Make UT Great Again (MUGA)
By Daniel Acosta, Jr. / The Rag Blog / December 10, 2025
The University of Texas is facing an existential crisis because of its decision to appease the Texas governor and legislature by providing a more ideologically diverse curriculum to UT’s current programs. According to UT’s Provost, “our university leadership is having constructive behind-the-scenes discussions with the White House on the Trump Compact.” He further says that UT “aligns with the principles of conduct that they (the White House) want” (see the October 28th Chronicle of Higher Education interview of Provost William Inboden).
Certain UT colleges have been targeted for restructuring to bring their curricula more in line with what the President and Provost want the colleges to offer the students (i.e., a more optimally structured academic mission). The Provost states that “we will in time be announcing reforms and restructurings in the College of Liberal Arts, the College of Natural Sciences and others.” His plea to everyone on campus is: “Wait until we have something announced, and then we have that discussion.”
And so it goes. Cryptic messages to the public and the faculty on how UT will become great again with limited debate with those people most involved in higher education on campus — the faculty and students. Of course, an ideologically diverse curriculum is not the same as promoting a faculty and student body that are culturally and racially diverse. That is not allowed in the great state of Texas.
I returned to Austin in 2019 to spend my retirement years with my family. Although UT has had three different presidents in the last six years, UT still remains one of the best public universities (see the 2026 U.S. News & World Report). so why do the UT president and provost proclaim that our great state university “has lost its way” and needs to regain the public’s trust? Is “Make UT Great Again” the new slogan for this new UT administration, instead of the current one — “What Starts Here Changes The World?
Fifty years ago I was the second Mexican-American PhD professor on the pharmacy faculty since the founding of the College in 1893. Today there is only one Chicano professor. The number of Black and Hispanic tenured faculty at UT is embarrassingly low, compared to the other top 10 public universities.
The Presidential leadership team of VPs and deputies consists of seven white men and six white women. Out of the 15 active deans of colleges (plus three interim deans who are not included) there are seven white men, four white women, two Hispanic men, one Hispanic woman, and one Asian woman. Diversity has never played a role in the leadership of the University of Texas for over 170 years. So why is everyone now complaining that DEI had lowered the quality of education and research at UT?
I left UT after 20 years as a tenured professor and director of the toxicology training program because I was told I wasn’t suited for a higher administration position. I finished my career as the dean of pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and later as the Deputy Director for FDA’s major research center — The National Center for Toxicological Research.
My wife and I helped fund a graduate student endowment in pharmacology and toxicology at the College of Pharmacy to assist students attend scientific conferences. I reached out to the new dean of pharmacy to establish an endowment to attract more Hispanic faculty to the college. But my efforts to improve the diversity of faculty and students at the college have been blunted by state regulations which hamper attempts to add more diverse and well-qualified individuals to the faculty.
[Acosta is retired and lives in Austin. He’s Dean Emeritus of Pharmacy at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center and former Deputy Director of FDA’s National Center for Toxicological Research.]
I grew up in Texas and received a whole lot of racism as a child. It was horrible and if I think about it, just rethinking about it is re-traumatizing. The racism never stopped, it only stopped when my family moved away to a completely different state. Something you wrote didn’t make sense, though. I don’t know if I’m not connecting something. You wrote, “Out of the 15 active deans of colleges (plus three interim deans who are not included) there are seven white men, four white women, two Hispanic men, one Hispanic woman, and one Asian woman.” That seems like diversity to me. Now that I am living in a state where most people classify me as “white”, I’ve been in situations where I have been passed up for things because I am not seen as another race. Meaning, race is why I am not selected (I am seen as white). And the really non-funny thing is that as a child my non-white race was also why I was not selected. It makes no sense to me, but this is what has happened. Consequently, I don’t think it’s fair to select someone based on race, whatever race. I don’t think it’s moral to select someone just for the purposes of “representation”. I myself am from such a small culture that my culture is *never* represented. Ever. There will never be legislation requiring my culture to be selected. The truth is that in some areas, people of certain races don’t go into that work, don’t go into those fields. It’s not unfair to select the best of those who do, regardless of their race. I myself now am unhappy about being excluded *because* I am not seen as another race.