Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick made headlines this weekend by proposing to end tenure for new university instructors as an attempt to stop the teaching of critical race theory.
The 71-year-old Republican politician spoke at a press conference on his opinion about the Faculty Council at the University of Texas recently releasing a resolution surrounding the teaching of race and gender theory. Writer Jenn Selva, in her 2022 article for CNN, “Texas Lieutenant Governor Wants To End Tenure For New University Instructors In Attempt To Stop The Teaching Of Critical Race Theory”, writes, “ ‘Hiding behind this academic freedom argument just doesn’t work,’ Patrick said. ‘We believe in academic freedom, but everyone has guidelines in mind. Everyone has barriers, everyone has boundaries, everyone’s held accountable to someone’.”
Critical Race Theory has made headlines over the past few months across the country. Legislation has wasted no time introducing language that would ban the teaching of Critical Race Theory in the classroom. Critical Race Theory is defined as the study and teaching of the concept of race is not grounded in biological principles but rather socially constructed and utilized to disenfranchise people of color.
Selva went on to further profile Patrick’s comments, “Patrick said that the legislators and parents should have a say in what the curriculum is. “‘What we said is you’re not going to teach a theory that says we’re going to judge you when you walk in the classroom,’ Patrick said. ‘That if you’re white you were born a racist and that’s normal, not an aberration, and you’re an oppressor. And if you’re a person of color, you’re a victim’.” Patrick’s controversial statements comes at a time when the early voting has kicked off.
Tenure is typically awarded to an assistant professor upon concluding their first years of teaching at an academic institution. Tenure is awarded based on the culmination of fulfilled academic obligations fulfilled by the individual, including but not limited to, research and publishing activities, attendance of conferences and other professional development gatherings, and evaluations done by colleagues and students. Patrick is proposing tenure reviews be done every year as a means of policing the teaching of Critical Race Theory.
It is unclear what results will come of these statements, but it is fair to say that this fuels an already hot fire surrounding the education and ethics of Critical Race Theory. What is clear is that the relationship between education and politics continues to be strained as officials Democratic and Republic alike are resulting to strategies and actions that will prove to be not only detrimental to the American future but irreversible as well.
