A federal lawsuit and faculty-led resistance efforts are escalating at Texas Tech University after new systemwide curricular review memos limited how professors can teach race, sex, gender, and sexual orientation. Faculty groups say the process created an “extraordinary system of censorship,” while the system argues its policies are lawful and compliant with state and federal requirements. The AAUP and Texas AAUP-AFT filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas seeking to block enforcement of the memoranda issued by Chancellor Brandon Creighton. According to the complaint, faculty restrictions affected at least 277 courses, and the policies also ended gender and sexuality programs and barred certain thesis work on sexual orientation and gender identity. Separately, the Institute for Free Speech reported that a California Community College settlement locked in First Amendment limits for professor Daymon Johnson after he sued over DEI and anti-racist faculty requirements. Under the agreement, Bakersfield can require mandatory DEI training for a faculty screening committee role, but cannot require him to use DEIA principles in teaching or scholarship. Taken together, the developments show how institutions are using DEI language and classroom review mechanisms to set teaching expectations, and how courts and faculty organizations are increasingly treating those requirements as constitutional issues rather than internal policy choices.