On Wednesday, a group of students at Texas University asked the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in a campus ban on drag shows, alleging that the school's president infringed on their First Amendment rights.
The school's president described the shows as "derisive, divisive and demoralizing."
Texas Students Seek Help From Supreme Court
West Texas A&M University's LGBT+ student organization, Spectrum WT, and two of its leaders claimed that the public university's president, Dr. Walter Wendler, committed viewpoint-based discrimination when he abruptly called off the group's scheduled charity drag show event last year.
The plaintiffs, represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said Dr. Wendler withheld the event just 11 days before it was scheduled on campus by citing his opinion about drag shows.
Dr. Wendler criticized drag shows in a 700-word mail and claimed that they stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes.
The students are now pleading with Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to stop the ban immediately so that they can organize the event on campus on March 22. They also requested that public college and university authorities be prohibited from censoring comments based on personal opinion.
According to the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the First Amendment's promise of neutrality is at its zenith at America's public colleges and universities, where students must always remain free to inquire, study, and evaluate to gain new maturity and understanding. Otherwise, their civilization will stagnate and die.
The case is brought up during increased political unrest on college campuses nationwide. Due to the contemporary environment, schools at all levels, from primary to tertiary, have had to discuss or establish policies regarding social issues in recent years.
Furthermore, there is increasing pressure on schools to reduce the amount of time they spend teaching or discussing issues related to gender, sexual orientation, and race. Diversity and inclusion initiatives at higher education institutions are under pressure to stop or cease, and a case against affirmative action just reached the Supreme Court.
Conservatives are increasingly endorsing anti-drag rhetoric and laws. Last year, Florida attempted in vain to pass legislation prohibiting minors from attending shows, in part due to an unproven accusation that drag shows indoctrinate children.
Last year, Texas also declared a similar law to be unconstitutional.
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Discrimination on Drag Shows At Texas University
Spectrum WT and its students said that they enacted policies before hosting it to make their drag show less controversial, including telling performers not to wear profane clothing or engage in "lewd" behavior, preventing minors under the age of 13 from attending, and making the show appropriate for adults only.
However, Dr. Wendler insisted that putting together a "harmless" drag show was impossible and that drag shows were biased against women.
Though the students held the event off-campus, the students filed a lawsuit in district court. The court refused to halt the ban, saying they had not established that all drag shows are inherently expressive.
The appeals court agreed to hear oral arguments starting on April 29, but it refused to expedite the case despite the students' submitted an appeal to the Fifth Circuit.
