Speaker 1: Today's episode of the Tribecast is supported by the Texas
Tribune Membership program. Welcome to the trib Cast. I'm Eleanor Klibanoff,
women's health reporter, joined not today by my co host,
editor in chief Matthew Watkins. When I wrote this script,
he was going to attend, but then we had to
reschedule due to reasons we will get into, involving the
UT regents scheduling a poorly timed meeting as if they
knew we were meeting today to talk about this all.
So Matthew is not here today. It is just me,
and that is fine because I am joined by two
phenomenal guests. I am joined. I was gonna say all
the way on the end, but most people join us
on YouTube if you want to watch. Jessica Priest, who
is the higher education reporter at the Texas Tribune. Jessica,
how are you?
Speaker 2: I'm doing well? How are you ell?
Speaker 1: I'm good? Thanks? And former higher ed reporter turned investigative
reporter Kate McGee Malaysia. Kate, how are you? I'm great?
Speaker 2: How are you?
Speaker 1: I'm good? Thanks. We are really excited for today's episode.
We're going to talk about higher education. And the state
of Higher ED in Texas, which is the real reason
that Matthew would not attend is we said, you're going
to talk about higher ED, you have to talk about
UT as well as A and M. And he said no,
he could not Avid, he could not avide. So he
is not here. But we can make plenty fun of
A and M. And I'm sure approximately fifty percent of
our audience will love that. I will also say I'm
really excited about this because a little inside baseball, we
got some analytics on the trib cast. Okay, and the
least watched episode on YouTube was our episode where I
had two other female reporters on to talk about abortion.
With this, I do think we get to we get
to run like a little case study of like, was
it that people don't love three women talking or they
don't love three women talking about abortion.
Speaker 2: Or both are depressing?
Speaker 1: Yeah, both are depressing. See what the views look like
on this. If you, you know, want to give the
help cook the books a little bit, watch this episode
on YouTube so that we can conclude people hate talking
about abortion, which three years on my job has proven true. Okay,
so to talk about higher ED, you know, Texas has
some of the largest and wealthiest university systems in the country.
We have more top tier research universities than any other
state by like a decent margin. We have arguably the
best sports teams and the most devoted fan bases in
the entire country. So things should be really all happy
days on the Higher ED beat, and yet nothing is
ever quite that simple. We've got protests, we've got legislative battles,
we've got major turnover at the top of these big institutions,
and we're going to get into all of that. So
I want to start by talking about what's going on
at the legislature with Higher ED. Kate, maybe you can
sort of take us back to last session when it
feels to me at least like a lot of this
sort of kicked off last session.
Speaker 3: Yeah, in some ways, I would even argue it started
a couple sessions ago with the critical race theory ban
in K through twelve schools. That prompted a lot of
concern from university professors. And that was the band that
you know, talked about how schools can talk about like
race and racism in the classroom. A lot of professors
were concerned about kind of the encroachment into the classroom,
and professors at UT put out a resolution kind of
planting their flag in the sand that they have academic
freedom to teach kind of what they want as long
as in their subject matters. And dan Patrick did not
like that, and that was kind of the kickoff that
prompted him to say, we're going to end tenure in
our universities in the state of Texas, which in twenty
twenty three was one of his priority bills. And then
around that time, the talk about critical race theory as
kind of this buzzword shifted to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Speaker 1: We saw a concerted effort.
Speaker 3: And Texas, I think now we you know, like we
hear about DEI bans on the federal level, and the
who like the country is like, we forget that. Texas
was really leading the way a couple years ago, along
with Florida, to kind of be the first states to
crack down on DEI offices and this whole apparatus in
the university systems. And so the state banned diversity equity
and inclusion offices. They removed funding for all of these
type of programs from you know, at the state level.
Eventually tenure was not eliminated, but it's now kind of
codified in our laws rather than leaving it up to
universities and how they want to deal with tenure. So
it's given the legislature a lot more power in terms
of how they might want to come back and adjust
that later on, although I think faculty kind of felt
like it was still a win that they kept tenure.
