UT Austin Cuts Four Ethnic and Gender Studies Majors

The University of Texas at Austin is eliminating four undergraduate majors: African and African diaspora studies; Mexican American and Latina/o studies; women’s and gender studies; and race, indigeneity and migration. The university says it is no longer enrolling new students in these programs, though current majors can finish their degrees.

Faculty in the newly consolidated Social and Cultural Analysis Department, which housed those majors, say they received no explanation for the cuts. They view the move as part of a gradual effort to gut the department and censor student learning.

Department Proposal Rejected

Danielle Clealand, interim chair of the SCA department, informed faculty that the provost's office rejected a proposal to keep the majors. According to an email shared with Inside Higher Ed, Interim Dean of the College of Liberal Arts Dan Brinks suggested the department instead create a consolidated "ethnic studies major with tracks or a SCA major with tracks."

University spokesperson Mike Rosen stated the majors were removed from admissions applications to avoid new students enrolling in programs that are changing. He said the department is encouraged to develop a new degree proposal representing its combined academic interests. The urban studies and American studies majors, also under the SCA umbrella, will remain, though faculty express confusion over whether American studies is currently accepting new applicants.

Faculty Reactions and Fears

Julie Minich, who teaches literature and Mexican American and Latina/o studies, said she was shocked. "To me, it’s just such blatant censorship, such blatant viewpoint discrimination," she said.

For American studies professor Lauren Gutterman, the decision represents the next step in a slow march to close ethnic and gender studies programs. She said faculty were told in February that consolidating various departments into SCA would allow them to continue their work. Instead, the university has since taken several steps to minimize the programs.

Administrative Changes and Curriculum Shifts

In May, the University of Texas system established new rules allowing presidents to bypass typical reviews and close academic programs under extraordinary circumstances. The rules also permit eliminating faculty positions for reasons including poor program quality, misalignment with mission, low enrollment, or redundancy. Faculty feared the policy would allow closures for political reasons.

Three months later, UT Austin unveiled a new core curriculum that removed several SCA classes. Then, earlier this month, the provost's office announced that core courses in the SCA and European and Eurasian Studies departments would no longer automatically retain their core curriculum spots starting this spring. Only the two new consolidated departments were given this special treatment, and all of our courses were automatically removed from the core starting in the spring, Gutterman said.

Concerns Over Faculty and Department Future

The SCA department is now left with few majors and no core courses. Gutterman fears this sets the stage for mass faculty firings. She cited the Board of Regents policy making it easier to fire faculty, regardless of tenure status, if their program is shut down. If we go from having multiple degree programs to having one or two, the university leaders could easily say, 'We don’t need all these faculty to staff this one degree program,' she said.

Minich agreed, stating, It really feels like we are being sabotaged. We’re a new department, and we are being set up to fail.

Both professors said the decisions censor students who often take SCA disciplines as secondary majors to prepare for working with Texas's diverse population. Gutterman contrasted the approach with other Texas universities. The censorship that’s happening at Texas A&M and Texas Tech has been much more explicit and direct, she said. Here, what we’re experiencing is an attack on our courses through administrative means.