Texas Tech University faculty groups sued Chancellor Brandon Creighton and the university system’s Board of Regents in federal court Wednesday, seeking to block new classroom restrictions they argue violate the First Amendment by limiting instruction on race, gender identity, and sexual orientation.

The Texas Tribune reported that the lawsuit challenges two memos issued by Creighton after he became chancellor, including an April directive requiring faculty to recognize only “two human sexes” and prohibiting teaching gender identity as a spectrum or more than two genders as fact.

The policy also calls for phasing out academic programs centered on sexual orientation and gender identity, freezing admissions to affected programs, limiting future research in those fields, and directing faculty hiring to align with the new requirements.

The Texas American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers and the national American Association of University Professors argue the restrictions violate the First Amendment, are unconstitutionally vague under the Fourteenth Amendment, and discriminate against Black faculty by targeting instruction on Black history, racial inequality, and related topics.

The lawsuit says professors have been required to certify that their summer and fall courses comply with the policies and could face discipline for violations.

It also alleges professors were told medical students could not observe or participate in treating transgender patients, even when patients sought care for unrelated conditions, and that a Holocaust course could lose its place in the core curriculum if it included instruction on gay and bisexual victims of the Nazis.

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