You know, Patrick really wanted to eliminate it.
Speaker 1: They're out basically to give them the power to like
fire iron fire who they wanted exactly.
Speaker 3: And the tenure is, like, you know, that is one
of the standard protections for faculty to be able to
teach and research what they want without fear of government
encroachment telling them what to do and what they should
be researching or what their research should say, et cetera,
et cetera. So it's all kind of coming back to
this core of having academic freedom in the pursuit of
like knowledge and truth rather than.
Speaker 1: What a government might want you to say. Because tenure
is not like traditionally been particularly like it's not like
a political thing, except that it allows professors to when
they feel it necessary to like speak out against the government.
Speaker 3: But that was not it's like right, I mean, the
origin was to kind of make sure that government couldn't
come and say, like.
Speaker 1: Your research is wrong, like your research has to.
Speaker 3: Say this, or your you have to teach this in
the classroom, and so it was to kind of protect
from government intervention in the classroom. So there is some
political kind of backstory there, I think, and we've seen
you know, pressure in the you know, in periods of history,
this kind of conflict in this tension at the university level.
But I think this is the declaration from Patrick a
few years ago to end tenure was like got national
attention from professor groups and you know, faculty all over
the country because that was really the furthest we've really
seen anyone ever kind of go in recent memory in
terms of going after tenure as in practice and.
Speaker 2: What Texas if if that had happened, would Texas have
been the only state to eliminate tenure of other states?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, Texas would have been kind of ahead, like
an outlier.
Speaker 2: And I remember the criticism of that proposal was that
it was going to lead a lot of faculty to
pursue opportunities in other states, and.
Speaker 3: That was their argument with DEI two, and I think
that has not really borne out. I mean, you hear
anecdotally people leaving or not taking a job. But I think,
you know, Patrick has you know, made some kind of
tongue in cheek comments about how we haven't seen that
happen and people and you know, people's lives are complicated,
and you have a you know, working at the University
of Texas is still a prestigious.
Speaker 1: Job, more top tier research universities.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and like, you know, it's not something there's not
like all these universities just handing out jobs left and right.
Like getting a ten year job at a university is
like a year long process. It's not like you can
just go start applying. It's a much more difficult thing
I think to really like wantify at the impact of
why someone might go. But also now we're living like
the unfriendly nature that you know, faculty feel like they
were working in here in Texas kind of exists everywhere now,
so right.
Speaker 1: Right as goes Texas, Jessica, So talk to just about
like how this sort of crusade from legislators has continued
this session. What are the big battle lines we're seeing?
Speaker 2: So when I started this on this beat and the
session I was really looking for. I was really thinking,
will they bring up the same arguments that they did
last session, like will they try to eliminate tenure again?
Will they try to expand the DEI ban because there
are exemptions for scholarly research and grants. So I was
looking because you've been seeing complaints from lawmakers in the
interim that like sporadically they're tweeting that so and so
university is not complying with the ban. So I wanted
that was what I was most anticipating. But what has
happened is Senator Creighton, the author of the DEI ban
in twenty twenty three, authored a piece of legislation this
session that's really like sweeping and does a lot of
different things, but essentially it would limit faculties influence on
curriculum and hiring decisions, and transfer a lot of that
what's traditionally been like they've traditionally things that they've advised
administration on or had some role in. Would defer that
and transfer that to the Board of Regents, which are
appointed by the governor. So more state control of universities
what we're seeing.
Speaker 1: So it's sort of the same root idea, right, which
is like universities are hot beds of leftist, woke ideology.
The faculty are kind of the you know, engine of that,
and we should remove some of their authority. Is that right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's it would set up. I mean, the bill
keeps changing, but one of the one of the things
that hasn't changed kind of remained the same, as this
idea that the governing board should review curriculum periodically and
that the curriculum should not include any wrote it down,
should not promote or advocate any race, sex, ethnicity, or
religious belief is better or superior to another. And Creighton's
original bill that also included social and political beliefs. And
professors have said that this is essentially like an extension
of the DEI band to you know, the classroom, and
that they've already are operating under this like like climate chilling,
affect climate, and they would be afraid to bring up
controversial topics in their classroom and get a complaint launched
against them.
