Texas students urge Supreme Court to intervene in drag show ban

A group of Texas students have asked the US Supreme Court to intervene in a campus ban on drag shows, alleging that the school’s president is infringing on their First Amendment rights.

Spectrum WT, a student-led LGBT+ organisation at West Texas A&M University, as well as two of its student leaders, claim that the public university’s president Dr Walter Wendler engaged in viewpoint-based discrimination when he suddenly cancelled the group’s planned charity drag show event last year.

The plaintiffs, represented by Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, allege Dr Wendler invoked his “personal opinion” of drag shows to prevent them from putting on the event, just 11 days before it due to take place on campus.

Dr Wendler sent a 700-word email to the campus community barring drag shows because they “stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes” and “are deceive, divisive and demoralizing”, the students say.

Now, they’re asking Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to pause the ban immediately so that they can host the on-campus event this 22 March and to also limit public college and university officials from censoring expressions based on personal opinion.

“The First Amendment’s promise of neutrality is at its zenith at America’s public colleges and universities, where “students must always remain free to inquire, to study and to evaluate, to gain new maturity and understanding; otherwise our civilization will stagnate and die,'” the plaintiffs say in their lawsuit.