The University of Texas at Austin will stop admitting new students to its Women’s and Gender Studies, Mexican-American and Latina/o Studies, and African and African Diaspora Studies majors, the flagship campus confirmed. Students already enrolled in those programs will be permitted to finish their degrees.
The change makes UT Austin the latest in a string of universities to eliminate similar identity-focused majors, following moves at Texas A&M, Wichita State, the University of Iowa and the University of Toledo.
UT Austin has not officially cited low enrollment as the reason for the decision. But earlier this year, reporting found only 307 students were enrolled across the three majors combined, less than one percent of the university’s 44,315 undergraduates in Fall 2025.
One possibility circulating is that the programs could be folded into a single, broader diversity, equity and inclusion-oriented degree, though no such plan has been confirmed by the university.
Faculty Pushback
Lisa Moore, chair of women and gender studies at UT Austin, defended the programs’ academic value:
“Gender and ethnic studies have transformed the study of the humanities and social sciences, and now they are what they are. We can’t unknow what we know… It’s just not the case that we can believe that only a small slice of human beings are responsible for everything that’s good about the world.”
Reaction From Academic Critics
Steve McGuire, a fellow at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, called the decision “the pedagogically responsible thing to do.”
J.D. Haltigan, a research fellow at the Centre for Heterodox Social Science, was more pointed, writing on social media:
“Excellent news. These programs are not ‘viewpoint diversity.’ They are ridiculous Leftist delusion[s] that have no place in truth-seeking institutions. They should be abolished entirely from every institution of higher-learning.”
Austin, located in Travis County, is widely regarded as a liberal enclave within a conservative state, and UT Austin’s decision has drawn attention in part because of that political contrast.
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