Senate Bill 37: Texas University Governance, Tenure, and Curriculum Rules

Texas Senate Bill 37 reshapes governance at the state’s public universities by giving politically appointed boards of regents final authority over curriculum, administrative hiring, and faculty governance, while reducing faculty senates to advisory bodies that boards must authorize. Governor Greg Abbott signed the bill on June 20, 2025. It took effect September 1, 2025, and most of its substantive provisions apply beginning January 1, 2026.¹

Who Now Runs Texas Public Universities

SB 37 rewrites the meaning of “shared governance” in Texas statute. Governing boards hold “ultimate authority and responsibility for institutional oversight,” and faculty input is explicitly “advisory in nature.”²

Boards gained direct control over senior hiring. They must approve or deny the hiring of provosts and their deputies, and they may overturn hiring decisions for vice presidents and deans, including forcing termination. University presidents must evaluate every leadership position overseeing curriculum or student affairs each year and report any removal decisions to the board. Any search committee for a university president must include at least two board members, with one serving as chair.²

Senator Brandon Creighton, who authored the bill, said faculty senates had accumulated “unchecked authority” and were “steering curriculum decisions, influencing institutional policy, issuing political statements to divest from Israel, and even organizing votes of ‘no confidence’ that undermine public trust.”³ The bill analysis cited concern over “the ideological direction of core curricula” and a “perceived lack of accountability in faculty governance and administrative decision-making.”⁴

What Happened to Faculty Senates

As of September 1, 2025, every existing faculty senate and council at a Texas public university was abolished unless a governing board had ratified it before that date. Only governing boards may now establish such bodies, and the bodies are strictly advisory on every matter.²

New faculty councils are capped at 60 members unless the board grants an exception. Each college or school within a university gets at least two representatives: one appointed by the president, one elected by faculty. The president picks the council’s presiding officer, associate presiding officer, and secretary. Presidential appointees may serve up to six consecutive years and then must take a two-year break; elected members are limited to two-year terms with the same mandatory break.⁵

The provost may remove a council member for “misconduct,” a term the statute does not define. Members who use their position for “political advocacy” are also subject to removal. Meetings must be broadcast live when a majority of members are present, agendas have to be posted seven days ahead, and attendance must be recorded for critical votes.⁶

New Rules for Curriculum and Degree Programs

Governing boards must now conduct a comprehensive review of each institution’s general education curriculum at least every five years. Reviews must evaluate whether courses are foundational, prepare students for civic and professional life, support workforce needs, and comply with accreditation standards. Boards keep the “right to overturn any decision made by the institution regarding any changes” to the general education curriculum.²

Minor degree and certificate programs face the same five-year review cycle. University presidents must identify low-enrollment programs for potential consolidation or elimination, and the reviews must be substantiated by industry data on workforce demand. Programs less than five years old are exempt.²

At the state level, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board was directed to establish a General Education Curriculum Advisory Committee to consider methods for condensing the number of required general education courses. The committee owes its recommendations by November 1, 2026. The Coordinating Board must then transmit its own recommendations to the legislature by December 31, 2026, and the committee dissolves on September 1, 2027.² The Coordinating Board approved 14 nominations to the advisory committee in October 2025, drawing appointees from Texas A&M, Austin Community College, the University of North Texas, and UT-Austin.⁷

Tenure Reviews and Faculty Hiring

All tenured faculty must undergo comprehensive performance evaluations no less than once every six years and no more than once per year. Evaluations must cover teaching, research, service, patient care, and administration, and must include peer review. Tenure may be revoked for “incompetency, neglect of duty, or other good cause” identified during these evaluations. The law preserves due process rights, including notice of charges and an opportunity for a hearing.⁸

Governing board approval is now required for every posting or advertisement for a tenured faculty position outside of science, technology, engineering, or mathematics. Faculty members who do not hold administrative leadership roles are prohibited from having final decision-making authority over the hiring of other faculty or administrators.⁸

The New Higher Education Ombudsman

SB 37 creates an Office of the Ombudsman inside the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board to investigate complaints that an institution is failing to comply with the law or with the state’s ban on DEI programs. The governor appoints the ombudsman with the advice and consent of the senate, and the ombudsman serves at the governor’s pleasure. If an institution does not resolve the issues the office identifies, the ombudsman may recommend that the legislature withhold state appropriations until the governing board certifies compliance and the state auditor confirms it.²

Governor Abbott named Brandon L. Simmons as the first ombudsman in October 2025. Simmons had chaired the Texas Southern University Board of Regents and served as a distinguished professor of business at Wiley University. He stepped down from the TSU board upon his appointment, which remained subject to Senate confirmation. The office is authorized to employ five staff members.⁹

Key Dates for Compliance

September 1, 2025: Law takes effect; existing faculty senates and councils are abolished unless ratified by a governing board.
January 1, 2026: Most provisions become generally applicable.
November 1, 2026: General Education Curriculum Advisory Committee submits findings to the Coordinating Board.
December 31, 2026: Coordinating Board transmits its recommendations to the legislature.
January 1, 2027: Governing boards must complete their initial comprehensive curriculum review and certify compliance to the Coordinating Board and relevant legislative committees.
September 1, 2027: The advisory committee dissolves.

