TCU scraps race and gender studies departments due to low enrollment
TCU will close the Department of Women and Gender Studies and the Department of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies at the close of the academic year.
The two departments will be restated, merging into TCU’s Department of English.
Texas Christian University (TCU) in Fort Worth will close its race and gender studies departments at the end of the current academic year due to low enrollment. The two departments will merge into the school’s Department of English.
The decision comes as state conservative lawmakers in Texas have increasingly targeted diversity and gender-focused curricula.
The university’s decision to eliminate the Department of Women and Gender Studies and the Department of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies comes at a time when both academic fields have little interest among the school’s students. According to the Fort Worth Report, women and gender studies has two senior majors, and race studies has nine students in total.
These statistics come at a time when the university is attracting more students overall, including a record enrollment this year.
“It’s a common practice to evaluate departmental structures to ensure alignment with student and academic needs, in addition to the effective use of faculty and administrative resources,” a TCU spokesman told Campus Reform. “Our university is growing, which means that we need more faculty and staff in areas of strong academic demand, not less.”
The Fort Worth Report first reported the closures, which the school announced in an email on Friday, Oct. 24.
According to its website, the Department of Women and Gender Studies seeks to “promote inquiry into the intersections of gender with other identity categories; the workings of power in society; and the means of advancing social justice and equality.”
Department courses include “Queer Theories,” “Feminisms of Color,” “Feminist/Queer Inquiry,” “Transnational Gender & Sexuality,” and “Social Justice Organizing & Activism.”
In March 2025, the Tarrant County GOP published extensive criticism of TCU for promoting “radical racial and transgender ideology.” The document ties teaching materials at local schools to “TCU sexual radicalism” at the Department of Women and Gender Studies, including the use of something called the “Gender Frog” to instruct students on “Gender Identity” and “Gender Expression.”
“It turns out that WGST not only advocates for radical racial and transgender ideology at TCU but in Fort Worth ISD,” the organization says. “It’s worse than you thought, and we have receipts.”
Meanwhile, TCU’s undergraduate program for the Department of Comparative Race and Ethic Studies calls for students to “[e]xplore race and ethnicity as active social, political, historical and cultural processes and use race and ethnicity as categories of analysis across time and space.”
Courses for the program include “Gateway Seminar in Critical Race Theory,” “Research Inequality,” “Feminisms of Color,” “Crimmigration,” and “Social Justice Organizing & Activism.”
According to a course description, “Gateway Seminar in Critical Race Theory” will examine topics such as “intersectionality, whiteness, indigeneity, racial capitalism, and mass incarceration.”
[RELATED: Texas Tech University System bans professors from teaching gender ideology]
Other Texas universities have also drawn criticism from state conservatives over identity-based programming.
When Texas A&M University removed a minor in LGBTQ Studies in November 2024, State Representative Brian Harrison celebrated the move on X. “Proud to have helped deliver this victory for Texas taxpayers, who should never be forced to fund liberal indoctrination,” he wrote.
🚨Breaking: Texas A&M will end LGBTQ Studies Minor.
After months of calling for A&M to end this absurd program, I was pleased to learn from Chancellor Sharp they plan to end it. Proud to have helped deliver this victory for Texas taxpayers, who should never be forced to fund… https://t.co/Vpr9AZyEfq— Brian Harrison (@brianeharrison) September 26, 2024
Harrison had previously called for the offering’s removal, asking why state residents should fund such programs through tax dollars.
Texas A&M is offering a MINOR in this??
What. The. Hell.
I will be demanding answers from @tamu on why they think my constituents should be forced to subsidize this. #txlege #txed pic.twitter.com/RNeXIjzXfz— Brian Harrison (@brianeharrison) January 22, 2024
Campus Reform contacted the Department of Women and Gender Studies, and the Department of Comparative Race and Ethnic Studies for comment, but did not receive a response before publication.
