A Texas Tech Health El Paso faculty member self-censored part of a course about El Paso's underserved population – and campus leaders have told them not to use the word "disparity" in class, according to a recent lawsuit. This was reported by Qazaqyia.kz citing Associated Press.
The American Association of University Professors and its Texas chapter initiated legal action July 8 against Texas Tech University System Chancellor Brandon Creighton and the system's nine Board of Regents to address what the plaintiffs believe are restrictions to what can be taught about sex, race, gender identity and sexual orientation.
On Friday, the plaintiffs asked the U.S. district court for the Western District of Texas El Paso Division for an immediate injunction to stop the system's policies that control if or how faculty may teach those topics because those rules harm faculty throughout the system.
At issue are directives in memoranda that Creighton issued and the board approved in December 2025 and April 2026 that ordered administrators at the system's five institutions to review course material for those prohibited subjects. He issued these edicts so courses would be more focused on workforce preparation, according to his December directive.
"This curriculum review under Senate Bill 37 will, in part, ensure each university is offering degrees of value," he wrote in his first memorandum.
Creighton authored SB 37, which the Legislature passed in 2025. It serves as an enforcement and oversight mechanism for the state's existing prohibitions for diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI. It works alongside Senate Bill 17, passed in 2023, which abolished DEI offices in the state's public colleges and universities.
According to the plaintiffs' attorneys, campus officials evaluated about 8,500 courses by early May 2026. The board's Academic, Clinical and Student Affairs Committee assessed approximately 500 of them. As a result, dozens of those courses that already had been approved by provosts, deans and department chairs were modified.
In the case of TTHEP, it meant that students' medical education could not include discussions of health disparities among racial and sexual minorities including Hispanics, African Americans and members of the LGBTQIA community.
"This isn't academic oversight; it's a chilling, top-down attack on the freedom to teach designed to intimidate faculty into silence," said Todd Wolfson, AAUP president, as part of a prepared media statement.
Efforts to reach TTHEP President Richard Lange and Claudia Maria Prospero Ponce, president of the Paul L. Foster School of Medicine Faculty Council, were unsuccessful. A campus spokesman redirected questions about the lawsuit and questions about the effect of Creighton's orders on TTHEP faculty, curriculum and students to the chancellor's office in Lubbock.
While the system's office did not provide a comment to El Paso Matters, it did send one to The Chronicle of Higher Education for a July 9 article about the lawsuit. A spokesperson said the system was confident that its policies were lawful and compliant with state and federal law.
"Our commitment to academic integrity and the First Amendment rights of our students and faculty will not be distracted by lawsuits," the spokesperson said.
TTHEP also did not respond to questions about which courses were modified because of the chancellor's directive. El Paso Matters submitted a Texas Public Information Act request last month for the modified courses and for any related background. The system sent the request to the Texas Attorney General's Office and asked that it make an exception to the public disclosure of the requested information.
Antonio Ingram II, senior counsel for the Washington, D.C.-based Legal Defense Fund, said the issues are broader than course modifications because they deal with censorship of topics such as race and gender identity that affect students, faculty and borderland residents.