Institutions that fall short face the prospect of losing state funding, pending an investigation by the ombudsman and confirmation by the state auditor.²

How Universities Are Responding

The September 1 deadline produced different approaches across the state’s systems. The University of Texas System Board of Regents voted on August 21, 2025, to disband existing faculty senates and councils across all its institutions. Board Chairman Kevin Eltife said the board would work with each school to determine whether and how to establish new advisory groups, and UT System presidents were authorized to form temporary bodies in the interim.¹⁰

The University of Houston System replaced its former senates with new “faculty councils” defined as advisory-only under updated board bylaws. The Texas State University System declined to authorize its existing senates and let them lapse on September 1, with plans to consider new advisory groups at a November meeting. The Alamo Colleges District consolidated faculty senates from five campuses into a single group of up to 35 members, down from 114 voting members.⁵

The Texas Tech University System said it intended to retain faculty senates in a form compliant with the new law. The University of North Texas system expected to authorize senates at an August 2025 board meeting, with UNT President Harrison Keller saying he would consider faculty recommendations when making his required appointments.⁶

Why Critics Are Fighting It

The Texas Conference of the American Association of University Professors argued the law would “end Texas global leadership in higher education” and produced policy briefs flagging conflicts with existing state law, risks to academic healthcare institutions, and threats to shared governance.¹¹ The national AAUP published a November 2025 report singling out SB 37 as an “ominous case” of legislation diminishing faculty rights, warning that curtailing faculty authority would “inevitably undermine the faculty’s professional freedoms.”¹² Mark Criley of the AAUP said the presidential appointment process dictated by the law prevents the new groups from “authentically” representing faculty, and that administrators could use the restructured councils to manufacture the appearance of faculty support for their decisions.⁵

The NAACP Legal Defense Fund urged Governor Abbott to veto the bill in a June 4, 2025, letter, arguing that transferring curriculum authority to politically appointed boards “jeopardizes important scholarship that may be politically disfavored” and could restrict the teaching of Black history, Black culture, and issues of systemic inequality. Allen Liu, policy counsel at the LDF, said the bill would “stifle access and opportunity for Black students and educators, who already face disparate barriers.”¹³

Every Texan, a nonpartisan policy organization, testified against the bill in March 2025 and warned the new ombudsman’s office could be “weaponized to target faculty and programs deemed undesirable to the Governor.” The group also argued that subjecting university hiring to political scrutiny would deter qualified candidates from leadership positions.¹⁴

Accreditation is a particular worry. Joey Velasco, president of the Texas Council of Faculty Senates, said centralizing curriculum control away from faculty could jeopardize accreditation with the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges, which requires institutions to grant faculty primary responsibility for the “content, quality and effectiveness” of curricula. Loss of accreditation would make students ineligible for federal financial aid.¹⁵ The final bill does require that curriculum reviews account for “applicable accreditation standards,” though critics said the caveat may prove insufficient in practice.

1
Texas Legislature Online. SB 37 Bill History
2
Texas Legislature Online. SB 37 Enrolled Bill Text
3
The Texan. Texas Universities Replace Faculty Senates With Regent-Supervised Advisory Councils
4
Texas Legislature Online. SB 37 Bill Analysis
5
Inside Higher Ed. Texas Boards Abolish Faculty Senates
6
Texas Tribune. Texas State University System Faculty Senates Under SB 37
7
Texas Scorecard. Members Appointed to Texas Higher Education Committee
8
Texas Legislature Online. SB 37 Bill Text
9
Texas Tribune. Gov. Greg Abbott Names Head of New Office to Investigate Higher Ed Complaints
10
The Daily Texan. UT System Ends Faculty Senates to Abide by Texas Senate Bill 37
11
Texas AAUP-AFT. SB 37 Threatens Higher Ed, Public Health and Innovation
12
AAUP. New Report: In Defense of an Independent and Representative Faculty Voice
13
NAACP Legal Defense Fund. LDF Condemns Passage of Texas Senate Bills 12 and 37
14
Every Texan. Testimony Against SB 37
15
Texas Tribune. Texas Universities Governing Boards, Hiring, Curricula, and Faculty Senates