A&M botches hiring of Aggie grad to lead Journalism department because she’s black, leads to President resignation.

[Js1 85162]

29 minutes ago, Deej said:

So, have they decided who the next Grand Dragon of their journalism school will be?

Tucker Carlson 

[tx 3 putt 76590]

Aggie is upset !!!!!

 

[RDCanecutter 26347]

If he didn't pronounce it "Gummint Job" then he's a Yankih Spy.

[Deej 76641]

11 minutes ago, tx 3 putt said:

Aggie is upset !!!!!

 

Probably should demand answers on why Jimbo has a fully guaranteed contract with no buyout.

[tx 3 putt 76590]

26 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

If he didn't pronounce it "Gummint Job" then he's a Yankih Spy.

The fact she’s still employed at UT 

 

[atomheartbevo 89503]

1 hour ago, Deej said:

Probably should demand answers on why Jimbo has a fully guaranteed contract with no buyout.

Hey look, you know how hard it is to rack up a 39-21 record on $7-$9 million a year for the last 5 years?

[Deej 76641]

1 minute ago, atomheartbevo said:

Hey look, you know how hard it is to rack up a 39-21 record on $7-$9 million a year for the last 5 years?

Seems like it would be pretty easy. 

[Gil Bang 25903]

1 hour ago, tx 3 putt said:

Aggie is upset !!!!!

 

But Sumlin's buyout? 

[Pancho 44591]

 

[Pam Cummings 9603]

The far right and aggie are one and the same, any semi-intelligent person has known this for a long time.

Edited August 5, 2023 by Pam Cummings

[Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand 13557]

We don't want a department that will teach students how to accurately report on current events. The department's goal is to produce conservatives. 

Edited August 5, 2023 by Al Bundy's Napoleon Hand

[Chopper 17174]

We don't want a University that will teach students independent critical thinking skills. The University's goal is indoctrination.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

We don’t want the best degree plans to serve the public goal of a highly educated population. We need people to make me feel better about my way of thinking. 

[Scheiss Meister 8406]

I hear and read folks criticizing quality college education all the time, saying "I send my kids to college for education, not indoctrination!"  Bullshit.  They want only indoctrination, without education.  Especially at aggy.

[RDCanecutter 26347]

As a former college language professor, I was always happy if the drunk little fucks could show up a majority of the time and conjugate a verb. I wanted to indoctrinate them all as well, but was lazy and didn't get around to it.

Fortunately the experience of meeting all sorts of fellow students who may have been different from themselves seemed to round them out a little before they went back to McMansion Acres for Thanksgiving.

A&M was the strangest job I ever had, I would never have worked there except I failed to perform any recon. Thujones does not exaggerate the yokeldom of the place. One day in the language building I encountered an old guy, decked out in Aggy shit including straw hat, chip on his shoulder, he told me he was there because his niece or granddaughter or whoever told him she had professors from foreign countries, and he was a-aimin to fix that by talkin with the high-ups. It was like a deleted scene from O Brother Where Art Thou.

I told him that that was bad, for sure, and I didn't know about other departments but we were Foreign Languages, so we sorta kinda had to hire the occasional foreigner.

"Chinese?" he said.

No sir I don't think we have any Chinese but we do have several Mexicans and at least one Frenchwoman but she's OK.

"Well I heard it was Chinese."

Well sir there probably are some, I bet if you poke around campus some more you'll find them.

"I'm here to get to the bottom of it."

Yes sir. /Then I went off to drink myself into a stupor which is how I dealt with counting the days in BCS.

[Steel Shank 9417]

Sharp clears things up for us:

