Welcome back to another episode of higher education theater here in the Hub City. Our beloved Texas Tech University System Chancellor, Brandon Creighton, recently dropped a memo outright banning all future graduate theses, dissertations, and projects centering on sexual orientation or gender identity—because god forbid a research university actually lets people research things. But the real comedic masterpiece isn’t the ban itself; it’s the university’s top-secret game plan for handling it.
Instead of just updating the university website like a normal institution, Graduate School Dean Mark Sheridan sent a follow-up email instructing academic leaders not to distribute or post the Chancellor’s memo. No, that would be too straightforward. Instead, Tech is opting for a bespoke method of passive-aggressive gatekeeping. Faculty are being told to use “targeted communication” to sniff out whether prospective or newly admitted graduate students might want to study these forbidden topics, and then quietly slide them a form letter suggesting they “explore programs elsewhere.”
Naturally, the university’s PR machine is spinning this undercover screening process as a triumph of “transparency” and “student success.” Because nothing screams transparency quite like hiding your institutional policies in a locked desk drawer and hoping applicants don’t notice until they’ve already signed a lease in Lubbock. Higher education experts have pointed out that graduate students don’t usually arrive with a fully fleshed-out dissertation topic on day one. But hey, what’s a little risk of losing thousands of dollars and years of un-transferable course credits when state politics are on the line?
Unsurprisingly, students are ecstatic about this psychological thriller of an academic environment. Some are even planning a mock funeral for academic freedom at the next regents meeting. Meanwhile, faculty get to double as academic border patrol, screening incoming applications for contraband thoughts before the state government catches wind.
After all, why be upfront about killing academic freedom when you can trick students into paying tuition first and breaking the bad news later?
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