Gov. Greg Abbott’s order ‘hardening state government’ against China is dangerously hard to parse

This week, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an executive order to protect “critical infrastructure, intellectual property, and personal information” from “hostile foreign nations.” It commands state agencies, including Texas’s public universities, to “harden state systems” against the Chinese government. 

The wording of the order is unclear and open to interpretation that would be deeply damaging to free speech and academic freedom in the state of Texas. It warns:

No personnel of a state agency controlled by gubernatorially appointed heads, or of public institutions of higher education, shall accept any gift, regardless of value, from an entity associated with or travel to, for professional purposes, a country on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s foreign adversaries list under 15 C.F.R. § 791.4 All agencies and public institutions of public higher education affected by this order shall include this prohibition in their ethics policies and create a mechanism by which their employees can report being approached by groups representing these countries, that offer gifts or travel, or alleged violations of this ethics policy.

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