On June 20, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed a new law limiting expressive activity at the state’s public colleges and universities.
The “Campus Protection Act” (formerly Senate Bill 2972) imposes significant time, place, and manner restrictions on expressive action at higher education institutions. It defines expressive activity broadly as “any speech or expressive conduct” protected by the First Amendment or the Texas state constitution, including “assemblies, protests, speeches, the distribution of written material, the carrying of signs, and the circulation of petitions.” The Act empowers college governing boards, which are primarily appointed by the governor, to decide which areas on campus are public forums where students can engage in expressive activity, rolling back a provision of a 2019 law that established all outdoor spaces as public forums. The new law also prohibits expressive activity between 10 pm and 8 am, even in designated public forum spaces, and during the last two weeks of each semester. The bill reverses a provision of the 2019 law enabling members of the general public to protest on college campuses. Instead, it states that only “students enrolled at and employees of an institution of higher education,” may participate in on campus protests. The law also requires those engaged in expressive action to show a valid university ID when asked by an institution official who is engaging in official duty, bans facial coverings, sound amplification devices during hours when classes are taking place, encampments, and replacing the US flag with the flag of another nation or organization.
The law fits into a pattern of legislative actions across the country eroding institutional autonomy by externally imposing restrictions on academic freedom, free expression, and protest on campus. At least 29 states have since 2023 considered at least 135 bills that weaken university autonomy, including reducing faculty tenure protections, enabling increased state interference in academic decisions, and by restricting research, teaching or expression on a range of issues, such as diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, gender, gender identity, and other disfavored topics. At least 27 have become law.
Scholars at Risk is concerned about state interference in higher education governance and operations. Higher education institutions should have the authority, ideally in consultation with faculty and students, to establish within their campuses reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions necessary to ensure safety and proper institutional operations. While state action supporting and offering guidance on the scope of that authority might be helpful, particularly for public institutions, when the state usurps this role and imposes restrictions from outside it erodes autonomy and threatens core higher education values. Moreover, as with the anti-expression provisions in the new Texas law, when state actions use vague and overbroad terms, without clear definitions, they increase the risk of arbitrary and inconsistent application, and therefore increase harm to academic freedom and free expression of scholars, students, and staff afraid of being targeted.
Sources:
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/students/free-speech/2025/06/23/texas-passes-bill-limiting-expressive-activity-campus
https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/bill-restricting-protests-on-college-campuses-awaits-abbotts-signature
https://www.texastribune.org/2025/05/13/texas-college-campus-protest-law/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/06/20/texas-campus-speech-law-palestine-protests/
https://legiscan.com/TX/text/SB2972/2025