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Judge Allows Drag Show at Texas A&M Despite the University's Ban
Geoff Mulvihill READ TIME: 2 MIN.
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.