Speaker 3: Interesting, it's how have faculty like respond responded to the
idea of like how these lawmakers paint what's going on
in the classroom? Because I remember in the original DEI
ban or even like with the tenure debate, a lot
of the faculty would say like this, how they're describing
what's going on doesn't reflect what's like actually happening in
the classroom or how I'm teaching.
Speaker 1: Do they feel the same.
Speaker 2: Way, Yeah, they feel like yes they do. They feel
like the there's already like a rigorous review of their
coursework and this would just add like unnecessary bureaucracy and
would make it so that their coursework they can't like
adapt as quickly to what their students need.
Speaker 1: Is we talked about this, I've talked about this on
a lot of the trip Cast episodes because like it's
a pretty persistent theme in Texas politics. But I also
think like in our world, which is that like the
pendulum swings right, Like part of this is that universities
had become like really attentive. I mean some would say
not even attentive enough, but like relatively attentive to issues
of diversity and equity and inclusion, and you know, creating
these offices making sure that like first generation students felt welcomed,
and you know, are we creating scholarships to get you know,
kids from underprivileged backgrounds into universities, Like some of that
is like groups to support people like from underrepresented races
on campus, Like how much of this is universities are
always a hotbed of liberalism because they're you know, that's
what they are. And how much of this is like
a counterweight to you know, some years of what someon
would say is like progress.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think it's it was interesting to see,
how you know, twenty twenty, we saw all of these
student protests on campus after George Floyd's murder, demanding more
support and resources for diverse students, more conversations about inequity
and how race and racism impacts certain groups differently. And
then the next year we have a bill with the
Critical Race Theory Band that reframes and like limits how
we can talk about these things.
Speaker 1: So I even.
Speaker 3: Back then felt like there was a this was a
clear pendulum shift, and we've just kind of continued to
see it swinging in one direction more and more, you know,
I think, so, yeah, I definitely think that's a huge.
Speaker 1: Part of this, which brings us a beautiful segue to
a more recent set of protests that I want to
talk about because I really do feel like that's animating
a lot of what we're seeing this legislative session. Kate
tell us a little bit about for anyone who missed
this also protests last year, and actually Kate did is
on maternity. It was very weird to watch from my couch,
but as someone who watched this unfold like our audience,
did you know recap for us these these protests.
Speaker 3: So between you know, the inciting event on October seventh
that kicked off this war in Gaza and the spring
of twenty twenty four, we saw like an increase escalation
on college campuses as conversations about the war kind of
started to bubble up. And we saw that at UT especially,
there were instances of like vandalism on campus against Jewish
students or Jewish student groups, and there were students who
were Palestinian who felt like they were not protect being
protected by the university, and there were comments being made
on campus, and we saw this like like bubbling up,
bubbling up, and then in the spring around the country,
these protests started to call for universities to divest there
from companies that were supporting Israel, and that was the
demand at UT. Around late April, the president. Former president
Jay Hartzel called in DPS to kind of handle some
of these protests, and that's they escalated and we started
seeing students getting arrested on campus for the protests, which
sparked a huge blowback of not just First Amendment violations,
but you know, creat bringing DPS into what was peaceful protesting.
According to the students and faculty on campus felt like
it was creating like an unnecessary and unsafe situation on campus.
Petitions called for Hartzel to be removed. There was criticism
across the board from He was panned from students and
faculty with his reaction. Meanwhile, the governor was fully in
support of what he was doing. Republican lawmakers across the
state showed support for him. Again, there was a second
protest that was more of an encampment. Students pitched tense
and refused to leave that was seen as trespassing, and
there was another wave of arrests and the kind of
tensions that come really continued throughout the spring semester. Some
lawsuits have been filed by students saying that their free
speech rights were violated by the university. Some of those
are ongoing. I think one was recently filed by some students,
so the kind of ripple effects continue, But that really
the spring was when I reached kind of tipping point
in terms of real action. And UT was one of
many schools around the country where this was playing out.
