Fellowship amplifying diminished voices abruptly closes at UT due to SB 17, professors say

Annette Rodríguez, a University of Texas assistant professor of history, applied and was accepted into the Public Voices Fellowship, a university program where she’d receive mentorship and training on how to distill her research on borders and race into impactful opinion pieces for a national audience.

But on Nov. 18, just months into the yearlong fellowship, the 14 UT fellows were informed the meeting would be their last.

“They didn't give us any reasons except to say that it is out of compliance with SB 17,” Rodríguez said, referring to Senate Bill 17, the Texas law passed last spring limiting diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at state public institutions. “It was really devastating for me.”

The Public Voices Fellowship is a part of the OpEd Project, a national program with a mission to diversify and "change who writes history." UT was one of the fellowship’s 35 partners, among seven Ivy League schools, and was one of the only public universities involved.

The fellowship is open to all, but aims to amplify underrepresented voices and leaders, specifically women and people of color. Rodríguez, whose expertise is the U.S.-Mexico border, wrote her first op-ed by lunchtime after their first full day meeting – feeling so inspired by her peers and coaches around her. The piece later ran in The Progressive Magazine, a national outlet.

“I was definitely taught research methodologies as I was doing my Ph.D. program, but I wasn’t necessarily taught how to write,” she said. “The idea is to think about how to create powerful arguments out of the expertise we already have.”

Senate Bill 17 and its impacts

Senate Bill 17 was passed in the regular legislative session in May and calls for public institutions to close their DEI offices. Under the bill and UT System guidance, institutions must end differential treatment or “special benefits” based on race, color or ethnicity and programs “designed or implemented in reference to race, color, ethnicity, gender identity, or sexual orientation.”

UT and other public institutions must make policies and changes by Jan. 1, when the law goes into effect. The university has begun releasing guidelines internally, but it has yet to release its own complete guidance publicly.

In an interview, Rodríguez said she was confused about the program ending as she was accepted for it in August − months after SB 17 passed. It makes her nervous, she said, for the future of SB 17 implementation.

“One of the things that was so disheartening and so strategically brilliant about how SB 17 and how power works is that it works by delay,” she said. “The implementation has been quiet; it's been delayed. It's been behind the scenes. And as impacted as I feel in this moment, I cannot imagine what my students are going to feel when they return to campus in the spring.”

Amplifying voices of women, people of color

Jennifer Adair, a UT associate professor of early childhood education, was part of the inaugural cohort of UT fellows and is the chair of the OpEd Public Voices board. She said applicants are chosen in consultation with deans to create a diverse cohort, representing multiple identities and fields.

The program, Adair said, helped “fast track” the ability of fellows, assistant professors in particular, to share their expertise and make an impact. Adair said she is hopeful that the program can adapt to become compliant and restart at UT, but she worries about its ability to maintain its mission.

“Regardless of the law, we still need more representation in the media from many communities,” Adair said. “So shutting down a pathway to making that happen is obviously going to have an impact.”

Over the nine years the program ran, 150 faculty members participated. It involves partnerships with journalist mentors, who work directly with fellows to help them craft and pitch op-eds and to participate in daylong training sessions and seminars.

Rodríguez posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, the day Public Voices ended at UT. Her post received more than 41,000 views and 43 retweets, including from the UT chapter of the American Association of University Professors.

“We see nothing in #SB17 requiring @UTAustinProvost to step back from this great public engagement program,” the UT AAUP’s post stated in its retweet. “All along we feared that universities would over-implement Texas’s anti-DEI bill.”

Adair said the program was likely eliminated due to its focus on diversifying the media presence of women and people of color, per the OpEd Project’s mission. But she said the program’s closing was still a surprise, and a “deep disappointment.”

“The Public Voices Fellowship has been the best professional development experience I've ever had,” Adair said.

Will SB 17 lead to diverse voices being silenced?

Stephanie Drenka, a coach for the program, was driving to the Nov. 18 meeting when she heard the news. As a Texan, she said this makes her more worried about the precedents being set by SB 17.

“The passage of the bill and its impact is having a chilling effect,” she said. “It's going to impact the topics that people feel like they're able to write about and safety. … Ironically, what we’re losing is those important voices that can be equipped to combat some of this legislation.”

Deborah Douglas, who co-launched and co-facilitated the program at UT during the first four years, said the experience was the “most transformative” of her life because of the people she met there. She said the UT fellows went on to become leaders, authors, entrepreneurs and changemakers.

Douglas, who has been on both sides of pitching and receiving op-eds, said diversity is important because the stories we hear shape our world. Now, she worries about what will happen to those stories.

“I felt haunted in a way,” she said. “The Texas Legislature is trying to deficit stories, blocking out women's stories and blocking out the stories of Black and brown people and LBGTQ people and all the other underrepresented people. And I think we’re down but we’re not out, and it’s not over.”

The university did not comment on the fellowship closing specifically, but it pointed to other resources at UT that help professors become published, such as Texas Perspectives, a wire-like service that places faculty op-eds in Texas publications. Matt Pene, who runs the program, said it publishes about three to five op-eds a month, and that any faculty member can approach the service.

The American-Statesman has published opinion pieces from Texas Perspectives.

Katie Orenstein, founder of the OpEd Project, said the organization was created 15 years ago to diversify public knowledge at a time when almost all media contributors were men.

Orenstein said the OpEd Project offers workshops that can be attended virtually by all.

“Making our knowledge count has always been important. There's so much research and so many brilliant minds, and so much knowledge that never makes it into the public sphere,” she said. “Any initiative that does that is important, and it's extra important today.”

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: UT-Austin abruptly ends fellowship amplifying underrepresented voices