Judge allows drag show at Texas A&M despite the university's ban

A drag show scheduled for this week at Texas A&M University can go on as 
scheduled despite a Board of Regents ban on such performances, a federal 
judge ruled Monday.

The ruling from Houston-based U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal blocked a 
university ban on drag performances on free speech grounds.

“To ban the performance from taking place on campus because it offends 
some members of the campus community is precisely what the First Amendment 
prohibits,” Rosenthal, who was nominated to the bench by the late 
President George H.W. Bush, said in her opinion.

The ruling blocks the ban while the broader legal case over it moves 
forward. The decision echoes others in recent years from the U.S. Supreme 
Court, which refused to let Florida enforce a statewide ban, and district 
courts in a Montana, Tennessee and Texas.

Texas A&M has become a flashpoint in the most recent chapter of the legal 
battle.

Two years ago, the president of West Texas A&M in Canyon, said a drag show 
scheduled for that campus could not move ahead. In response to a legal 
challenge, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk said the university could 
block the show, finding it contained “sexualized content” and could be 
more regulated than other forms of speech.

The U.S. Supreme Court last year declined to take the case when the 
student group behind it appealed.

This time around, the backdrop is different. The Board of Regents passed a 
policy banning drag shows across the university system on Feb. 28, after 
tickets had already been sold to the “Draggieland” show on the flagship 
campus in College Station. The show has been an annual event there since 
2020.


In the first two years, the university supported it financially. But in 
recent years, the student group Texas A&M Queer Empowerment Council has 
been responsible for all the funding.

The university argued that allowing the show could jeopardize federal 
funding for the university in light of President Donald Trump’s executive 
order barring federal money to support what he calls “ gender ideology.” 
It noted how funds were cut off from Columbia University.

The judge decided that allowing the event does not imply that the 
university endorses it. By allowing it, she said, the university could 
comply with the “constitutional obligation to allow different messages and 
viewpoints, including those viewed as offensive to some, to be expressed 
at a university that is committed to critical thought about a wide range 
of conflicting and divergent viewpoints and ideologies.”

A university spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for 
comment.

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