At Texas State University in San Marcos, Dr. Thomas Alter’s termination has been upheld after a court‐ordered reinstatement. Meanwhile, at the University of Texas at Austin, the administration remains notably silent on President Donald Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education.”
These two significant events, themselves part of a larger attack on Texas public universities, mark a continued downward spiral for the right to free speech in higher education.
Texas State: Termination of Professor Upheld
The firing of Dr. Thomas Alter, a tenured professor of history, has drawn national attention and outrage among academic freedom advocates. Alter, who taught at Texas State for more than a decade, was dismissed after a clip circulated online of comments he made in his personal time at an independent conference.
A district court in Hays County initially granted Alter’s reinstatement, citing due process concerns. However, the university pressed forward with internal proceedings and upheld his termination in early October, overriding the judge’s ruling.
Alter’s firing is seen by many as a canary in the coal mine, creating a chilling effect on free speech, particularly for tenured faculty who may now feel their external engagements are not safe. This puts Texas State at the center of a tension between institutional discipline and the protections historically afforded by tenure, raising urgent questions about how far universities can go when faculty speech becomes politically controversial.
State Rep. Erin Zwiener, whose district includes Texas State, spoke in support of Alter, saying, “The government is not supposed to target people for their political beliefs, and Dr. Alter was targeted for precisely that. Professors have the right to speak at outside conferences that are unrelated to their work, and Dr. Alter should not have been terminated for that political activity.”
Alter has remained steadfast to union advocacy and organizing, citing Texas AAUP-AFT as one of the numerous groups to support him through this time. He continues to encourage faculty and students to exercise their free speech rights.
Join us in writing a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott. Doing so sends a message that Texas educators, students, alumni, and community members stand with Alter and other faculty targeted for their speech and beliefs.
UT Austin Silent on Trump’s Compact, Faculty and Students Push Back
Meanwhile, at UT Austin another battle is playing out. The Trump Administration offered a “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” to nine universities, including UT Austin, promising preferential funding in return for its ideological and governance demands. These include freezing tuition for five years, capping international undergraduate enrollment at 15%, and limiting academic units that “belittle” conservative ideas.
While language about freezing tuition may sound positive – something most of us agree on, in fact – agreeing to this language without addressing the root cause of why tuition has risen so precipitously will further hamstring universities. (For that, the Texas Legislature need only look in the mirror.)
Seven of the nine schools have publicly rejected the compact; Vanderbilt University and UT Austin remain the two that have not done so. UT Austin’s ambivalence coincides with the official inauguration of interim President Jim Davis, who in his speech pledged to bring “balance” and regain public trust. Although Davis did not acknowledge how UT Austin is responding to Trump’s compact, he said the university will create a core curriculum focused on “value, completeness, and balanced views.”
In response to UT’s silence on the compact, students and faculty have mobilized. On Oct. 20, roughly 200 students, faculty, and community members marched together in a show against the compact. This follows a protest on campus on Oct. 13, in which 150 members of the university community rallied together at the UT Tower. Students and the university community took to the streets again on Oct. 22 to protest Jim Davis’s inauguration and urge the newly instated president to reject Trump’s deal.
Dr. Polly Strong, the past president of the AAUP chapter at UT Austin, points out that this compact will limit students’ abilities to make their own education choices, saying “students will have much less freedom to make choices about the courses they can take. Faculty will have much less ability to teach in the areas of our specialty.”
Other faculty advocates at UT Austin, like Dr. David DeMatthews, say signing could drive away talented faculty members, “pushing people into looking to other states, other institutions, and it frightens me to say, even moving to another country.”
Our AAUP chapter at UT Austin continues to speak out against the proposed deal, stating, “To agree to its terms would not only compromise our mission of changing the world through world-class research and teaching, but also result in the loss of the best faculty, staff, and students.”
In the words of Strong, the compact “trades autonomy for subservience, academic freedom for censorship, gender science and history for ideology, and the best interests of UT students and faculty for the favor of an administration intent on destroying our university.”
Looking Ahead: Academic Freedom Under Strain
Both stories underscore that higher education, especially in politically dynamic states like Texas, is no longer simply about teaching and research; it is also about power, speech, ideology, accountability, and autonomy. As situations like these develop, our union is more committed than ever to supporting our members, who are on the frontlines of defending education in Texas.