Message from Chancellor John Sharp For those of you who know me, you can understand how I was biting my tongue to keep from responding personally during the recent avalanche of negative media coverage. I chose to wait, however, for the conclusion of a thorough investigation into the attempted hiring of Dr. Kathleen McElroy and the controversy surrounding Dr. Joy Alonzo. You can read the report (www.tamus.edu/internal-review) for yourself and view the evidence that supports the investigation’s narrative. It isn’t always pretty, but it helps explain what really happened. We surely learned of some bad decision-making to which almost no one was privy at the time. Regarding the events in Dr. McElroy’s hiring process, it is difficult to recognize the alma mater I dearly love and to which I owe so much. Texas A&M is far better than this! A few, however, forgot our Core Values. It is time to come together, put our house back in order, and vow to never let this happen again. We all must rededicate ourselves to the Aggie values that define us and bind us. To begin with, I want to apologize publicly to Dr. McElroy and fervently hope we can eventually heal with our mutual love for Texas A&M. To Dr. Alonzo, I am sorry her name was bandied about in the news media four months after the university had cleared her of allegations she had criticized Lt. Governor Dan Patrick in a manner that at least one student found offensive. The report also corrects the false narrative that I ordered an investigation into Dr. Alonzo and am not a champion of academic freedom because I took one brief, non-threatening phone call from the lieutenant governor. The truth is, the university put her on paid leave while it investigated with no initiation or interference from me. Further, Dr. Joy Alonzo says she has no issue with how the university handled her case. Bottom line, Texas A&M investigated when the University of Texas Medical Branch, where Dr. Alonzo was appearing as a guest lecturer, issued a public statement censuring Dr. Alonzo without providing any evidence, it turned out, and unfortunately still hasn’t retracted that censure. What else would you have the university do but check it out? As for academic freedom, faculty members across the state were terrified this spring that the Legislature would follow up on calls to eliminate tenure, the bedrock of academic freedom. Instead, today the tenure policy of Texas A&M is codified in state law because we persuaded state officials our policy works both for academic freedom and accountability. Finally, it has been suggested to me in the media that I let calls from state officials go to voicemail. I assume that silly suggestion was meant as a clever turn of a phrase, but I always found when you stop taking people’s calls, then they cease answering yours. And that would be bad for the alma mater I love so much – especially after the last legislative session was the best we ever had.

[Parliament 14156]

That's a texbook Johnny Manziel apology right there.  Bravo.

[Beau Vine 54053]

Holy shit, what a cunt!  She was perfect for aggy:

Quote

McElroy decided to stay at UT-Austin and reached out to the Tribune. Text messages show Bermúdez alerted Banks that the Tribune reached out for comment about the botched negotiations.

“Ok,” Banks responded. “I assume all text messages were deleted.”

The day the Tribune’s initial story published, text messages show Banks and Bermúdez expressed anger that McElroy shared her story with the media.

“I think we dodged a bullet. She is a awful person to go to the press before us,” Banks said. “We will learn from this and move on ... Just think if she had accepted!!! Ugh.”

 

[miguelito 11225]

"a awful"

😠

[Brisketexan 104787]

Sharp clears things up for us:
Message from Chancellor John Sharp For those of you who know me, you can understand how I was biting my tongue to keep from responding personally during the recent avalanche of negative media coverage. I chose to wait, however, for the conclusion of a thorough investigation into the attempted hiring of Dr. Kathleen McElroy and the controversy surrounding Dr. Joy Alonzo. You can read the report (www.tamus.edu/internal-review) for yourself and view the evidence that supports the investigation’s narrative. It isn’t always pretty, but it helps explain what really happened. We surely learned of some bad decision-making to which almost no one was privy at the time. Regarding the events in Dr. McElroy’s hiring process, it is difficult to recognize the alma mater I dearly love and to which I owe so much. Texas A&M is far better than this! A few, however, forgot our Core Values. It is time to come together, put our house back in order, and vow to never let this happen again. We all must rededicate ourselves to the Aggie values that define us and bind us. To begin with, I want to apologize publicly to Dr. McElroy and fervently hope we can eventually heal with our mutual love for Texas A&M. To Dr. Alonzo, I am sorry her name was bandied about in the news media four months after the university had cleared her of allegations she had criticized Lt. Governor Dan Patrick in a manner that at least one student found offensive. The report also corrects the false narrative that I ordered an investigation into Dr. Alonzo and am not a champion of academic freedom because I took one brief, non-threatening phone call from the lieutenant governor. The truth is, the university put her on paid leave while it investigated with no initiation or interference from me. Further, Dr. Joy Alonzo says she has no issue with how the university handled her case. Bottom line, Texas A&M investigated when the University of Texas Medical Branch, where Dr. Alonzo was appearing as a guest lecturer, issued a public statement censuring Dr. Alonzo without providing any evidence, it turned out, and unfortunately still hasn’t retracted that censure. What else would you have the university do but check it out? As for academic freedom, faculty members across the state were terrified this spring that the Legislature would follow up on calls to eliminate tenure, the bedrock of academic freedom. Instead, today the tenure policy of Texas A&M is codified in state law because we persuaded state officials our policy works both for academic freedom and accountability. Finally, it has been suggested to me in the media that I let calls from state officials go to voicemail. I assume that silly suggestion was meant as a clever turn of a phrase, but I always found when you stop taking people’s calls, then they cease answering yours. And that would be bad for the alma mater I love so much – especially after the last legislative session was the best we ever had.

