Texas Tech screens course materials with AI for compliance with its content limits; UT Austin ends four race, ethnicity and gender majors

Two Texas public university systems are narrowing what can be taught, from single syllabi to whole degree programs, The Atlantic reports. Texas Tech. Every course's materials must pass an AI-assisted Course Content Review Process. The software flags anything that may break the university's limits on what can be taught. The lawsuits. Faculty suits allege the rules reached teaching about racial disparities, texts that discuss sexuality, and clinical teaching on transgender patients. Texas Tech said its written guidance expressly protects instruction needed for licensure and patient care. (TS: only if faculty disclose that material to a regents' committee that can then order changes, per the April 9 memo) UT Austin. The University of Texas at Austin separately announced it will end four majors: Africana studies, Mexican American and Latino studies, women's and gender studies, and race and migration studies.

What Texas Tech's AI review and UT's major cuts leave open:

• UT spokesperson Mike Rosen said current students in the four cut majors can finish their degrees. Only new enrollment ends. UT did not give enrollment counts.
• Professor Alan Barenberg said he was told he could not appeal an AI flag. The published rules name no final judge and no appeal deadline.
• The medical-school accreditor's 2026–27 standards (LCME Element 7.6) require teaching on bias and health-care disparities. Accreditation is what lets graduates sit for licensing exams.