In Texas, a state long shaped by conservative politics, the University of Texas at Austin once stood as a counterweight — a flagship campus known for defending academic independence, supporting diversity initiatives, and attracting students with progressive views. For years, its leaders pushed back against state-level attempts to restrict faculty authority or narrow academic freedoms. In 2016, the university famously upheld its race-conscious admissions policy in a landmark Supreme Court case, solidifying its reputation as a campus willing to challenge conservative pressures.

But today, that dynamic has shifted dramatically. Conservative lawmakers and state officials have launched sweeping efforts to reshape public higher education, arguing that universities have been dominated by left-leaning ideas and unwelcoming toward conservative perspectives. Their reforms have introduced legal restrictions on curricula, restructured university governance, and positioned political appointees in key administrative roles. At the center of these changes sits the University of Texas.

The school is now led not by a traditional academic, but by a Republican attorney who previously worked for Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Under his leadership, the campus is preparing major curricular revisions, and the university system has begun auditing all gender studies programs. This follows new legislation passed in May declaring that state law recognizes only two genders. Another high-impact measure, Senate Bill 37, significantly weakened the influence of faculty governance, expanded political control over what can be taught, and granted university system regents — all political appointees — the authority to approve academic deans and senior academic leaders.

In line with the push to draw more conservative students, the campus recently launched the School of Civic Leadership. The institution also eliminated dozens of positions last year after a statewide ban on diversity, equity and inclusion offices at public universities.

This realignment is unfolding across Texas. At Texas A&M University, the dismissal of an instructor who taught a gender studies course — following a student complaint — ignited a national debate about political intrusion into academic speech. The repercussions spread quickly: the instructor’s department head and dean lost their posts, and ultimately the Texas A&M president stepped down. The A&M system’s regents later adopted a policy requiring presidential approval for any course that touches on “race or gender ideology.” The Texas Tech University System has moved in a similar direction, tightening oversight of how race and gender are taught and redesigning the course approval process.

Yet no campus illustrates the magnitude of this transformation more than the University of Texas at Austin, located within walking distance of the state Capitol. It is one of the few public universities to respond favorably to a Trump administration initiative offering federal funding incentives to schools that adopt a specific set of policy priorities — a proposal widely denounced by advocates for academic freedom. Other institutions that welcomed the idea tend to be explicitly right-leaning, such as New College of Florida.

Students and faculty at UT Austin worry that the state’s political objectives aim to convert a nationally competitive, highly selective university into an ideologically conservative institution. But state officials, the university’s new leadership, and the Trump administration insist their goal is to rebalance higher education.

In October, Texas Governor Greg Abbott said that the state must stop professors who “push leftist ideologies rather than prepare students to lead our nation.” UT Austin’s president, Jim Davis, echoed that message in his State of the University address, saying that reforms are intended to broaden perspectives rather than shrink them. “We don’t want degree programs so narrow that they develop only one point of view,” he said.

Public universities nationwide have faced pressure from conservative lawmakers, but Texas has become the epicenter of the movement. Florida once served as the testing ground for many of these policies, but Texas lawmakers — emboldened by their counterparts in Tallahassee — are pushing even further and faster.

The pace of change has been disorienting for many. In a café across from the Austin campus, students described a campus climate marked by uncertainty and restraint. Sofia Gomez, a rhetoric and writing major, recalled that one of her history professors removed a book documenting the experiences of a transgender man — a choice the professor said weighed heavily on her. “I even thought about transferring,” Gomez said. “If my professors can’t teach honestly, what’s the point of studying here?”

A poll conducted by The Daily Texan found that 40 percent of responding faculty members are modifying their syllabi or teaching approaches to comply with new state laws. Students say the atmosphere in political science and social science courses feels noticeably constrained, with some professors avoiding contemporary examples altogether.

The university is also reviewing whether to consolidate several liberal arts departments — a move many faculty members fear is designed to eliminate academically and politically sensitive units. Gender studies is under particular scrutiny. Leaders from other departments, including Slavic and Eurasian studies, say the uncertainty has deeply affected morale. Mary Neuburger, who heads that department, said that administrative turnover and persistent questions about departmental survival have created “total chaos.” “I’ve been at UT for almost 30 years,” she said, “and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

University officials say the reviews are routine and aimed at ensuring academic rigor and responding to student demand. They argue that some departments have become overly politicized and should refocus on balanced inquiry and a wider range of viewpoints.

A handful of professors support the reforms, arguing that the new dynamics force more ideological diversity. Law professor Steven T. Collis said that the shift “pushes the university out of a homogenous echo chamber” and that faculty who teach with intellectual integrity “have nothing to worry about.”

Senate Bill 37’s restructuring is already reshaping leadership. Under the new rules, the UT System regents selected historian William Inboden — known for his service in the George W. Bush administration — as the new provost. He began his role in August. Inboden said that higher education faces a crisis of public trust and that depoliticizing universities requires broadening the range of historical subfields and other disciplines, many of which he believes have weakened as attention shifted toward race, gender, class, and environmental studies.

Faculty critics argue that state officials have not demonstrated widespread indoctrination or ideological uniformity, and some point out that universities naturally attract younger people, who tend to lean left politically. University historian Jim Nicar noted that disputes over academic freedom and political influence are not new at UT Austin. In the 1940s, a similar clash erupted when President Homer Rainey was fired for refusing to dismiss progressive economics professors. Students protested by the thousands, carrying a mock coffin labeled “Academic Freedom.”

This time, Nicar said, lawmakers and regents appear to be taking a more strategic approach. Rather than bypassing university leadership, the trend now is to replace leaders altogether with figures aligned with political priorities. Indeed, the heads of the Texas Tech, Texas A&M, and University of Texas systems are all former Republican lawmakers. The weakening of faculty senates has further streamlined political control. UT Austin went beyond what the law required by dissolving its faculty council entirely, replacing it with an advisory panel appointed by the president.

Former faculty council member Gordon Novak described the new system as “corporate and top down,” predicting that administrators will exclude voices seen as too radical or challenging.

Back at the café, students said they are increasingly unsure what topics are safe to bring up in class. Ryan Lowe, a math and linguistics major, said that questions about gender, race and societal inequality feel increasingly off-limits. “They don’t think we need to ask those questions,” he said. “But if we stop asking them, how do we learn?”