You know what amuses me the most about these chucklefucks, and those who think like them? It’s how posting the unedited texts and emails of university officials - in other words, just posting what the ACTUALLY SAID - is “negative media coverage.”
Here’s a hint, you mouthbreathing jagoffs: if you don’t want people to publish photos of you with shit smeared all over your face, STOP SMEARING SHIT ALL OVER YOUR FACE.

[Js1 85162]

I was with some aggys last night who are so embarrassed by this stunt. One of them said she’s waiting for the annual donation call so she can tell them to fuck off. I suggested she make a donation to the UT school of journalism instead 

[SydneyCarton 47936]

On 8/4/2023 at 2:17 PM, 4th&Five said:

oh, he mad

 

By all means, please pull that thread. Let’s get some discovery. 

[Deej 76641]

Maybe she wouldn't be getting that million dollar "bonus" if your school wasn't run by a bunch of racist shitheads. 

[WBT 20488]

Quote

“While it is wonderful for a successful Aggie to want to come back to Texas A&M to be a tenured professor and build something this important from scratch, we must look at her résumé and her statements made an opinion pieces and public interviews,” regent Mike Hernandez wrote to Banks and system Chancellor John Sharp, expressing disappointment that the board learned of the hire after it had been announced.

“The New York Times is one of the leading main stream media sources in our country. It is common knowledge that they are biased and progressive leaning. The same exact thing can be said about the university of Texas,” he continued.

Lulz, this guy is a regent.

We can't hire that journalism lady.  She worked for the New Yuck Times and tu!

[TexasEd 8066]

On 8/5/2023 at 8:26 AM, Chopper said:

We don't want a University that will teach students independent critical thinking skills. The University's goal is indoctrination.

 

On 8/5/2023 at 10:02 AM, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

We don’t want the best degree plans to serve the public goal of a highly educated population. We need people to make me feel better about my way of thinking. 

 

On 8/5/2023 at 12:32 PM, Scheiss Meister said:

I hear and read folks criticizing quality college education all the time, saying "I send my kids to college for education, not indoctrination!"  Bullshit.  They want only indoctrination, without education.  Especially at aggy.

Duh, we've known this for a long time and it was written up extensively after the 1999 bonfire collapse.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/the-culture/the-aggie-bonfire-tragedy/

Quote

Nor has the stack site been free of incidents. In 1996 no fewer than three Aggies fell off the stack at different times. One hit four levels on his way to the ground, suffering head and internal injuries; the toll of the other two victims included a concussion, a broken foot, and a broken wrist. In 1998, campus police found a keg of beer in a shed near the stack. They also found an intoxicated student unconscious and vomiting — a life-threatening situation — who was not being tended to by anyone. That same year, the A&M administration received a letter from a graduate who came to town to watch Bonfire burn. He was appalled to see a member of the Corps of Cadets sporting this slogan on his helmet: “If I knew niggers were this much trouble, I’d have picked my own God damn cotton.”

The problem with Bonfire is that it is red-ass (sometimes abbreviated as RA) culture run amok. The administration has never known quite what to do about it; it needs RA Aggies to uphold the school’s uniqueness and guard its traditions, but it doesn’t need drinking, hazing, racism, and strippers, and it has never figured out how to get one without the other. The redpot traditions exemplify RA culture. One is that no woman may set foot in a certain area of the stack site unless she has slept with a redpot; an Aggie who described herself as weighing 95 pounds wrote a letter to the student newspaper two years ago protesting that a redpot had shoved her when she breached the boundary to avoid a mud puddle. A wide-ranging witness statement given by a female member of the corps told how each group of redpots fills a jar with ejaculate and sets it atop the stack to burn. “The other education,” which works so well in service areas like student government, doesn’t always work so well with redpots. In 1993 a redpot was cited for bringing 53 beers to the stack site after midnight. Redpots had to know about the keg that the police found in 1996; their job is to know everything. Redpots knew that a stripper was going to be smuggled into the cut site in 1997 and didn’t stop it. Redpots exceeded the height limit for the 1999 Bonfire. This is not the leadership that the other education has in mind.

