By Kelly Hand

State conferences bring together members of AAUP cam­pus chapters, along with AAUP members working to form chapters on their campuses. As vehicles for collective action—within, and sometimes beyond, state boundaries—conferences connect faculty members with colleagues from other colleges and universi­ties to advance AAUP principles and goals. Increasingly, they also provide members with a means of fighting back against legislative efforts to target higher educa­tion, often in collaboration with other local, regional, or national organizations.

AAUP members from seventeen chapters in Texas first formed a state AAUP conference in 1964. The conference currently represents twenty-eight AAUP advocacy chap­ters, including twelve new AAUP chapters certified at the June AAUP Council meeting. With AAUP members on seventy-five Texas campuses, the conference is also encouraging the formation of other new chapters in the state. In recent years, the Texas AAUP conference has developed strong relation­ships with allies such as the Texas Association of College Teachers, the Texas Faculty Association (the state-level affiliate of the National Education Association), the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, Texas Students for DEI, and the Texas State Employees Union. While the conference has a long history of engaging with lawmakers on issues relevant to higher education, it has been particularly active in doing so since February 2022, when Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick vowed to end tenure in public col­leges and universities and when the Texas legislature began to propose dozens of bills hostile to education. After the national AAUP affiliated with the AFT in summer 2022, the Texas AAUP conference began to coordinate with the AFT’s state federation on legislative advocacy, and it voted in March 2024 to affil­iate with Texas AFT. As the first AAUP conference to formalize such a state-level affiliation, the newly named Texas AAUP-AFT offers a model for other AAUP conferences that have the opportunity to affili­ate with AFT state federations.

We learned more about Texas AAUP-AFT from conference leaders.

What have the purpose, focus, and activities of the conference been over the years? 

Because collective bargaining is not allowed for public employees in Texas, the focus of the state AAUP conference has traditionally centered on advocacy for academic freedom and shared governance and not on contract negotiation. This advocacy has been carried out both in individual institutions of higher learning and, increasingly, in relation to the Texas legislature.

How has the conference involved members in legislative advocacy? Which advocacy strategies have been most effective? 

Texas AAUP-AFT members actively advocate for higher educa­tion in the state and at national legislative offices. The Texas legislature, which leans hard right, has eroded cornerstones of mod­ern higher education: academic freedom; tenure; and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts. Through it all, Texas AAUP-AFT members have formed relationships with legislators on both sides of the aisle and have been able to temper some language in bills that would have harmed the academic profes­sion even more severely.

The Texas legislature convenes every other January for 140 days. During the 2023 legislative ses­sion, our members focused on three anti–higher education bills: SB 16, designed to ban certain types of teaching on race and gender; SB 17, to ban DEI offices and practices; and SB 18, to abolish tenure. In fall 2022 and throughout the session, our members drafted white papers that explained the harms of the bills; visited with legislators and their staffers to explain the value of aca­demic freedom, equity, and tenure to a thriving university; and stayed up until all hours of the night to testify against these bills at hearings. Moreover, our members developed a robust media strategy to publicize our viewpoints widely. We also worked closely with allied groups across the state and nation including Texas AFT, Texas Students for DEI, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and several faculty organizations.

These efforts resulted in some significant wins and disappointing losses. SB 16, 17, and 18 all passed the Texas senate. SB 16, however, never made it out of the House Committee on Higher Education— a big win for academic freedom. The Texas House of Representa­tives passed its own version of SB 18 that didn’t eliminate tenure but significantly diminished tenure protections, and that version became law. SB 17 became law in a form that is wreaking havoc across Texas campuses as administrators appear to have interpreted it in the most extreme ways possible: closing whole academic units, dismissing hundreds of staff members primarily in student services, and preventing faculty members from applying for grants for research, training, programming, or clinical trials that have an equity component.

Nationally, our success has been more evident. We find that sometimes legislators just need to hear from faculty members. A case in point was when Texas AAUP members visited the state’s members of US Congress on the 2016 AAUP Capitol Hill Day and asked for reinstatement of summer Pell Grants. Representative Bill Flores was recep­tive and pushed it through Congress. We also worked with Senator John Cornyn’s office on several issues, even getting him to cosponsor a bill that the AAUP endorsed.

Why did the conference decide to affiliate with Texas AFT? What are the benefits of state-level affiliation for Texas AAUP-AFT members? 

At first, Texas AAUP members were skeptical about the national AFT affiliation. The issues are different for unions in right-to-work states like Texas, and the Texas delega­tion, along with some delegates from other states without collective bargaining rights, were opposed to the 2022 affiliation vote. That has changed in Texas because of the AFT’s investment in the state. We’ve found that the coordination in legislative advocacy with the AFT has worked to our advantage. Texas AFT already had connections at the legislature that the confer­ence lacked, allowing us to temper, if not stop, some of the worst bills, including the one targeting faculty tenure. Having access to staff is new to us. We have been volunteer-driven in the past. Now we see support from the two new full-time organizers that Texas AFT hired for higher education and from the well-organized and well-seasoned team of forty Texas AFT staff members in government relations, policy analysis, labor law, media rela­tions, IT, and lobbying, who have taken our organizing and training capabilities to the next level. The Texas AFT member benefits of professional liability coverage and legal aid for criminal cases provide peace of mind. We are building our legal defense fund. Probably most important, membership in the AAUP has doubled in the last year in Texas! Faculty are meeting more frequently, and there is a sense that we are not in it alone.

How did the conference go about the process of affiliation? What advice would you offer to other state AAUP conferences pursuing affiliation with AFT federations in their states?

The statewide affiliation with the AFT resulted from the hard work of Texas conference President Brian Evans and Texas AFT President Zeph Capo. Through many meet­ings with their executive committees, Texas AFT and Texas AAUP were able to find a way to bring the strengths of both organizations to the table. The professional liability coverage benefit was attractive to faculty who are finding themselves in the crosshairs of attacks from various directions. Training oppor­tunities have dramatically increased. Texas faculty members now find themselves part of a larger organiza­tion that includes educators from across the K–12 and higher educa­tion spectrum.

What are the priorities for Texas AAUP-AFT in the new academic year and beyond?

Texas AAUP-AFT will continue to develop the new relationship with Texas AFT and grow the organiza­tion. In April, Lieutenant Governor Patrick issued study items for the January 2025 legislative session that once again target faculty tenure, DEI, free speech, shared governance, and accreditation. Texas faculty members are under no illusion that the attacks will stop. Through our stronger state­wide organization, we will have a bigger voice at the legislature.

Texas AAUP-AFT is also train­ing members of its new Office of Faculty Representation to assist individual faculty members in trouble on their campuses. Finally, Texas AAUP-AFT hopes to extend our reach through increased membership. Our expanded access to liability insurance, legal aid, training, and support will all be attractive to faculty in the state.