Texas State University sent guidance to faculty on Oct. 28 on how to comply with the course audit and how to ensure “value neutral instruction and curriculum.”
The guidance came weeks after a notice by the Texas State University System that course audits would be required by all universities in the system. It also comes after Gov. Greg Abbott wrote on X that Texas is targeting professors “who push leftist ideologies rather than preparing students to lead our nation.”
The guide says course titles need to be descriptive, “discipline-appropriate,” “ideologically neutral,” “academically professional” and “student-accessible.”
“This guide is intended for faculty, academic departments, and colleges to engage in curricular discussions, development, and reviews on incorporating a neutral tone into curricular components,” the university wrote in the guide. “It serves as a foundation for exploring potential curriculum modifications.”
The guide instructs faculty to remove language that refers to advocacy. Examples given include: decolonizing, challenging, liberation, transformative and more. It also instructs faculty to design course descriptions to include objective statements of fact, the methodological approach of the course, skills and competencies and a content overview.
Michael Hurley, government affairs counsel for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) said aspects of the neutrality review concerned him and his organization.
Hurley expressed concern that the audit could be used to target “disfavored ideas.” Hurley’s concern is in line with complaints raised by officials such as Rep. Brian Harrison and Congressman Chip Roy, as well as Abbott’s X post.
“That’s really a question of application … a lot of what’s here is framed in terms of best practices and pedagogical guidance,” Hurley said. “Academic freedom requires that faculty have significant latitude to direct classroom discussion as they see fit, but it’s also appropriate for schools to offer high level pedagogical guidance.”
Hurley said how strict the enforcement of the course neutrality is and how much it impacts classroom discussion could determine the legality of it.
The guide states the university wants to “maintain scholarly objectivity and credibility,” and that “the goal is not absolute neutrality but professional restraint in leveraging institutional authority to advance contested positions.”
“The Supreme Court has said that the First Amendment doesn’t tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom,” Hurley said. “Traditionally, academic freedom has included professors having some pretty significant latitude to kind of direct discussion. So a lot of this just depends on what it looks like.”
The case Hurley mentioned was Keyishian v. Board of Regents 1967, where the Supreme Court ruled that academic freedom is “of key interest to the 1st Amendment.”
Hurley liked other parts of the neutrality review. He specifically appreciated where the guide said that professors should not require students to advocate for certain positions, require them to participate in advocacy work and that work should not be graded based on “agreement with instructor’s views.”
“There’s a lot that’s good. The stuff I flagged early on, where they make it very clear that professors can share their views and that students shouldn’t be required to adopt certain viewpoints,” Hurley said. “In the guidance they talk about frequently flagged learning outcomes that require students to adopt certain viewpoints and if those are actually common in practice, that is concerning, and I think it would be a good thing for the curricular review.”
According to an additional guide released by the university, the audits are being done in two phases, with 280 courses being audited in phase 1, which must be completed by Jan. 20, 2026, and the rest of the course catalog being audited by May 15. Any courses that do not meet the audit requirements will not be in the 2026-27 course catalog.
Members of the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU) question the process the audits are going through. A member of TSEU wrote to The Star anonymously due to fear of retaliation.
“What’s happening with the current course audit at Texas State shows the troubling erosion of shared governance as a result of Senate Bill 37 from the 2025 legislative session,” the TSEU member wrote. “Myself and other TSEU members spent hours and hours at the Capitol listening to and giving public testimony against SB 37 during the session because we knew exactly how bad it would be. And now we’re seeing it play out on our own campus.”
The member wrote they feel that faculty input is not being properly considered in the auditing process.
“Instead, course revisions will be approved or denied by an administrator in JCK, and it’s still unclear what that process will even look like. Will it be a simple yes or no? Will there be any room for conversation or negotiation?” the TSEU member wrote. “Either way, it signals a shift toward centralized, top-down, ideologically motivated control over academic content stemming from the Governor’s office and his appointed Board of Regents who have final say over curriculum.”
According to a university spokesperson, policies are being updated to align for the need of more regular curriculum review.