Or in the bonfire commission report

https://csel.eng.ohio-state.edu/productions/pexis/readings/submod3/TAMUbonfire.pdf

Quote

For Bonfire, the University’s
role was to ensure that controls were in place so that if and when a failure
occurred, the results would be non-consequential. But as Bonfire has
grown in this complexity, the design and construction controls have
remained the same.
¶ The University does not have a proactive risk management approach
for student organizations. As a result, behavioral and safety problems
never prompted past or present administrations to reassess Bonfire
more broadly, perhaps, missing an opportunity to correct Bonfire
design problems.
¶ The University has a culture that instills bias and tunnel vision in
decision making. No credible source ever suspected or thought to
inquire about structural safety. No one in the administration ever
interpreted ongoing behavioral problems as indications that safe
Bonfire design and construction was beyond the capabilities of student
leaders.
¶ There was no appropriate design for Bonfire. Instead, important design
details were communicated through an oral tradition. As a result,
Bonfire was never built the same way twice, even though the accepted
basis for safe design was “we have always done it this way, and it has
always worked.” Thus, changes made in the absence of a sound
engineering construct reduced critical margins of structural safety.
¶ Student leaders were the sole design authority for the Bonfire structure.
Yet they were not structural engineers and thus did not have the
knowledge or skills necessary to identify and correct structural
deficiencies of the type that caused the 1999 collapse.

 

[TexasEd 8066]

calling this out:

Quote

appalled to see a member of the Corps of Cadets sporting this slogan on his helmet: “If I knew ni**ers were this much trouble, I’d have picked my own God damn cotton.”

Banks probably identifies.

Edited August 7, 2023 by TexasEd

[956 Worldwide 34518]

As y’all know, I’m an Aggie. This shit is about the most embarrassed I’ve been of the place, with the shit involving the pharmacy professor and the Lt.Gov up there as well. 
 

What gets me about this is these conservatives playing social engineering like they accuse liberals of doing and wrecking a place they claim to love based on it. 
 

I was there during the Gates and the immediate post-Gates era and we were making real progress in areas to become something more than just an engineering mill. He had the stature and chops to do what was good for the school and fight back against the political and alum nonsense, the BoR never made the same mistake in hiring someone that good and smart again. 
 

I’ve also noticed an uptick on bullshit since the death of 41. Having a living ex-President interested in the place and active really was a benefit. No one wanted a call from GHWB’s office to “ask” about embarrassing bullshit and of course he was behind Gates 100 percent. 

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

Yeah GHWB and Gates were pretty clearly two of A&Ms finest.  

[Dnaguy 11805]

Not to CR this thread up and all but..... 

 

The Aggie Bonfire Tragedy – Texas Monthly

 

Quote

Student body president Will Hurd, 22, is an example of why the other education means so much at Texas A&M. “It got me here,” he says. “I was planning to go to Stanford. I wanted to go there, and I had a lot of financial aid. Then my high school counselor in San Antonio said I should apply to A&M. I came up here and saw the opportunities to develop as a whole person.” Very lean, with a long, narrow face, Hurd is an imposing figure in his black slacks, white dress shirt, solid yellow tie, boots, and suspenders. Just the way he sits in a chair communicates gravitas; he seems to be propping up its back instead of the other way around. A placard in his windowless office reads “People don’t come to A&M to become Aggies . . . They come to perfect the Aggie that is already within them.”

 

 

How did I never know the current candidate for President Will Hurd was the Aggie student body President during the bonfire tragedy?!

[Deej 76641]

I'd sue the high school counselor who convinced him to pass on Stanford in favor of aggy. 

[bonnieblue 542]

10 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

Not to CR this thread up and all but..... 

 

The Aggie Bonfire Tragedy – Texas Monthly

 

 

How did I never know the current candidate for President Will Hurd was the Aggie student body President during the bonfire tragedy?!

