UT President Jay Hartzell backs ‘downright immoral’ initiatives, has to make changes, alum says
Louis Bonham, a lawyer and University of Texas at Austin alum, wrote an open letter to his alma mater’s president, Jay Hartzell, calling him out for adopting a “woke agenda.”
In the letter published by Legal Insurrection, Bonham stated that the school has been “repeatedly warned that things like its woke speech codes and DEI Faculty Initiative (both of which were the hobbyhorses of certain radical faculty members) were illegal, poor policy, downright immoral, and likely would eventually result in blowback (including from the Texas Legislature).”
He also condemned Hartzell for doing “absolutely nothing in response to the Law School’s preemptive surrender to campus activists when it imposed ideological handcuffs on its new Law and Religion Clinic…”
Bonham also wrote:
Most significantly, you aggressively backed the cornerstone of the Fenves DEI edifice, UT’s DEI Faculty Initiative. When a draft of this radical program was leaked, you initially downplayed concerns about it that were voiced by the National Association of Scholars and the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE).
Then, when it was too late in the session for the Texas Legislature to do anything in response, you adopted it. Afterwards, when a UT faculty member publicly warned you that experts had opined that this program was likely illegal, you smirked and quite literally laughed at that possibility (as shown on this video at the 45:45 mark).
I daresay you are not laughing now.
Further, he stated that the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit has severely criticized UT’s speech codes and that the school received the lowest ranking for free speech in a Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression study.
“UT’s DEI programs and your full-throated endorsement of the woke agenda were a big part of why the Texas Legislature passed SB17 in the last legislative session, which on paper required UT to dismantle its DEI programs,” he stated.
He warned Hartzell that the school will have to make changes “with the re-election of President Trump” as “UT can no longer to rely on its traditional protectors in the Texas House of Representatives.”
MORE: UT-Austin defunds all DEI programs, reportedly fires 60 DEI employees
IMAGE: UT Austin Research/Youtube
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