Republican state legislatures across the country are debating significant reforms in state university systems. Some of the reform proposals are fairly modest, but others would substantially transform how higher education work in public universities. In several instances, those bills are now moving toward some resolution, and so a series of posts checking in on where things stand seems in order.
Next up is Texas. Last year the powerful Lieutenant Governor of Texas, former TV sportscaster Dan Patrick, declared that that the time had come to end tenure at public universities in the Lone Star State. The lieutenant governor is the presiding officer in the Texas state senate and exercises substantial formal and informal power in that chamber. Patrick has not forgotten about his vow, and it seems likely that some very dramatic reform bills will pass the Senate. The prospects that the proposals will be defeated in the House and in the governor's mansion are not at all clear. The Texas legislature is also set to pump additional funds into the state universities, but these structural reform bills work at cross-purposes with the governor's goal of creating more premier public universities in the state.
There are three bills of particular interest (though there are some other measures affecting higher education that have also been designated as legislative priorities). The Texas AAUP also have a convenient bill tracker.