Speaker 1: Right, Like, if I think this like difference between UT
and say like Columbia University, where this was also happening,
is like U T I presume, right, was like engaged
in a many facets trying to portray like we are
not a hotbed of liberal activity. We're just a university
where we all just do research and teach some kids.
And it's like, oh, this was like the last thing.
Probably someone like Jay Hartzel, you know, wanted to have
to like go sell to the governor, the legislature.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he and like as I was not
fully covering this as much as other reporters were at
the time, but I mean he was pretty animant right
away that they were not going to put up with
disruptions on campus. And that was really the line that
a lot of schools that ended up arresting students drew
was this is a disruption. You know, we are supportive
of peaceful protesting, but We're not going to be supportive
of disruptions on campus that interfere with people's ability to learn.
That was their position, and I think and Hertzel stood
by that throughout, even though you know, faculty and students
felt very differently.
Speaker 1: Jessica, this has certainly come up this legislative session. It's
clear certainly the lawmakers who sort of control or who
you know, represent the majority of the House and the Senate,
we're not thrilled by these protests. Talk a little bit
about how this has shown up in legislation.
Speaker 2: Well, I think the bill that I was talking about
SB thirty seven is partly in response to that. There
was a misconception by some that like the Faculty Senate
at U T Austin took a vote of no confidence,
but it was a separate group. I think it was
the American Association of University Professors. So that's one thing.
One part of that bill that I didn't mention is
that like it would eliminate these faculty senates which advise
universities on academic matters, It would eliminate them unless the
Board of Regents, I guess blesses them to continue, and
it would. They've always been advisory, but it puts more
restrictions on them. They can't If this bill were to pass,
they wouldn't be able to issue any sort of public
statement or get involved in any political advocacy. Right now,
a lot of faculty senates. The way that they work
is members are elected by other faculty members. This would
like limit the number how many people can be on
the faculty Senate, and like half of the body would
be appointed by the president of the university, so giving
the administration a lot more power. Some other bills that
have come up would restrict protesting on campuses, and they've
made pretty good progress in the legislator legislature so far.
Senator Creighton again has a bill that would basically walk
back a lot of the free speech protections that Texas
enshrined into law like six years ago, and give the
governing board the power to say which areas of campus
people can protest. It would also limit like the use
of microphones and sounds to certain hours of the day,
protesting overnight, erecting encampments or even during the last two
weeks of the semester would not be allowed, and also
like wearing masks to disguise yourself so it has a
lot of free speech advocates up in arms. They point
out that like back in twenty eighteen, the legislature passed
a bill to instructing college campuses to make all outdoor
common areas traditional public forums, and that was in reaction
to conservative speakers being canceled at universities and or disrupted. Yeah,
so yeah, the senator who authored that bill, Senator Huffman,
she voted for Creighton's bill. So it's kind of interesting.
And then we've also seen a lot of concern about
a rise in anti semitism on campus. And so one
bill that has passed both chambers and is being sent
to the governor would require k through twelve schools and
public universities and colleges to use a definition of anti
semitism that is by the well, I'm forgetting the name,
but it's a controversial definition. A lot of a lot
of governmental entities use it. But the reason it's controversial
is because it some examples that it gives as antisemitic
would be like equating like political speech, so like criticism
of Israel. People are concerned that might be considered anti semitic.
Speaker 3: So what I find interesting about these protests, like universities
have always been like places of major conflict and protests
in American history. Think Vietnam War, you think the apartheid
in South Africa in the nineties. Usually, like the students
who are protesting are kind of all on the same
side or on the same page in terms of what
they are protesting against. And with this we have like
two competing groups of students saying, like, you know, students
who are maybe anti Zionist or pro Palestine are you know,
have this one position about Israel and what they are
doing there. And then you have students on the other
side saying, like the language you're using in these protests
is making me feel unsafe on campus.
