FIRE slams decision as First Amendment violation
The Texas A&M System Board of Regents unanimously approved a resolution prohibiting drag shows at its 11 universities Friday, citing disrespect to women and “a hostile environment.”
The board stated that allowing drag shows at university event spaces goes against the Texas A&M System’s mission and values, especially its focus on respecting others, according to the resolution, which was included in an article by The Battalion.
These shows, which feature men wearing women’s clothes, heavy makeup, and exaggerated features to mock women’s bodies, “involve sexualized, vulgar, or lewd conduct, and involve conduct that demeans women,” the resolution states.
Further, the board found “that Drag Show Events are likely to create or contribute to a hostile environment for women contrary to System anti-discrimination policy and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX).”
“[T]hese events often involve unwelcome and objectively offensive conduct based on sex for many members of the respective communities of the Universities, particularly when they involve the mockery or objectification of women,” the resolution states.
It mandates University President Mark Welsh III to cancel Draggieland 2025, the yearly drag event put on by the Queer Empowerment Council on March 27 at College Station.
The university had previously ended “its sponsorship and funding of the event in 2022,” The Battalion reported.
Students have also hosted drag shows at the system’s Corpus Christi and East Texas Universities, The Texas Tribune reported.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression condemned the ban in a post on X, stating it violates free speech.
“The only thing hostile here is Texas A&M’s disregard for the First Amendment. Drag is protected expression. Full stop,” the group wrote.
“Whether drag or Bible study, public universities cannot ban or punish students’ protected expression. Banning speech because it might offend someone else is viewpoint discrimination, the third rail of the First Amendment,” FIRE wrote.
In 2023, University President Walter Wendler banned drag shows at West Texas A&M University, arguing that drag shows are “demeaning” to women and “demoralizing misogyny,” The College Fix previously reported.
The following year, the U.S. Supreme Court denied an emergency request from Spectrum WT, an LGBTQ student group at the school, to host a charity drag show on campus. The court’s decision upheld the university’s ban.
MORE: University hit with First Amendment lawsuit for canceling drag show
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