The Texas Pro-Truth Coalition is a grassroots initiative of students, faculty, and advocacy organizations committed to ensuring a fair, equitable, and inclusive higher education system in Texas. We advocate for policies that protect and promote access and opportunity for all and empower historically marginalized communities– particularly Black students and faculty. Our advocacy and outreach include protecting programs and policies that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI); defending tenure and academic freedom; and promoting policies that serve to break down barriers to access for Texas campus communities. . Through strategic outreach, legislative action, and coalition-building, we strive to foster lasting change in Texas’s educational landscape.
We strive to create an inclusive and proactive legislative strategy that prioritizes the well-being, success, and belonging of historically marginalized communities in Texas. Our mission is to combat harmful education policies that threaten Black and ethnic studies, DEI programs, tenure, and LGBTQ+ rights while advancing affirmative policies that reflect the needs of vulnerable populations. We are dedicated to ensuring that all students can learn about diverse perspectives and experiences in an environment free from discrimination and censorship.
Promote anti-racism training, mentorship programs, and diverse faculty recruitment.
Oppose rollbacks on DEI programs and advocate for inclusive policies.
Ensure faculty, especially educators of color, can research and teach without fear of retribution.
Uplift Black students and faculty in higher education through recruitment, advocacy, and outreach.
Challenge legislation that disproportionately harms marginalized communities.
Push for systemic changes to remove barriers to equity in higher education.
Advocate against legislation designed to dial back progress and adversely impact Black and other historically marginalized communities, including opposing measures restricting free expression and culturally affirming spaces.
Develop long-term policies to dismantle systemic inequities in education.
Require courses that reflect Texas’s diverse history, including marginalized communities’ histories and systemic oppression.
Secure resources for Black, Latine, Asian American, Mexican, and Indigenous studies.
Protect and fund identity-based events geared towards reflecting inclusive campus spaces.
Establish measurable standards for inclusion and anti-racism efforts.
Strengthen recruitment and retention programs for underrepresented communities.
Defend the right to teach critical race theory and other vital subjects.
Build programs supporting Black students, faculty, and other underrepresented backgrounds in academia.
You have the right to an inclusive campus – and together, our voices can make a difference. We invite students, professors, and organizations to collaborate in shaping a just and inclusive future for higher education in Texas. Together, we can create lasting change.
Please contact TexasEdTeam@naacpldf.org for more information.
S.B. 17 took effect on Jan. 1, 2024. S.B. 17 prohibits Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) policies designed to remediate histories of discrimination in the United States and Texas against underrepresented minorities and the ability for professors and administrators to foster more inclusive colleges and universities. For example, S.B. 17 may ban DEI policies that help to cultivate more diverse campus culture and programs that provide leadership and development opportunities for members of historically excluded groups. Additionally, the law may prohibit educators from receiving critical training that help prevent actions and behavior that could inadvertently disadvantage students from historically marginalized backgrounds.
The Texas Legislature deemed that all schools must comply with the law by May 3, 2024. If an institution violates S.B. 17, it will lose state funding for the next fiscal year. A student or employee, if required participate in mandatory diversity training in violation of S.B. 17, may also sue the institution for injunctive or declaratory relief.
S.B. 17 took effect on Jan. 1, 2024. S.B. 17 prohibits diversity, equity, and inclusion offices and policies in Texas public colleges and universities. Specifically, S.B. 17 prohibits:
S.B. 18 took effect on Sept. 1, 2023. The bill prohibits tenure in higher education across Texas, potentially preventing professors from having the freedom to teach in accurate and inclusive ways. Tenure allows professors to teach subjects that implicate a variety of subjects, such as race, gender, and sexuality, without fear of punishment for their ideas. S.B. 18 attacks the bedrock of academic freedom in Texas and disproportionally impact students and professors who are already underrepresented due to historical patterns of exclusion and discrimination.
S.B. 18 allows institutions to continue to grant tenure to faculty while significantly weakening the protections and benefits of tenure. S.B. 18 weakens tenure through limiting a faculty member’s property interest in tenure to their “regular annual salary,” places the authority to grant tenure is in the hands of those without disciplinary expertise, and contains vague language around just causes for dismissal such as engaging “in unprofessional conduct that adversely affects the institution or the faculty member’s performance of duties or meeting of responsibilities.”
Taken together, these bills sought to create an environment that may jeopardize free speech through state censorship, have a chilling effect of self-censorship, and punish faculty and universities that strive to create a space where all people are welcome and their histories are truthfully told.
Despite the failure to enact S.B. 16 and the weakening of S.B. 17 and S.B. 18, Texas students, parents, educators, and residents must remain vigilant and continue to oppose future efforts limit or restrict the truthful teaching of American history, DEI policies designed to foster an inclusive and welcoming environment, and academic freedom to teach in accurate and inclusive ways.
LDF has compiled answers to the most frequently asked questions about Critical Race Theory. Learn more about CRT, laws banning racial justice discourse, and how these fit into a larger effort to suppress the voices, history, and political participation of Black Americans.
LDF is at the forefront of the fight to ensure that America lives up to the ideals of justice and equality for all. The right to free expression and the right to vote are cornerstones of our democracy. LDF and coalition partners are fighting back to protect truth.
We examine the attacks on ‘Critical Race Theory‘ and efforts to ban books as the latest tactics to halt racial justice.
A historical view of attacks on truth, efforts to silence conversations about our nation’s history and current inequalities, and backlash to racial justice and educational equity.
Attorneys, education experts, and researchers explain why truthful, inclusive education benefits all students and how to make it happen.
The word “woke” has been a signal urging Black people to be aware of the systems that harm and otherwise put us at a disadvantage since the 1920s. Now, it has been co-opted and maligned.
This brief examines the ramifications of attempts by anti-truth groups to remove or whitewash our nation’s history and legacy of racism from K-12 public school classrooms.