Speaker 1: And so it's a it's.
Speaker 3: A kind of nuanced line that universities have to walk
to kind of like figure out how to navigate students
fighting with each other, not just like protesting something at
that like to them or to a global conflict.
Speaker 1: Right, it's probably most I you're right, and that of
those examples you gave, it probably most similar to like apartheid,
where it's like another country is having a problem, But
there probably were not that many like South African students
like the Vietnam War, Like I think there were a
lot of clashes between like returning soldiers and like you know,
like ROTC students and things like that. But even then
it was like the US government, you know, I mean,
like you were sort of protesting our country's policies versus
like I mean the I'm gonna say something, and I
don't just jump to disagree with me. The Middle East
thing is really complicated and like you know where the
lines fall. I think it's not been like we like
to put everything in America on like these two very
like left right things, and like what's happening there sort
of transcends like the easy definitions right right. And also like.
Speaker 3: I just lost my train of thought listening to your
very insightful comment.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 1: I stunned into silence. Uh keep going, I will. All
was gonna say is like I'm curious you guys. Your
personal experience is like I often feel like I feel
like I went to college in like the one four
year period that no one was protesting anything like post
Occupy Wall Street. The main I went to college in DC.
We watch a lot of documentaries about Coney that was
a huge thing. We went to the White House because
we killed Osama bin Laden. Yep. I literally didn't even
have like a pre cidential election in that four years,
but not central. We had the re election of Barack Obama,
which was like not that exciting because I had the
first election. You had the first were there? Did you
guys have like big flash points? No?
Speaker 3: I mean I went to school Occupy I went to
school in New York, so Occupy Wall Street was happening,
but like I was, it was separate and like I
had friends who would go down there, but it was
like not in like ingrained in our culture or on
campus in the same way.
Speaker 1: So I would agree.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think Obama's presidency, his election was largely
panned as like positive on campus, and I there was
not a ton of like protesting about like Obama care
you know what, We're like big like a protests that.
Speaker 1: Were happening party, but that certainly wasn't happening on college
even like conservative college students. That was much more of
like a taxpayer demographic, right, Jessica, how about you?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember anything. I to sam Houston State
in Texas, and all I can remember is like the
typical pastor coming on campus and like yelling at us
for sinning. Yeah, and students like engaging.
Speaker 1: Yeah, people got signed.
Speaker 2: Students engaging with them and getting into I don't know,
our verbal arguments.
Speaker 1: It's kind of boring. I mean, I know.
Speaker 3: I would say the biggest reaction was like that we
saw on campus was Osama and getting killed.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember that.
Speaker 2: That was I do remember that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, huge moment. We were like in the library and
like left our stuff and ran into the White House.
You were like, we didn't do it.
Speaker 2: I was working for the student newspapers, so I went
around and like asked people, what do you think about the.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like we've lived in such an era
of protests, you know, like you know, starting with like Ferguson,
which was like the year I graduated, straight up to like,
I mean, it feels like it's been a lot of
protests since I left college. Oh, this is what I
was going to say.
Speaker 3: So we're talking about like with the global conflict and
protesting about a global conflict, and like, yes, there is demand.
The students have demand for the universities to direct they've
like grounded it in, but the universities largely have been
like no, I mean we're not going to do that.
And it was different than you know, with the protesting
after George Floyd, where students kind of like had real
tangible demands that universities were really kind of willing to
meet and said, Okay, we can work with you on
building out offices to maybe handle some of these concerns,
or having more dialogues on campus, Like there was an
academic way to kind of approach some of these student
demands and have a university. You love a dialogue, love
a conversation, they love a committee to talk about things.
So it was like they were able to kind of
like respond or seem to respond. But it's wild that
you know, four years later, much of that is not
even has been dismantled a lot in many ways.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean such a I mean the pen I
do think in some ways the pendulum swings are getting fighter.
