The university president said he won’t allow something as demeaning as ‘blackface’ performances on his campus.
A federal judge has ruled that West Texas A&M University (WT) did not violate students’ First Amendment rights when the institution’s president called off a drag show he deemed deeply offensive to women in a degree akin to blackface performances.
The canceled drag show was planned for March 31 on WT campus as a fundraiser for The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that describes itself as working to “end suicide among LGBTQ young people.” The event was open to children so long as they were with a parent or guardian.
The university’s president, Walter Wendler, canceled the event, explaining in a campus-wide email that while he was supportive of The Trevor Project’s mission, he described drag shows as “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny, no matter the stated intent.”
“Every human being is created in the image of God,” Mr. Wendler wrote in the lengthy letter explaining the reasoning behind his decision. “Being created in God’s image is the basis of Natural Law. James Madison and Thomas Jefferson, prisoners of the culture of their time as are we, declared the Creator’s origin as the foundational fiber in the fabric of our nation as they breathed life into it.”
“Does a drag show preserve a single thread of human dignity? I think not,” the letter continued. “As a performance exaggerating aspects of womanhood (sexuality, femininity, gender), drag shows stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others and discriminate against womanhood.
“Any event which diminishes an individual or group through such representation is wrong,” he declared.
Spectrum WT, the LGBTQ student club organizing the event, ended up moving the drag show off campus. The club shortly after sued the public university on the First Amendment ground, accusing WT administrators of engaging in “textbook viewpoint discrimination.”
“As a public official, [Mr. Wendler] cannot bar Spectrum WT and its members from exercising their First Amendment rights merely because he believes his personal opinions override the Constitution. They don’t,” read the complaint filed on behalf of the student group by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
By Bill Pan
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