> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.urgentmatter.press/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Texas Tech calls course review records unfinished drafts, tells court the review is complete - URL: https://www.urgentmatter.press/texas-tech-calls-course-review-records-unfinished-drafts-tells-court-the-review-is-complete/ - Published: 2026-10-16T03:30:39.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-16T03:30:39.000Z - Description: Ken Paxton's office, which is defending the system's leaders in a faculty lawsuit over the review, ruled the system can withhold the records, citing that lawsuit. - Author: Adam Schrader - Tags: Government and Cultural Heritage, #public-access The Texas Tech University System told the Texas attorney general on July 31 that records from its course-content review were "in essence, drafts" it should not have to release because the policy behind them was unfinished. The same day, lawyers from Attorney General Ken Paxton's office, who represent Chancellor Brandon Creighton and the system's regents in a federal lawsuit over the review, told a judge it "was completed in the Spring Semester of 2026." Paxton's office ruled September 29 that the system may withhold the records Urgent Matter requested in July, citing that lawsuit and two earlier rulings. Assistant Attorney General James Holdridge of the office's Open Records Division signed the ruling, OR2026-043469\. The system's Office of General Counsel stamped it as received October 5 and sent Urgent Matter a copy Thursday. [Add Urgent Matter on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=urgentmatter.press&ref=urgentmatter.press) "In accordance with the opinion, TTUS is withholding responsive information," Savannah Franco, a legal assistant in the general counsel's office, wrote in an email. The system's July 31 brief to the attorney general, signed by Ronny H. Wall, managing attorney and executive director of public information, said two sets of sample records "were submitted under a new policy that is being tested." "The policy, itself, is still being discussed at all levels of the institution and it would be premature to release these documents at the present time before the policy is finalized and decisions are actually made under the policy," Wall wrote. "Once the policy and all decisions are final, some of these documents will be released to the public," he wrote. The state's July 31 response in the lawsuit, signed by David Bryant, a senior special counsel in the attorney general's Special Litigation Division, refers to Creighton and the regents collectively as "TTUS." It said the review "ultimately resulted in a modest number of changes to TTUS courses and their content." ***Paid subscribers can*** [***read the records***](https://www.urgentmatter.press/records-texas-tech-course-review/) ***used in this reporting.*** [Records: Texas Tech course review records ruling, lawsuit exhibitsRecords obtained by Urgent Matter under the Texas Public Information Act and federal court documents.![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/icon/urgent-matter-icon-ee33df8a-35a5-49c2-9064-d53bf8045e8b.jpg)Urgent MatterAdam Schrader![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/thumbnail/urgent-matter-icon-2-e0838769-1847-4527-868b-dfd014e05260.jpg)](https://www.urgentmatter.press/records-texas-tech-course-review/) The response called Creighton's two memos "not statutes or rules to be enforced, but policy documents that describe a course review process." Wall argued the records should be withheld “in their entirety” to let the court's discovery process control disclosure and protect TTUS' rights and interests. Holdridge wrote that information "obtained from or provided to all parties to the pending litigation" generally cannot be withheld because of the lawsuit and "must be disclosed." The plaintiffs told the court August 3 that "the course modification documents" filed with their request for an injunction "were issued by Defendants themselves." Those exhibits sit on the court docket, labeled redacted. Two of the exhibits contain written decisions on three courses, each under a heading for review by the regents' Academic, Clinical and Student Affairs Committee. All three are French and English courses. Urgent Matter's request sought the same committee's determinations on arts courses. One decision covers FREN 3303, French Conversations, an upper-level undergraduate course that uses popular French music from 1789 to 2026 to build vocabulary and fluency. The committee ordered the instructor to replace five songs: Charles Aznavour's *Comme ils disent*, Lara Fabian's *La Différence*, Ysa Ferrer's *To bi or not to bi*, Christine and the Queens' *Christine* and Pomme's *On brûlera*. ## Sign up for Urgent Matter This article is provided free with the support of paying subscribers. Not ready for a paid subscription? Sign up for a free account today. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. "Conversational French can be taught using thousands of other popular songs that do not involve restricted themes," the committee wrote of the Fabian song. The decision found the songs met the threshold for content "centered on" SOGI, the system's shorthand for sexual orientation and gender identity. "Consequently, the instructor must strictly adhere to the Alternate Materials Rule by replacing these SOGI-focused songs with neutral, alternative materials to achieve the core instructional goals of vocabulary expansion and oral fluency," it states. The provost's office had recommended the material "may be presented in a neutral, academic manner, without advocacy, activism, or sex based prejudice," the document shows. A second decision covers FREN 5320, Twentieth Century Literature, a graduate seminar on how literature and film depict time. The committee flagged six works, including Monique Wittig's *L'Opoponax*, Annie Ernaux's *Les Années* and Céline Sciamma's film *Petite Maman*. The committee wrote that *L'Opoponax* "explores concepts beyond binary gender structures in violation of the requirement to recognize only two sexes." It wrote that Hélène Laurain's *Partout le feu* "utilizes a sex-based ecofeminist framework" and that Wendy Delorme's *Le chant de la rivière* "relies on a gendered ecofeminist framework." The lawsuit says an A.I. tool the system used to scan syllabuses produced those ecofeminist labels, Urgent Matter [previously reported](https://www.urgentmatter.press/texas-tech-strips-arts-courses-of-race-and-queer-themes-faculty-lawsuit-alleges/). The decision paragraph for the graduate seminar rules on different books. It orders the instructor to replace an essay collection, *Voice of the Fish*, assigned "to facilitate the mastery of the digressive essay and creative writing craft," and says two other texts, *Bibliophobia* and *Motherhood*, "may proceed." Those three books appear only in the decision. The seminar's 15-week schedule in the same document lists French novels and films by Chris Marker, Agnès Varda, Wittig, Ernaux, Marcel Proust, Sciamma, Georges Perec and others. The third decision covers ENGL 2310, listed as Lit, Social Justice, Environment, a core undergraduate course. The committee wrote that Ta-Nehisi Coates' *Between the World and Me* "promotes the belief that meritocracy is a construct of oppression designed to exploit Black bodies." "Because this class is currently operating as a core undergraduate course, it is subject to an absolute prohibition on SOGI content, and there are absolutely no exceptions to the Alternate Materials Rule," the decision states. Provosts plan to remove the course from the core curriculum, it says. The committee also objected to a note on the syllabus, writing that it "implies that the course content is being restricted by outside authorities, which biases student perception." Handwritten notes on the copy filed in court say the syllabus note read, "All materials for this class are still pending censorship review," and call the Coates finding "A.I. slop." Urgent Matter sent its records request under the Texas Public Information Act on the evening of July 9, and the system logged it as received July 10\. It sought records on how the review applied to Texas Tech's J.T. and Margaret Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts and to art, music, theatre, dance and film courses at Angelo State University and Midwestern State University. The request asked for faculty submissions to the review portal, lists of arts courses flagged, held, changed or removed, the decisions behind them "including any explanatory text generated by an artificial intelligence tool or algorithm," and records identifying the A.I. tool or vendor. The system combined it with three July 14 requests from Garrett Shanley of The Chronicle of Higher Education, who sought the review's A.I. prompts, chat logs, outputs, individual responses to a Faculty Senate survey and administrators' discussion of that survey, records show. Holdridge applied a section of the Public Information Act that covers information “relating to litigation of a civil or criminal nature” when litigation is pending or reasonably anticipated on the day the request arrives. "Based on these representations and our review, we find the information at issue is related to the pending litigation," he wrote. The Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors and its national parent filed the lawsuit July 8 in El Paso, challenging the two memos Creighton issued after becoming chancellor. The case is before U.S. District Judge Leon Schydlower, [the docket](https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/73587854/texas-american-association-of-university-professors-american-federation-of/?ref=urgentmatter.press) shows. The protection tied to the lawsuit also ends "once the litigation has been concluded," Holdridge wrote. That limit covers only the records withheld because of the lawsuit. Two other sets of records stay withheld under the earlier rulings, Open Records Letter Nos. 2026-018500 and 2026-029730, which the system received May 6 and July 15\. The system told the attorney general those rulings let it withhold the records as attorney-client communications and internal deliberations. "We have no indication there has been any change in the law, facts, or circumstances on which the previous rulings were based," Holdridge wrote. The system cited eight exceptions to disclosure when it asked for a ruling July 24 and narrowed them to three in the July 31 brief. Wall wrote that some withheld records are communications with Eric Bentley, vice chancellor and general counsel, and that their privileged nature "should be self-evident." Beyond the earlier rulings, Holdridge ruled on the litigation exception alone. "As our ruling is dispositive, we need not address your remaining arguments against disclosure of this information," he wrote in a footnote. Urgent Matter previously reported that the lawsuit also describes a doctoral survey of popular music in which regents cut references to Alice Cooper, Kiss and David Bowie after the provost recommended keeping them. The plaintiffs' August 7 reply said the faculty member who teaches the French courses was also told not to teach about gay victims of the Holocaust. It said the only full-time professor in the Women and Gender Studies department would lose their job when the university shuts the department down. The system's only release to Urgent Matter came July 31, when Franco sent a link to the Faculty Senate's published [survey results](https://www.depts.ttu.edu/senate/issues/AdHocResponseCommFS.php?ref=urgentmatter.press) and called it "the link subject to disclosure." Wall told the attorney general that day that "the survey summary results have been released to the requestors, including survey comments." The [survey](https://www.depts.ttu.edu/senate/docs/SurveyReport%5FSenate%5FAd%5FHoc%5FResponse%5F2026.pdf?ref=urgentmatter.press), run May 8 to May 19, drew 367 responses. Among colleges with enough respondents to report, faculty in the Talkington college were the least satisfied with the memos, scoring 1.35 on a 5-point scale against 1.88 for all respondents, the report shows. The senate committee's summary of written comments said "performances of operas by Handel and Mozart were curtailed due to the need for women to perform certain male roles in them." One respondent wrote that guidance from the regents' committee "was composed by A.I. and filled with inaccuracies," adding, "My instructions of what to change were for someone else's course!" System officials have said reviewers recommended changes to fewer than 60 courses out of more than 14,000 at its five universities, [The Texas Tribune](https://www.texastribune.org/2026/05/29/texas-tech-university-faculty-alter-courses-restrictions-lessons-survey/?ref=urgentmatter.press) reported. The plaintiffs asked the court July 17 to block the memos while the case proceeds, telling the judge the harm would carry into the fall semester scheduled to begin August 24. "The courses TTUS pays them to teach, and their speech in teaching those courses, is their employer's speech and is not protected by the First Amendment," the state's lawyers wrote in their July 31 response. "Coursework that indoctrinates students with left-wing theories and gender ideology rather than educates them with useful knowledge is not in the public interest, as determined by the democratic process.” *Urgent Matter is reader-supported. Please* [*consider subscribing*](https://www.urgentmatter.press/36-antiquities-returned-to-syria-including-13-seized-from-the-met/#/portal) *to support independent arts journalism.*