Like we talked I mean we talked about this with
like THHC for example, and bail reformed bail. I mean
a lot of the bail stuff came out of you know,
that same era of like we're over criminalizing certain groups,
Like let's look at this from like a diversity standpoint,
and now it's like absolutely not. You know, the pendulum
has swung in the other direction and.
Speaker 3: The protest, I mean, it's not just in the ledge
in terms of like the response. We're saying the Trump administration,
so many of its executive orders and decisions it's made
about deportations and federal funding to cuts to universities all
comes back to, you know, a response to what we
saw last year.
Speaker 1: So the tale is still.
Speaker 3: Much longer than just even what's happening down the street
from us.
Speaker 2: They're trying to crack down the Trump administration on what
they see as like university's failure to protect Jewish students,
and they're like opportunities to learn.
Speaker 1: Which I think, you know, as we've talked about, like
I think there, you know, are like legitimate concerns there,
and also I think that you know, fits into sort
of like this wider agenda that predated you know, certainly
these protests certainly pre dated October seventh, about like how
can we sort of exert more control over what students
are taught. Let's take a quick break, and we want
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org slash donate and say you heard it on the
trib cast, because then I get tagged in our little
donations channel and it makes my day. So I want
to talk about it. We've talked about like so much
tumult sort of facing these universities, so perhaps it's unsurprising
that we're also seeing university leaders flee these jobs. I
want to start by talking about like all of these
changes at the top of these universities. Let's start with
Texas A and M and longtime system chancellor John Sharp
is retiring at the end of June after fourteen years
leading the largest university system, the second largest university system. Kate,
I want you to talk about about John Sharp because
he is, you know, more than just a university chancellor,
university system chancellor. He's this larger than life political character.
You profiled him last year, two years ago, two years ago,
Kate profiled him over some extended period of time a
while ago. Tell us a little bit about like who
is John Sharp and what role did he play running
this system?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 3: So sharp started out he was an Aggie. He got
his undergrad there.
Speaker 1: He then came.
Speaker 3: To the Capitol and then has basically served in like
every possible position that you could in state government. He
was the comptroller, He served in the House and the Senate.
He was on the Railroad Commission, over like seeing oil
and gas industry in the state. He tried to run
for lieutenant governor. That did not go well. He kind
of came up. He was a Democrat, and so he
ran twice and lost both times. Kind of at the
point where Texas stopped electing Democrats, went into the private sector,
and then was you know, pulled back into public service
to run his you know alma mater A and M
and over the neck last fourteen years he has really
transformed the A and M system. I mean he like
you know, he will if you ask him, take off
all of his accomplishments. You know. He bought a law
school that's now like twenty second in the nation. He
increased the university systems research portfolio to be like on
par and even surpass ut U T at some in
some you know, measurements. He's brought all of this federal
research for to this campus he built out in College
Station called the Relis Campus that he's very proud of.
There's a lot of like Department of Defense kind of
work out there.
Speaker 1: That is just like exploding.
Speaker 3: He helped get A and M a national laboratory at
the Los Alamos National Lab that he that they're running
with another university. So he's just like put he really
planted a flag for the A and M system I
think to like be taken seriously as a system in
the state. I mean, like I really wish Matthew was
here to talk about this, but like Aggies have long
had a chip on their shoulder about the school down
the street.
Speaker 1: Ut that's why Matthew wouldn't come.
Speaker 3: Case in point, and I was reading a profile that
the student newspaper did it at A and M about
Sharp and his you know, impending retirement, and a lot
of people talked about just like the pride that Sharp
has been able to instill in Aggies, to be able
to like make the system be competitive and show just
like the potential for what that school can do. And
he you know, I listed all these things that he did,
but like a lot of it is vibes too, Like
he has really.
Speaker 1: Just infused in energy in the school.
Speaker 3: It's you know, the school is like A and M
flagship and college station is like eighty thousand students now,
it's an insanely large school. He's has you know, he
keeps always says he tries to like make sure that
every Texas family has an Aggie in the family. So
he's just like and it's I think it is been
a success and will be part of his legacy that
he helped to elevate the statue of the university to
not just be like the you know, younger sibling of
U T.
