ChinaTube — that’s the name my classmates at Texas A&M gave our 8 a.m. Comparative Politics class. That’s because instead of receiving instruction in comparative politics, we spent most of our class time watching YouTube videos about the history of China.
Our instructor couldn’t communicate the material effectively in English.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott announced last week that he wants to prohibit Texas public schools from employing teachers on H-1B visas. This was the latest step in his effort to put an end to foreign influence in Texas education. Earlier this year, Abbott ordered state agencies and public universities to freeze new H-1B visa petitions unless they receive approval from the Texas Workforce Commission.
For me, this issue hits very close to home. I graduated from Texas A&M in May 2026 and experienced firsthand what can happen when a university prioritizes foreign staffing over the quality of instruction that students receive.
In that Comparative Politics class, the instructor had to rely on YouTube videos to teach the course content. The individuals Universities place in positions to educate students’ matter. Texas University students deserve instructors who can communicate in English, teach the curriculum they were hired to teach, and provide an American perspective without foreign influences.
In courses dealing with government and political institutions, universities should be especially attentive to whether students are being taught to understand American constitutional principles rather than any foreign government.
In a student-instituted online forum for the class, one student stated, “I knew we were cooked when on the second day he struggled to speak English for 20 minutes, then gave up and put on a video of a different TAMU professor teaching the same material to a different class.”
Another student said, “His accent does kinda make it hard to understand him, but it’s multiplied by the low volume.”
Texas students have a right to learn from fluent primarily English-speaking professors. When professors’ foreign accents or language barriers inhibit the majority of students’ ability to understand and learn from them, the universities should reevaluate the goal of class.
The primary focus of the school should be educating the students, not catering to foreign academics. The ability to communicate effectively with students should be the bare minimum requirement of someone tasked with teaching a college level course.
The Comparative Politics course is depicted by the Bush School of Government and Public Service as “a comparison of political institutions, processes and issues across a wide variety of political systems.”
On a website created to leave reviews on professors, my peers shared their thoughts about this particular foreign Ph.D. student’s teaching. They wrote, “Nothing to do with Comparative Politics, this is a China history class” and “You will not learn anything about comparative politics, but if you love China take this class!”
The lectures and exams for this course primarily centered around the history of China, which included information on Mao and the Chinese Communist Party. The exams required students to recall facts about China and the Chinese Government, with little concerning Comparative Politics.
The reality is when universities allow foreign academics to teach Texas students — they inevitably establish foreign influence within the classroom. American students deserve American perspective. More important than perspective, preserving liberty requires educating students to understand what liberty requires of them — this starts with American influence in the classroom.
Gov. Abbott is right to put Texas students first. We should not allow staffing shortages to become an excuse for opening the door to foreign influence in our classrooms.