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Texas has been one of the early adopters of Trump-era policies that deny the rights of people who don’t fall within the cis-het, male, and white identity. The state has enacted numerous laws and policies that have enabled rampant book banning in public schools. Anti-DEI laws–those intended to deny inclusive education to marginalized people–are on the books, including anti-DEI laws that direct public colleges and universities in the state to dismantle their affinity programs and projects. We’ve seen the impact all of these laws have had, not only in complete school library shut downs, not only in the use of AI to remove books from schools, and not only in the removal of readings in university classes where the only attendees are full-grown adults (that course was ultimately canceled).
In early 2026, children’s author Chris Barton learned that his author visit with Alamo Heights Independent School District had been canceled. This happened after three parents complained that one of his books explored the history of glitter. The book included references to LGBTQ+ people, which was enough to prompt cancellation. Barton wasn’t going to be speaking about that book, nor about queer people through history. But the mere existence of that book in the author’s bibliography was enough to deny him and 1,600 students the visit. It was later revealed that the administration lied about the reason for the cancellation.
Now, newly discovered state consultant contracts are raising even more red flags about the lengths that some in the state are going to deny authors and students access to inclusive concepts.
Texas has 20 educational service centers (ESCs) that provide services to school districts across various geographic areas of the state. ESCs are not regulatory arms of the Texas Education Association, and schools can choose where and how they participate in the services they provide. ESCs have three primary functions, per the Texas legislature: help school districts improve student performance, help districts operate more effectively and economically, and implement the initiatives of the legislature or Texas State Board of Education Commissioner. ESCs frequently offer programming and professional development opportunities for schools and educators. This is especially valuable in parts of the state where driving to such opportunities can take hours, if not a whole day. Despite several large cities, the vast majority of Texas is rural.
In July 2025, ESC 1 updated the language in its consulting services contracts–the forms used by the ESC to bring in guest speakers, authors, and others who provide programming or professional development. ESC 1 covers districts in the Lower Rio Grande Valley along the Mexican border and serves seven counties. That amounts to 37 school districts and close to 404,000 students.
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A letter prefacing the updated contract notes what those updates are:
Legal advice to ESC 1 led to updates to the contract’s language on DEI, and those contractual changes amount to massive censorship. This, despite the letter itself containing a footer that reads “Region One Education Service Center does not discriminate based on race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, national origin, age, disability, or any other basis prohibited by law in its programs and activities.” Texas ESCs have already required politically-driven agreements in their consulting contracts, including that consultants have never “boycott[ed] Israel,” that they have not entered contracts that “boycott certain energy companies,” or have contracted with companies that “discriminate against firearm and ammunition industries.”
The new terms by which consultants, including authors, must agree fly in the face of that anti-discriminatory statement. You can read the contract in full here, but the part of most concern–something unseen in any other agreements by authors so far across the country, even amid ongoing censorship of so-called “DEI” topics–is this:
“Equal Treatment of All Persons” requires that any consultant discuss race in a “neutral” manner. One race cannot be “elevat[ed]” over another, and any discussions of “diversity, equity and inclusion, critical race theory, affirmative action, or other similar, divisive agendas” are banned. Despite ESC 1’s own letterhead noting that they do not discriminate on any federally protected classes of people, this contract requires that consultants have not participated in such non-discrimination. Letter d notes that those who work for the contractor were selected “solely on merit and the ability to perform.”
This contract strips authors and other consultants of the right to be who they are and to talk about what their expertise is if it’s not based on white supremacy. It leaves open to interpretation which divisive concepts could be, especially given its demands for neutrality and against elevating one race over another. Can slavery be discussed in historical reality, or must it be presented in the way that for-profit companies like PragerU explain it, as a “good thing” for Black people? Can an author whose book is about an Asian American hero talk about their book, or must it be discussed only in the context of other similar books that feature white American heroes?
The second clause, “Biological Sex and No Preferred Pronouns,” blatantly denies people their humanity, and it immediately dismisses any potential contractor who doesn’t identify within the rigid biological binary. But taking this a step further, the contract makes it seem as though anyone even having pronouns in their signature–whether or not those pronouns “differ” from the person’s assigned sex at birth–violates the contract. It’s a wild clause for its cruel discrimination, its complete dismissal of factual science, and its demands that any potential contractor bow to the demands of the paperwork across their life for the duration of the contract itself.
But this clause doesn’t just apply to the consultant. It applies to their entire team. This is gross overreach and an impossible, implausible, authoritarian wielding of power of one institution over whole swaths of people.
Of course, no one has to sign such a contract, and it’s likely many authors will refuse. But that’s the point. It is meant to further marginalize already marginalized people, and it’s intended to deny young people, educators, and other professionals the opportunity to discover and learn from a wide array of people. America–and indeed Texas itself, particularly in the Rio Grande Valley–is incredibly diverse. Contracts like this silence those voices and perspectives, propping up an imaginary idea of who the “ideal” American is.
That the ESC proclaims they do not discriminate in one breath and follow it up with discriminatory contract terms to which those who don’t work for ESC 1 must uphold is bold.
As of writing, ESC 1 appears to be the only such service center requiring this new contract. Member schools don’t require the use of such agreements, and so far, there have been no reports of such contractual obligations in Texas or elsewhere. But language like this is here, and this won’t be the endpoint. As more and more states bow to far-right extremism, so, too, will more institutions further cause direct harm to the vast majority of consultants. This minority is itself the American majority.
Book bans have already harmed authors, and even early in the rise of censorship in the 2020s, authors sounded the alarm about losing significant income from the winnowing of school visit opportunities. It’s queer and BIPOC authors who have already been the most targeted, and those same necessary voices are now those subject to dehumanizing contracts such as these.
And as always, it’s the tens of thousands of kids who lose out on experiences that will stay with them for the rest of their lives. It’s the tens of thousands of kids whose own lives and experiences would be shaped through exposure to a rich array of special guests during their school years.
The only way that the regime can continue, though, is by denying young people their education. In Texas, that’s made starker through the state’s history of gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement that keeps a minority political group with undue, unrepresentative power over its diverse patchwork of residents.