Speaker 1: Austin. I just think that's so important because what A
and M crads really needed was like more pride in
their institution. Like it was like, oh, just even get
them to admit they went there, was like, oh yeah,
I know. I mean, the ring is dragging on you.
In that fantastic summation of John Sharp's life and career,
you left out my single favorite detail about him, which
is who was his college roommate at Texas A and
it Rick Perry, Rick Perry, which I just love and
they have like all kinds of crazy stories. I recommend
reading Kate's profile of him because it involves some riantics
antics between John Sharp and former Governor Rick Perry.
Speaker 3: I thought your favorite detail was going to be how
he proposed to his second wife on stage at a
Robert Garrel Keene show on campus a few years ago,
which was my favorite detail about him.
Speaker 1: Yes, I just think if you're going to be the
transfer of university, you get to propose on stage at
a you know, university hosted or university a concert there. Jessica,
you have been writing about Sharp's replacement. He's comptroller Glenn Hagar,
also unsurprisingly an A and M alum sort of what
do we know about him? And more importantly like the
system he stands to inherit? What's the job, what's the
task awaiting him?
Speaker 2: Well, I think the climate is very different for higher
education now. I mean I think so that's something he's
gonna have to a tightrope he's going to have to walk.
But what I know about Hagar is like he's obviously
a grad of went to undergrad at Texas A and M.
He has a very similar kind of like trajectory to
Sharp in that he also served in the Senate and
became comptroller or he is controller now. Notably, like during
his time in the legislature, he authored a bill that
added restrictions to abortions before Roe Vwaid and that kind
of launched the Wendy Davis that.
Speaker 1: Was his bill.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had no idea. Yeah, So, so he is conservative,
he's a Republican. I'm not really sure how he will
land on some of the ideological issues, but in the
past he's used his office to He's infused some conservative
politicking into his office as comptroller, like he threatened to
sanction Harris County for cutting their law enforcement budget. So
and when he ran for reelection in twenty twenty two,
he said that he was like a conservative family man.
Some ideological issues that have come up recently are the
Board of Regents past a ban on drag show performances
and their special events venues, and that's drawn Chancellor Sharp
and President Mark Welsh into like a First Amendment lawsuit.
So it'll be interesting to see how he handles situations
like that going forward.
Speaker 1: Definitely, because I think like he's been pretty popular. It's
a controller. It's like not that hard to be a
popular guy in charge of the money when the yes,
when you know, I do think he probably just from
like the little you know times i've seen him speak
or whatever. I think he's got like the Vibes Chancellor
thing going. But he's definitely inheriting like a he's walk
a different type rope than John Sharp.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I think we saw that with Sharp in
the last few years, that like the kind of chasm
was widening, Like he's always been good at He's like
a consensus guy, and he's always been good at building
consensus and getting what he needs to get done, and
you know, slapping you on the back and you know,
cracking a joke and making his he's a deal maker.
I think consensus is like a harder game these days
in the Capitol. I think we saw, you know, some
of the controversies that we reported on here at A
and M about the Kathleen McElroy situation and the politics
that went on behind the scenes with the watering down
of her job and then the professor who was put
under investigation for some comments she made about Dan Patrick,
and how Sharp kind of tried to use that, like
use his kind of consensus building, trying to please everyone
way to handle that and it backfired kind of showing
that like he he was starting to struggle with limitations
to vibes chancellor, right, And I think, you know, he
was always kind of going to retire. I don't think
I think it made it easier to make that decision
with all of you know, becoming a difficult drum a
more difficult job at the Capitol.
Speaker 2: But you know, he's also.
Speaker 1: These are not like lifetime appointments for a reason.
Speaker 3: And I think like part of Hager's appeal to the
board when they chose him was like he knows the
capital and that's hugely important. I mean, there were some
like really strong academics in that mix of candidates for
the job, but being an aggie was number one, and
then like being able to navigate the halls of the
capital was a crucial number two. Like, you know, we
talk all about the kind of social controversies and debates
that happened within Higher Ed and the bills that go on,
but it's just so much of what the universities do
with the Capitol has to do with money and getting
money for your universities and getting enough for your pet
projects and being able to keep the lights on. And
that's you know, most of the conversations that are happening
with these universities. So having someone who understands how the
money works is in some ways the most import.
