Lawsuit Says Texas Tech Told Teachers to Avoid Certain Words and Topics

A group that supports college professors filed a lawsuit on July 8 against leaders of the Texas Tech University System. The group says new school rules have prevented teachers from discussing topics like race, gender identity, and health differences between groups of people. One teacher at the El Paso medical school even stopped using the word 'disparity' in class after being told not to use it. The lawsuit asks a federal court to stop these rules right away.

The American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, and its Texas chapter brought the case to court. They are suing Texas Tech System Chancellor Brandon Creighton and nine members of the school's Board of Regents. The AAUP says the rules harm teachers across the entire Texas Tech system, which includes five campuses and nearly 66,000 students. They asked a federal judge in El Paso to immediately block the policies while the case moves forward.

Chancellor Creighton sent out written orders in December 2025 and April 2026 telling school leaders to review course materials. The orders focused on topics like sex, race, gender identity, and sexual orientation. Creighton said the goal was to make sure classes focused more on preparing students for jobs. He wrote that the review would 'ensure each university is offering degrees of value.'

Creighton also helped write a Texas law called Senate Bill 37, which the state legislature passed in 2025. That law works to enforce rules against diversity, equity, and inclusion programs — often called DEI — at public colleges. An earlier law from 2023, Senate Bill 17, had already shut down DEI offices at Texas public universities. Together, these laws have changed what can be taught and discussed on campuses.

School officials reviewed about 8,500 courses by early May 2026. A special school board committee looked closely at around 500 of those courses. As a result, dozens of courses that had already been approved by school leaders were changed. At the El Paso medical school, students could no longer learn about health differences affecting Hispanic people, Black people, and LGBTQIA patients.

One instructor at Texas Tech Health El Paso, identified only as 'Member No. 8' in the lawsuit, was especially affected. This teacher focuses on population health — meaning how diseases and health problems affect large groups of people. After the new rules came out, the instructor stopped talking about 'underserved populations' in class and was told not to use the word 'disparity.' The lawsuit says this made the instruction less useful for future doctors and nurses.

The lawsuit points out that people in El Paso face serious health challenges. For example, El Paso County residents experience more unhealthy days than people in other parts of Texas. Rates of diabetes and cervical cancer deaths are higher there, and more children — especially Hispanic children — deal with asthma. Near Fort Bliss, a large Army base in northeast El Paso, many Black women face higher risks of problems during pregnancy and higher rates of breast cancer.

Antonio Ingram II is a lawyer from the Legal Defense Fund in Washington, D.C., and one of the attorneys representing the plaintiffs. He said the harm goes beyond just changing course materials. He said medical school officials in El Paso and Lubbock told professors not to treat transgender patients while medical students are watching. He added that delays in approving topics had already slowed down classroom learning.

The AAUP says the Texas Tech rules break parts of the U.S. Constitution. The lawsuit claims the rules violate the First Amendment, which protects free speech. It also says the rules break the Fourteenth Amendment's Due Process Clause, because the language in the orders is so unclear that teachers don't know what is or isn't allowed. Finally, the lawsuit says the rules violate the Equal Protection Clause by unfairly targeting Black professors.

Texas Tech System officials said they believe their policies are legal. A spokesperson said the system follows both state and federal law. However, the school has not answered questions about which specific courses were changed, and it asked the Texas Attorney General's Office to keep that information private. Ingram said he hopes the case will be heard in federal court in El Paso this summer, and a ruling might come before the fall 2026 semester begins.