He also definitely did not attend TAMu for the great vibes… he got a full a scholly + stipend from a private scholarship organization.

[Deej 76641]

3 minutes ago, bonnieblue said:

He also definitely did not attend TAMu for the great vibes… he got a full a scholly + stipend from a private scholarship organization.

The best $300 anyone ever gave him. 

[Beau Vine 54053]

18 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

A placard in his windowless office reads “People don’t come to A&M to become Aggies . . . They come to perfect the Aggie that is already within them.”

[RDCanecutter 26347]

If I had Aggy inside of me I would ask for a referral to a thoracic surgeon.

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

38 minutes ago, Dnaguy said:

A placard in his windowless office reads “People don’t come to A&M to become Aggies . . . They come to perfect the Aggie that is already within them.”

 

[Deej 76641]

21 minutes ago, Beau Vine said:

How many aggy have been in him? Did he perfect them all?

Edited August 7, 2023 by Deej

[956 Worldwide 34518]

And of course, in addition to the actual shitheel behavior, it’s so on brand for us to pull this Mickey Mouse bullshit with a JOURNALIST WHO CAN GET HER SIDE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES with a phone call. 

[Deej 76641]

They fucked up by not making her go to fish camp first. You would think they would know they have to complete the brainwashing before anything else. 

[Horn Dog 9701]

35 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

If I had Aggy inside of me I would ask for a referral to a thoracic surgeon.

[WBT 20488]

27 minutes ago, 956 Worldwide said:

And of course, in addition to the actual shitheel behavior, it’s so on brand for us to pull this Mickey Mouse bullshit with a JOURNALIST WHO CAN GET HER SIDE IN THE NEW YORK TIMES with a phone call. 

Something something ink by the barrel

[Deej 76641]

"Why is everyone up in arms? The woman was uppity."

- aggy

[BehoId, The Underminer! 11668]

our embarrassing extended family making the front page of wapo 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2023/09/05/texas-am-university-diversity-sb17/

Quote

 

 

 

Behind the lines of Texas A&M’s diversity war

A controversy over a Black professor’s hire inflamed campus tensions. A DEI ban could escalate the conflict.

By Jack Stripling

September 6, 2023 at 6:00 a.m. EDT

COLLEGE STATION, Tex. — The July email to Texas A&M University instructors caught many by surprise.

The university would drop a required lesson on “respect & inclusion” from a semester-long program open to all first-year students, according to the email. This was necessary, an official wrote, in light of a new state law that bans, in part, mandatory diversity training. In its place, A&M would add a lesson on mental health.

 

 

The email from the university’s first-year experience office was met with faculty pushback. Within hours, A&M walked back its directive; a vice provost called it “premature” as officials sought more legal guidance about the law. Weeks later, A&M sent another message, confirming that, after all, the university would nix the lesson as a requirement for the curriculum known as “Hullabaloo U.”

 

Confusion over the fate of a single lesson reflects broader anxiety among many faculty and students about what the new Texas law banning activities related to diversity, equity and inclusion — commonly abbreviated as DEI — will mean for what is taught, who is hired and how universities support students. The closure of campus DEI offices in the state, a central feature of the measure, is already underway. At least one school has also shuttered an LGBTQ resource center.

And despite assurance that the restrictions won’t infringe on the classroom, some faculty say they remain concerned about what may be on the horizon. Those fears are particularly acute at A&M, where the hiring of a new journalism director went off the rails this summer amid political concerns about her past work on diversity issues.

“People are fumbling and afraid about what it means for their classes,” said Tracy Hammond, speaker of the Faculty Senate. “Potentially, the students are going to lose out. That’s my biggest fear.”

The tensions in Texas come as the tools many colleges have historically used to improve diversity are increasingly verboten. The Supreme Court this summer struck down race-based affirmative action, and lawmakers in several states such as Florida are targeting programs and practices related to DEI. Across college campuses, professors are hearing the message that work related to diversity could invite political or legal backlash.

“What happens in a state like Texas impacts schools all around the country, even if indirectly,” said Jeremy Young, a program director at PEN America, a nonprofit group that advocates free expression. “It creates a climate of fear, even in states that aren’t interested in passing laws like this.”

