On Monday, April 16, Texas Senators voted 20-11 to approve a bill that would have a massive impact on Texas universities and their students.

Senate Bill 37 is a bill that will create new rules universities will have to follow or risk getting their funding from the government pulled.

The two parts of this bill that will have a large impact on students are sections 51.315 and 51.316, although that does not negate the effects of the rest of the bill.

Section 51.315 creates a list of guidelines for university core curriculum. Some of these guidelines forbid:

• Teaching identity politics
• Teaching that “individuals of one race are inherently superior to individuals of another race or that individuals of one race bear personal or collective responsibility for actions committed by other individuals of the same race”
• Curriculum “based on a theory that systemic racism, sexism, oppression, or privilege is inherent in the institutions of the United States or this state or was created to maintain social, political or economic inequities”
• Requiring or attempting to require students to adopt an ideology

“Identity politics” nor “ideology” are defined within the bill.

Section 51.316 requires that every five years the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will determine which programs are allowed to stay and which programs need to be phased out based on a variety of different factors. One of the factors includes the “return on investment” the degree offers.

This could spell danger for any students planning on pursuing a career in humanities, education and liberal arts fields. According to the Education Data Initiative, these three degrees have a negative average return on investment.

However, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board will allow all students already enrolled in those fields to finish their degree. This will apply more to incoming students, or students wanting to change their majors.

Another thing to watch out for in this bill is section 61.031. This section allows any member of the public to file a complaint with the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board against faculty members they believe are violating any of the sections in the bill. The complaint must be notarized and accompanied by specific evidence of the violation.

This bill is still being discussed in the Texas House of Representatives.

Wichita Falls’s representative is James B Frank and can be reached at: (512) 463-0534 or (940) 767-1700