I’m going to level with y’all: I didn’t realize there was going to be a NASA lunar mission earlier this month until about 20 minutes before Artemis II was set to launch.
A friend texted and I paused amidst the rush to watch in awe the journey’s start. I’m so glad my friend texted when they did.
If you’re from Lubbock, you might have heard rumblings about the goings on at Texas Tech the last few months. You might have missed that there was anything serious happening.
But make no mistake, speaking only for myself, from my personal perspective, the leaders of the TTU system are wrecking Tech with cheap bureaucratic bullying.
If they succeed, I believe the institution, our region’s economic prospects, and our hope for future growth will crater.
In a recent memo, the new Chancellor Brandon Creighton and system leaders radically changed what it means to be a scholar and scientist at Texas Tech declaring: “State and federal law and TTU System guidance dictate that only two human sexes, male and female, are recognized.”
Maybe that seems fine to you, but even you would have to admit: That’s a weird sentence. Memos are tough documents to read and even tougher to write. One of the first things writing students learn is that clarity and transparency are critical.
So people only write things like “are recognized” when they are trying to sound professional and legal-like but don’t really want you thinking about who is doing what. Who is “recognizing” “only two sexes”? “State and federal law and TTU System guidance.”
Which laws? How? ”Never mind that. We must only recognize two sexes.”
Based on recent statements, the Chancellor is thinking primarily of SB 37, a state law he helped write and move to passage last session. I’m not a lawyer. But I can read. You probably can, too. I suspect the Chancellor knows he could look like he’s cheating if he quoted the law directly. He probably knows the law doesn’t “dictate” this policy, not in any clear, honest way. He’s trying to throw himself a touchdown and glaring at the refs as everyone points out he’s running out of bounds.
Even the strongest supporters of the US Constitution’s 2nd amendment know that if “the right to bear arms” is going to include small nuclear weapons we keep in our sheds, well, maybe we should at least have a little heart-to-heart about whether that’s a good idea first–even with the amendment sitting there saying what it does.
Every student knows they have to “show their work.” But TTU system leaders seem to be working really hard not to show their work, to explain what the laws they’re relying on actually say, how exactly how they apply. Maybe they would rather everyone just comply quietly or leave. “Don’t tread on me, but let us tread on thee,” seems to be the message.
Folks at Tech working in all fields, even ones you think are silly or strange, are simply wrestling with the complexity of the world. They show their work when they do. Even at the evangelical seminary I attended, we somehow managed to read “God created them male and female” and “nor is there male and female for all are one in Christ” without someone looking over our shoulders, and we got along just fine.
We should probably be more worried that this is just a quick, cultural war “re-brand,” the kind that gets all the key heavy hitters their political notoriety, their money, their planes, and their power.
Of course, we don’t know what’s in folks’ hearts.
I do know that re-brands are risky business. Potential recruits thinking about enrolling at Tech to study even “uncontroversial” subjects have already decided not to come because “this is not normal.”
Maybe more folks will come to take their place or the place of those who have or will leave.
Maybe folks will be thrilled to enroll in the Brandon Creighton School of Two Sexes Strictly Defined or whatever TTU becomes after this. That is, until maybe they find out they have to learn about climate change. Or evolution. Or how vaccines work. Maybe then the memos start up again…
Legend has it that Galileo in 1633, after authorities forced him to recant his scientific assertion that the Earth revolved around the Sun, muttered “Eppur si muove” “still it moves,” insisting, even if just to himself, that his study proved his claims were correct. Of course, historians note it probably didn’t happen exactly that way. Regardless, we understand why he would have been right to grumble.
The images captured by the Artemis II mission remind us that Galileo was correct, the Earth revolves around the Sun, regardless of what folks “recognized.”
Humans too have always been more complex creatures than many first recognized, developing and changing in complex and unexpected ways.
“Recognize” only what you want about us. Even still, we move. – Beau Pihlaja, Lubbock
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This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Letter writer offers critical look at Texas Tech System course review
Reporting by Special for the Avalanche-Journal / Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
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