BUZZ
The University of Texas at Austin is merging several of its departments – including women’s, gender, and African studies – in a move that one professor described as an “authoritarian takeover of Texas’ flagship university.”
UT Austin President Jim Davis announced the consolidation in a Thursday email to the campus community following a departmental review.
“Based on this review, we are beginning the process to combine seven academic departments into two new academic departments,” Davis wrote. “We are also initiating a review of the curriculum of these areas to determine what majors, minors, and courses will be offered in the newly formed departments.”
The public university will consolidate African and African Diaspora Studies, Mexican American and Latina/Latino Studies, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and American Studies into one new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, according to Davis’s announcement.
Additionally, several foreign language programs also will merge into a single Department of European and Eurasian Studies.
The decision is based on “a combination of factors, including size, scope, academic mission, student demand, student-to-faculty ratio, resource allocation, and other dimensions. The review revealed some significant inconsistencies and fragmentation across the college’s departments,” Davis wrote.
He did not mention when the mergers will take place or whether any employees will be laid off.
The announcement comes as Texas Republican leaders crack down on the leftist political biases in higher education, including through diversity, equity, and inclusion programming.
However, a professor of American Studies and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at the university described their efforts as “authoritarian.”
“There can be no reason for this decision other than an authoritarian takeover of Texas’ flagship university,” Professor Lauren Gutterman told the Austin American-Statesman in response to the merger announcement.
“If this was about too much fragmentation or small majors, then why are departments like Religious Studies, Middle Eastern Studies, and Classics unaffected?” Gutterman said.
Last year, Texas launched an audit of its University of Texas System gender studies courses.
As an example of the need for the audit, a Texas conservative publication pointed to the UT Austin course “Contemporary Feminist and Queer East Asian Literature.” The class examines “critical and queer theories with neo-Marxist roots,” and fulfills a first-year signature course requirement, The College Fix reported previously.
Texas A&M University also plans to close its Women and Gender Studies Department this year.
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