Last week, AAUP President Irene Mulvey flew from Connecticut to Austin, Texas, so that she could testify on SB 17 on Thursday, April 6.  Because the Senate Higher Education Subcommittee delayed the hearing from 9am to 8pm to attend a meeting of the full Senate, we got to spend the entire day with Irene. Here’s a picture (from left to right) of Brian Evans, Vice President Texas AAUP, Irene Mulvey, and Gary Bledsoe, President Texas NAACP:

SB 17 was part of a trio of higher ed bills of concern to AAUP:

• SB 16.  Limits academic freedom in teaching.
• SB 17.  Bans DEI programs/officers; fires violators; centralizes power for faculty hiring, core curriculum decisions, and Presidential searches to the Board of Regents
• SB 18.  Eliminates future granting of tenure.

See the AAUP/AFT Analysis of Texas SB 16, 17 and 18.

At the hearings, there were so many compelling two-minute testimonies by students, faculty, and others, and I highlight those by AAUP members and others below.  Videorecordings are available on the Texas Senate page in the Audio/Video Archives page.

• SB 16.  March 23^rd.  13 testified including AAUP member Karma Chavez (1:27:57) on part I of the hearing.  Hearing on SB 16 begins at the 13:14 mark.
• SB 17.  April 6^th.  50 testified including AAUP members Andrea Gore (2:19:48), Irene Mulvey (2:25:00), Brian Evans (2:53:25), Pat Heintzelman (3:42:57), and Polly Strong (3:50:02) on part II of the hearing.  Other faculty testimony included Elizabeth Skerpan-Wheeler (2:02:51), Emilio Zamora (2:29:31), Angela Valenzuela (2:48:45) and Brent Iverson (3:46:08).  Hearing on SB 17 goes from 0:00:00 to 4:15:19.
• SB 18.  March 30^th.  21 gave testimony including AAUP Members Brian Evans (YouTube link) and Andrea Gore (39:21), Pat Heintzelman (41:13), Derek Chiou (55:48) and Karma Chavez (1:15:28) on part II of the hearing.  The second part of the hearing on SB 18 goes from 0:00:00 to 1:26:00.  The invited testimony starts at the 44:26 mark in part I of the hearing.

Here’s a group photo around 12:30am after the hearing for SB 17 was over. Emilio Zamora is the second from the left. Polly Strong is in the back row as the second person to the right of Emilio Zamora. Irene Mulvey is the third person to the right of Polly Strong. Brian Evans is in the back row as the third person from the right. Standing directly in front of Brian Evans is Angela Valenzuela.