This week, the Trump administration asked the University of Texas at Austin and eight other universities around the country to agree to a “set of operating principles” in exchange for preferential access to federal funding.
“The big one is a stricter definition of gender,” said Texas Tribune politics editor Jasper Scherer, “requiring UT to adopt a stricter definition of how gender can be taught.”
The Trump administration principles also direct the university to institute a five-year tuition freeze and a cap on international student enrollment at 15 percent.
“Universities involved in this compact would have to stay politically neutral,” said Scherer, “and restructure academic programs that allegedly sideline conservative viewpoints.”
Also, this week the Uvalde Consolidated Independent School District released more than two thousand pages of documents related to the Robb Elementary shooting in 2022.
The headline finding centers around former UCISD police chief Pete Arredondo.
“He received a lot of the bulk of the blame,” said Scherer. “He is also now facing criminal charges over how law enforcement responded.”
The documents detail how initially, UCISD planned to stand by Arredondo for the law enforcement response to the shooting but eventually came to quietly withdraw their support.
“The one uncharitable interpretation there would be that they sort of let him be the fall guy,” said Scherer, “and let him take the brunt of the blame.”
Hear more stories from the week in Texas politics in the audio player above.
