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

In <[email protected]> wartsniffer wrote:
>
> 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.
>
> https://apnews.com/article/texas-university-am-drag-show-ban-judge-
> bf4ccaaf112b41602b6a5c0a6f011bc5

Send the judge and the queers on a vacation trip to El Salvador.