Senate Bill 37, passed by the 89th Texas Legislature and signed into law in 2025, was a major step toward restoring academic integrity in Texas public higher education. The law requires every public university governing board to review its general education curriculum at least once every five years.
The Legislature did more than require a routine audit. It established clear standards. Core courses must be “foundational and fundamental to a sound postsecondary education,” prepare students for civic and professional life, equip them for the workforce, and provide the breadth of knowledge expected by accrediting bodies.
But there’s a problem. SB 37 largely asks each university system to judge its own compliance. Some fear that this is like asking every referee to write his own rulebook.
That charge is not quite true. To its credit, the new law creates a governor-appointed Office of the Ombudsman within the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB). This office receives and investigates complaints from students, faculty, or staff about noncompliance with SB 37 (and the earlier DEI ban under the 2023 Texas law, SB 17).
If the ombudsman’s office finds unresolved noncompliance, it can recommend that the Legislature withhold state funding “until the institution’s governing board certifies compliance and the state auditor confirms.” insidehighered.com
To be sure, monitoring by the new Office of the Ombudsman is an important enforcement measure. But its power depends entirely on first receiving complaints from members of the campus communities. It cannot do any of its work prior to a whistleblower pulling the trigger. Critics worry that this will result in incomplete enforcement—and not without reason.
Different university systems will use different review processes, different definitions, and different levels of scrutiny. One board may conclude that a course centered on political activism belongs in the core curriculum. Another may not. Some institutions will conduct rigorous reviews. Others will make only cosmetic changes. The result will be a patchwork of standards that makes meaningful statewide accountability almost impossible.
We are already seeing this scenario emerge. Some systems have undertaken broad reviews of their curricula, while others have focused on only a small number of courses. For example, Texas Tech cast a very wide net across thousands of courses, while the University of Houston’s reported effort centered on a more targeted reduction within its core offerings.
That variation isn’t surprising. This is exactly what decentralized oversight produces.
If every institution measures itself differently, how will legislators—or taxpayers—know whether SB 37 is actually being enforced?
The obvious answer is to measure everyone the same way.
What’s needed to enforce SB 37 is legislation requiring an independent statewide review of every general education course using artificial intelligence supported by human experts. The AI would evaluate every course using the same publicly available methodology, while subject-matter experts would validate the findings before they are released. The result would be a single statewide benchmark that is far more transparent, consistent, and open to independent review.
For the first time, Texas lawmakers would have a clear picture of whether core courses are actually teaching the knowledge and skills SB 37 requires—or whether they have drifted toward ideological advocacy.
A statewide review also solves the “apples-to-oranges” problem that I cited above. Every course would be evaluated under the same standards derived directly from the statute. Universities would still make their own academic decisions, but they would no longer be grading themselves on different scales.
Texas taxpayers invest billions of dollars in public higher education. According to the latest SHEEO Grapevine report (FY 2025), Texas provided about $11.5 billion in total state support for higher education (tax appropriations and related state funds).
Students and parents deserve confidence that the courses every graduate must take are teaching genuine academic content rather than political fashion.
The Legislature has already established a sound standard through SB 37. Now it should ensure that every institution is measured against that standard in the same way. A single statewide AI review, independently conducted and backed by human expertise, is the most practical way to make that happen.
SB 37 was an indispensable beginning. Uniform enforcement will bring the effort home.