At least three academics, including two potential research consultants, have withdrawn from or declined offers to speak to or work with history classes at Texas State since Sept. 10.
The guest lecturers cited reasons such as the firing of former Associate History Professor Thomas Alter, course audits and fears of retaliation as reasons for rejecting the opportunity. Historian Michael Phillips and Betsy Friauf, coauthors of “The Purifying Knife: The Troubling History of Eugenics in Texas,” were the most recent people to deny speaking at Texas State, when they rejected being research consultants for one of John Mckiernan-González’s, director of the Center for Southwest Studies at Texas State, classes.
“I’ve been in Texas State, since 2013 and I probably invited at least two other faculty, two other academics and other people to come to campus [a year],” Mckiernan-González said. “So, if I were to average that out, I think I would be, probably four a year. So that’s maybe 40 people I’ve invited to campus.”
According to Mckiernan-González, speakers have canceled before due to scheduling conflicts, but never because of issues they had with Texas State University.
Texas State said they were unable to comment on the matter.
“Immediately it occurred to me that if we participated in an event at [Texas State], an officially sanctioned event, that we would essentially be saying that what happened to Alter was not important,” Phillips said.
Phillips is passionate about Alter’s case, not only because they are both historians, but also because Phillips previously dealt with what he claims are free speech issues. In 2021, Phillips’ employment at Collin College was not renewed after he advocated for students wearing facemasks in the classroom during the COVID-19 pandemic.
After his contract was not renewed, Phillips sued the institution. He ultimately lost the case, but the American Association of University Professors and the American Historical Association condemned Collin College for its actions.
Phillips said that by firing Alter, Texas State President Kelly Damphousse and his administration have created an atmosphere of fear among faculty on campus.
“Sadly, [Damphousse] has also provided a model for McCarthyite suppression of constitutionally-protected speech that will undoubtedly provide a toxic model for other colleges and universities across the country with similar timid and unethical leadership,” Phillips said.
According to Phillips, another reason for him to cancel his speaking event was the fears that whatever he said could be used as grounds to punish any faculty that invited him to speak.
Just two days after Phillips sent his letter declining to speak at Texas State, Gov. Greg Abbott wrote in a post on X that Texas would go after faculty and administrators at universities over “ideological differences.”
“Texas is targeting professors who are more focused on pushing leftist ideologies rather than preparing students to lead our nation,” Abbott wrote in the post. “We must end indoctrination and return to education fundamentals at all levels of education.”
Mckiernan-González said that decisions like Phillips’ will hurt the university because it weakens students’ and faculty members’ ability to interact with outside academics.
“Universities are connected to the rest of the world, and the connections are incredibly soft. They’re hard to put your finger on,” Mckiernan-González said. “They’re hard to figure out how people are connected from one university to the other, and this decision that seems really arbitrary to so many people goes directly against those soft threads.”
Phillips said the only two ways himself and Friauf would ever consider speaking at Texas State again would be if Damphousse resigned, or if Damphousse reinstates Alter and makes a serious commitment to defending free speech and academic freedom.
“We hope that one day Texas State’s leadership and intellectual climate will change. Until that moment, however, we must decline your gracious invitation and decline to participate in any official events there,” Phillips wrote in his letter to Mckiernan-González. “We will encourage other scholars to also decline similar events at Texas State.”
Phillips said because of things like Alter’s termination, but also ongoing course audits and firings at other universities had led him to feel that no state funded institutions of higher education in Texas can be trusted to allow for “fully honest” research.
“We already see in Texas, we see people leaving the state because they’re afraid of the political pressures that are forcing them to alter their research, how they teach, what they talk about or even the conversations that they have with colleagues,” Phillips said. “They’ve really created an atmosphere of absolute paranoia, and that’s not a healthy environment.”