 

‘Part of A&M died’

The dismantling of DEI now underway at Texas A&M presents a sharp contrast from 2½ years ago when the regents who oversee the university pledged it would be “a leader” in “advancing opportunities for all Texans.”

Like many universities, the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police in 2020 prompted A&M to do some soul-searching about its own traditions. Who was being left out, the university asked? How might the experiences of Black students, who comprise just 3 percent of the student body, differ from those of their White counterparts? And what could A&M do to recruit more diverse faculty?

In a pledge of its commitment to these issues, the university’s Board of Regents agreed to spend $24.75 million to “enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion.”

Today, however, several DEI-related programs have either been shut down or are being phased out. The diversity office, which must be shuttered by Jan. 1 in accordance with the new law, closed Friday. A cabinet-level diversity position has been eliminated. A recruitment program designed to attract early-career faculty with a demonstrated scholarly focus on DEI won’t continue after this fall.

This much is known. But university officials say that they are still awaiting legal guidance on which other initiatives will need to be scrapped as a result of the new law that began as Senate Bill 17. The university system’s lawyers are conducting an audit of all activities that might run afoul of the restrictions. (In response to a public records request from The Washington Post, the campus said Tuesday it would withhold records of its response to the audit, citing an exemption for “confidential information.”)

Senate Bill 17 specifically exempts research and teaching, but professors engaged in diversity-related scholarship say they are particularly concerned. Many people at the university say they fear they’ll be politically targeted for even talking about diversity issues. More than 40 people involved in diversity work at Texas A&M either did not respond to interview requests from The Post, declined to speak, or would only talk on background.

There is a pervasive sense that outside influence — either from politicians or conservative alums — is interfering with the work of the university and threatening academic freedom. Those fears were heightened in July, when the Texas Tribune reported that Kathleen McElroy, a tenured professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, had turned down an offer to lead A&M’s journalism program. The university, which had initially offered McElroy a tenured role — contingent upon the regents’ approval — had reduced its offer to a one-year contract amid a conservative backlash. McElroy, an African American alum of A&M and a former New York Times editor, said she was told that “DEI hysteria” had complicated her appointment.

Also in July, the Tribune reported that the university had investigated and placed on leave Joy Alonzo, a clinical assistant professor of pharmacy, after someone complained that Alonzo had criticized the state’s lieutenant governor during a lecture about opioids. Alonzo’s leave, which lasted less than two weeks, was lifted in March, following a university investigation that “did not substantiate” that she had made “unprofessional or inappropriate comments.”

Coming on the heels of the McElroy debacle, the Alonzo revelations have felt like a gut punch to many faculty. At a recent Faculty Senate meeting, the speaker led her colleagues in “a moment of silence.” “For most of us,” Hammond told the group, “it feels like part of A&M died this month, and I think we need to properly mourn.”

New details about the McElroy case, revealed through now-public text messages that were sent between university officials, strike an ugly contrast with Texas A&M’s oft-cited core values of respect and integrity. Katherine Banks, who abruptly retired as president in the fallout of the controversy, didn’t appreciate McElroy going public as she did. In a text message to a colleague, Banks said McElroy was an “awful person to go to the press before us.” Banks added, “Just think if she had accepted!!! Ugh.”

 

The new Texas law has similarities with one recently passed in Florida, where public colleges are prohibited from spending state or federal money on DEI efforts.

In recent months, faculty at Texas A&M say they’ve observed what looks like the quiet erasure of anything diversity-related. A webpage for the university’s Department of Multicultural Services has been altered, removing from its description the words “belonging” and “inclusive,” archived pages show. In March, without explanation, the department postponed a conference on race.

Department employees did not respond to interview requests.

“This is how the censorship happens,” said Young, the PEN America program director. “It is very rarely enforced directly as a violation of the law. It’s everyone chasing their own tails, afraid that they might come into conflict with the law.”

Annie McGowan, who ran A&M’s office for diversity from 2020 until its recent closure, said she has seen firsthand the university’s efforts to censor politically sensitive content. In February, Texas A&M’s marketing and communications division informed McGowan that it had taken down a diversity office webpage that contained a glossary of DEI-related terms. The list included the term “Christian privilege,” which had captured the attention of Campus Reform, a conservative watchdog website.

