including an example from Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, on whether an avowed socialist student could file indoctrination complaints against a University of Texas business professor forcing capitalist beliefs on them.
Hughes said the bill prohibits a professor from requiring a student to adopt any belief but it does not place any restrictions on the content of curriculum.
“It has no effect on what a teacher can teach,” Hughes said. “They can teach whatever they want to.”
But when pressed by San Antonio Democratic Sen. Roland Gutierrez, Hughes would not say that college professors could still teach critical race theory in Texas even if the bill is passed.
“If they are trying to compel that belief as we’ve discussed and as each senator and I have discussed, that’s the problem, but academic freedom, intellectual diversity are specifically preserved under this statute,” Hughes said.
“So that would be a yes?” Gutierrez asked.
“I’ll stand on the words of the bill,” Hughes said.
After final passage Wednesday, the bill will head to the House for consideration.