Speaker 1: Thing, Right, I want to talk I want to give
equal time will shrift to the University of Texas. But
you know, we've got two major changes happening there we
can sort of talk about, I think in conjunction with
each other. Number One, we've got the departure of their
system Chancellor JB. Milliken, who's going to uh California there,
who's gone to Texas there, California and run the Universey
of California system. And then h U T Austin President
Jay Hartzel, who is going to Austin there Dallas and
run SMU Jessica sort of what do these two shifts
mean for the UT system? Are we surprised that they're
kind of happening in the same neighborhood to each other.
Speaker 2: Like, are we surprised that they're happening at the same
time Texas A.
Speaker 1: And m oh any of it? Yeah? Well, like me, like.
Speaker 2: Kate said, the an M was planned. I think these
were both pretty sudden. These were pretty sudden. I remember
I was like the first day on higher ed like
I had taken like a week off in between because
I got really sick over the Christmas break playing with
little kids gave me all their germs, and I remember
we were going to have our meeting to talk about
covering the legislature, and I was like, good, I need
to be there because I know my plans were disrupted.
But yeah, it was sudden. I think the higher experts
that I've talked to elsewhere in the country that just
said it's indicative of like how political this job has become,
and like thorny, and like they were not surprised that
Hartzel would choose to go to a private university, which
it also became an our one institution this year, so
it's not like some no name place. So yeah, I
think that's what it indicates that there's like the interference
from lawmakers is making the job more difficult.
Speaker 1: Kate take us home. I mean, kind of what can
we make of all of this, you know, all like
we're going to leave this legislative session with at least
some changes TVD on exactly what they will be to
sort of how the university's function and the power of
the state has over them. We are at this like
heightened moment of after the protests of attention on what
college students do, how free speech works, and we're going
to have basically all new leadership at all the major universities.
What does the next chapter of higher ed look like?
Speaker 2: Yes, please tell me, h crap.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I mean I think, like, I think
part of.
Speaker 3: It will depend on who becomes like the permanent and
it's just thinking about ut right now. But whoever just
like becomes the permanent leaders in the system and the
University of Tech at Austin, Like how they decide to
take the message that they've gotten from the legislature and
from the Trump administration and are they going to go
along with it or are they going to push back?
I mean, is there a breaking point for universities in
terms of how far they're willing to go to work
with some of the challenges have been brought up by
the Trump administration in terms of cutting funding or restricting
curriculum on campus and things like that, Like how far
are they willing to go? You know, we saw a
little bit of pushback from Harvard in their situation, a
very different situation, but like in like, you know, where
is the line going to be drawn for some of
these universities or is this like a new more you know,
UTA especially gets the reputation of being the liberal bastion
in in a in a very conservative state, and I
think A and M kind of benefits from the conservative
reputation it has in that way that.
Speaker 1: A lot of that falls on UT.
Speaker 3: But like, are we seeing a rewriting of UT and
like the kind of school that it's going to be
in the future in terms of who the new leaders
might be in terms of how they decide to implement
these laws, and like how satisfied are the is the
legislature going to be? Are they going to feel like
we've done We've done what we needed to do. We
have leaders in place who are going to implement and
make sure that like students are being taught what they
need to and that the you know, Marxist professors stay
in line. Or are we coming back in twenty twenty
seven with a whole new round way like batch of
ideas of how we can further restrict what's going on.
So I think TBD, which I know is not what
you asked, but well.
Speaker 1: We will have to leave it there for now. But
I do think, you know, we'll be covering all of this,
you both will be in Jessica, especially so if you
guys want to follow along even on what these bills
do this session. Texastribune dot org. You can find all
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you to both of our guests for being here and
we will see you next week