University of Texas System bans drag shows in campus facilities

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The University of Texas System announced Tuesday its universities are banned from sponsoring drag shows or hosting them in their facilities, a few weeks after the Texas A&M System’s board of regents approved a similar ban.

“If the board of regents needs to take further action to make this clear, we will do so,” UT System Board of Regents Chair Kevin Eltife said in a statement on Tuesday, adding that this is a measure “to comply with all applicable federal, state and local laws and executive orders, including any restriction on the use of public funds.”

Eltife declined to say what specific laws they were seeking to comply with, but the move appears to be in response to recent executive orders issued by President Donald J. Trump and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.

In January, Trump signed an executive order directing federal agencies to take all necessary steps to ensure funds are not used to promote gender ideology. A few days later, Abbott directed state agencies to reject efforts “to distort commonsense notions of biological sex.”

Texas A&M University System Board of Regents cited these executive orders when it passed its own drag show ban last month. According to the resolution regents adopted, an event is considered a drag show when it meets five criteria: It involves men dressed in women’s clothing; the performers wear makeup and/or prosthetics “meant to parody the female body type”; the event is open to the public; it involves “sexualized, vulgar or lewd conduct”; and it involves “conduct that demeans women.”

The UT System on Tuesday did not define what it considered a prohibited drag show.

The A&M System was recently sued by the Queer Empowerment Council, a student group at the College Station flagship that organizes Draggieland, an annual drag show that was slated to take place at the Rudder Theatre on March 27.

“Texas A&M can’t banish student-funded, student-organized drag performances from campus simply because they offend administrators. If drag offends you, don’t buy a ticket,” said Adam Steinbaugh, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, a national free speech group representing the students in this case.

Judge Lee H. Rosenthal heard arguments Tuesday morning in federal court in Houston on whether to block the ban temporarily. It’s unclear when she’ll make a decision.

Texas A&M has argued in court documents that drag is not expressive speech protected under the First Amendment.

The system has also suggested it might lose funding if it disregards federal and state guidance and allows Draggieland to proceed in the campus theater. It said this fiscal year, federal appropriations made up 12% of its budget; federal contracts and grants 16%; and tuition and fees, some of which come from federally-backed student loans, 25%.

Texas A&M, which is being defended by the Texas Attorney General’s Office, also took issue with the characterization that the system has banned on-campus drag shows. It described the Rudder Theatre as a limited public forum and pointed out that students were allowed to dress in drag to protest the board’s decision on campus a few days later.

The UT System’s drag show ban comes a few days after Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare urged the board of regents to follow in A&M’s footsteps.

O’Hare, who graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a bachelor of business administration in finance in 1991, pointed out that UT-Arlington recently hosted an event that featured a drag performer. KERA reported that the event O’Hare was likely referring to was not funded by the university, but a student group. That is also the case with Draggieland at Texas A&M University in College Station.

The UT System consists of 14 institutions that educate more than 256,000 students.

The UT System Board of Regents’ next meeting is scheduled for May 7-8, but it can call a special meeting before that time.

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University System, University of Texas at Austin and University of Texas System have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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