West Texas A&M president Walter Wendler made a big song and dance over banning a drag show at the publicly-funded college he runs, boasting that he didn't care if this broke the "law of the land". Now comes the "finding out" stage of that process, courtesy of the free-speech warriors at FIRE:
[We] sued West Texas A&M University President Walter Wendler for violating college students' First Amendment right to hold an on-campus charity drag show to raise money for suicide prevention in the LGBTQ community. The lawsuit seeks to stop Wendler's unlawful attempt to censor students and obtain damages for violating our clients' clearly established First Amendment rights.
As the head of public university, Wendler is barred by the First Amendment from censoring an event simply because he disagrees with its content. But Wendler wrote a letter to the student body announcing that he was canceling the drag show based on his belief that it was "demeaning" and "divisive." Remarkably, Wendler himself acknowledged that "the law of the land appears to require" that the university allow the drag show to move forward.
We agree; the law of the land DOES require it. Now FIRE is taking him to court to make sure that happens.