In a statement provided to The Post, a Texas A&M spokesperson acknowledged the removal. “Under the direction of the former president,” the statement said, “there was a small-scale effort to remove some information, including a glossary of DEI terms.”

In recent weeks, McGowan wound down the diversity office. With the help of student workers, she moved her belongings from the administration building, where the president and other top campus officials work, to the business school, where McGowan remains a professor. She said she will continue to mentor students who need it.

“I don’t need an official title to do that,” McGowan said.

Of the 10 people who worked with McGowan, eight have found new positions or returned to faculty roles at A&M. Two have left for other universities, McGowan said.

“I work for Texas A&M University,” she said, “and they’re telling me that they don’t want this [DEI] work to be done.”

Idia Thurston, who until recently was an associate professor of psychology and public health at A&M, said she heard the same message from the university; so, she left.

Thurston joined the faculty at A&M in 2019. She was eager to be a part of a research cluster that brought together psychology faculty whose work is related to diversity. Over time, however, Thurston saw diversity-related programs die on the vine, including one she helped to develop that provided training on implicit bias in promotion and retention. The program was phased out last November, officials confirmed.

As the political rhetoric against DEI intensified in Texas over the past year, Thurston said she grew concerned that she might be restricted in her scholarship, which focuses in part on racial inequities and disparities in health care. The professor said she isn’t convinced that crackdowns on diversity research won’t happen, despite the law’s exemptions for that activity.

On Aug. 21, Thurston began in her new role as a professor and associate director of the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research at Northeastern University, a private institution in Boston. Researchers like herself won’t stay at A&M, she said. “We just won’t,” Thurston said. “It’s not worth it.”

 

Steeped in tradition

 

Texas A&M student Amanda Ratliff is majoring in electronic systems engineering technology. “I’m not Black; I’m maroon,” she said. (Mark Felix for The Washington Post)

Texas A&M did not open its doors to Black students and women until 1963. Six decades later, the university is wrestling with how best to support those it once excluded. For Amanda Ratliff, an African American student, the answer is complicated. Ratliff is a die-hard Aggie: “I’m not Black; I’m maroon,” she said on a recent afternoon, while hanging out in the student center. At the same time, Ratliff said, many Black students feel alienated from the university’s distinctive traditions.

The bright white uniforms of yell leaders, who are elected by the students and enjoy a vaunted status on campus, can feel reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan, Ratliff said. Activities like “pond hopping,” which is slang for taking a dip in a university fountain, can seem like the province of the White majority, she said. (Ratliff still partook in the tradition.) And forget about rushing a mostly White sorority, she said, where “the minority is the brunette.”

Ratliff, who is majoring in electronic systems engineering technology, said that having spaces and programs for underrepresented minorities has been critical to her A&M experience. Students didn’t tend to congregate in the now-defunct diversity office, Ratliff said, but its existence had sent a signal that the university cared about people like her. The division of multicultural services, which does not appear threatened by the new law, is a critical refuge for minority students, she added.

“I’m not escaping from White people by having DEI offices,” she said. Rather, Ratliff said, she is looking for a place where she can “be myself fully, 100 percent without fear of judgment.”

Some opponents of DEI argue that the programs, while widely embraced in higher education, haven’t delivered tangible results. That’s one area in which Leonard Bright, a professor of public administration at Texas A&M, finds agreement with the naysayers. Bright, who is African American, said he deplores much of the anti-DEI political rhetoric. At the same time, he said DEI programs have been used as a “smokescreen” for administrators, who really aren’t doing much about racial inequities on their campuses.

 

Leonard Bright, a professor of public administration at Texas A&M University, poses for a portrait in his office. (Mark Felix for The Washington Post)

Bright joined A&M’s faculty in 2011. Over the years, he said, he has clashed with some White colleagues who have made him feel less than accepted as a part of the team. He has fought — successfully — for pay equity increases. He is actively suing the university for employment discrimination in relation to a promotion dispute.

But Bright isn’t leaving, he told The Post during a recent interview in his office.

“Why am I here?” Bright said. “This is a great university. They don’t get to keep this to themselves. No one gets to keep this. This is a public institution.”

Texas A&M is an environment “that’s hostile to me,” he said. “But I’ve been tried and true. I’ve been through this fire. And I am going to stay here. I am going to do what I can to be a part of a real change, not superficial.”

 

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Texas A&M has agreed to pay McElroy $1 million as part of a legal settlement. Reeling from controversy, the university swiftly tapped as interim president Mark A. Welsh III, a retired four-star Air Force general who most recently served as dean of the university’s Bush School of Government and Public Service.

Citing the university’s internal review of the McElroy affair, Welsh told The Post that the case was about a flawed hiring process — not race. But Welsh knows what a lot of people think: “This was a Black professor who Texas A&M decided they didn’t want.”

“I don’t think that’s the full context of it,” Welsh said, “but I think that’s the message people heard.”

 

A ‘weaponized’ acronym

 

Texas A&M has tapped Mark A. Welsh III, a retired four-star Air Force general who most recently served as dean of the university’s Bush School of Government and Public Service, to be its interim president. (Mark Felix for The Washington Post)

By now, Welsh is used to questions that he says he can’t answer. Chief among them is how the university will operate under the state’s new DEI restrictions. Welsh has the same unsatisfying response: He is awaiting legal guidance.

While Welsh said he would not have supported SB 17 — “I don’t believe it’s beneficial to where we are trying to go long-range as a society” — he said that a lot of what the university does to promote diversity won’t change. A&M should have no trouble complying with the law’s prohibition of racial preferences in hiring or promotion, he said. And the law exempts recruitment, so universities can still market themselves to underrepresented minorities and first-generation students.

Critics, however, say that DEI offices amount to enforcers of ideological conformity, mandating that students and employees embrace a set of beliefs about systemic racism, among other things. Welsh said it is unfortunate that “We’ve essentially weaponized an acronym.”

 

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“I think the law was intended to just make sure that no particular group got the benefit of the doubt or preferential treatment from any other group,” Welsh said. “And we can do that. That just kind of makes common sense anyway.”

On the other hand, the law might force the university to make some interesting programmatic choices. Could A&M have a mentoring program that was exclusively for women in science or engineering? Possibly, Welsh said, “as long as it’s open to men who want to learn about women in faculty.”

DEI programs vary across higher education, but the general aim is to promote diversity across a broad set of categories, including race, gender, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation and physical ability. A DEI office might administer surveys to asses how different groups of people feel about a university. At A&M, the DEI office helped the university to gain recognition as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, a federal designation that requires the undergraduate student body to be at least 25 percent Hispanic and opens the door to more grants.

 

[Pig Bellmont 8697]

52 minutes ago, BehoId, The Underminer! said:

Welsh told The Post that the case was about a flawed hiring process — not race.

$1 million dollars you paid in a settlement says otherwise 

[YGIFS 19449]

Fucking aggies, the memo line on the cashier's check could literally say, "For race-based termination" and they'd still play it off as "flawed hiring process."

Though it could be appropriate since A&M probably has a degree program called "Flawed Processes" which describes the rationale behind almost everything they do to a fucking tee.  

[Homercles 10205]

It’s obviously easy here to rag on Aggie, and y’all certainly are free to dunk on the middling academic stature of my undergrad alum (Oklahoma State)…but back in 97 when I was shopping colleges, I was accepted into UT / OU / Tceh / Aggie and toured them all.  

As a bit of a band nerd, I was leaning A&M on reputation + as a USAF brat was intrigued by the corps.  All it took was one visit to see half the band didn’t even use mouthpieces and the corps was the saddest excuse for ‘military’ I had ever seen. 

Some of y’all jest at ‘chair force’ but an out of shape, 40 year old jNCO in finance who works 4 hours a day would better understand unit cohesion and leadership than those clowns I saw on the field in CS.  

…I chose osu as I wasn’t ready to live in a city (UT), nor on Tatooine (Tceh), OU guide just talked shit about OSU + they never answered the phone…but Aggie lost my money the first hour I was on campus.  

Edited September 6, 2023 by Homercles

[Armybrat 40759]

36 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Fucking aggies, the memo line on the cashier's check could literally say, "For race-based termination" and they'd still play it off as "flawed hiring process."

Though it could be appropriate since A&M probably has a degree program called "Flawed Processes" which describes the rationale behind almost everything they do to a fucking tee.  

Cue their engineering school.