Editorial: WT president turns his back on free speech

Picture it. Clarendon College, 1991. A group of honor students is looking for a new way to raise money and have fun. The sponsor of the organization offers a suggestion: “I think you should have a beauty contest, but all the contestants are guys dressed as girls.” The sponsor slips out the door. The guys in the group are hesitant, but the girls in the group latch onto the idea and run with it. The Miss Bulldog contest was born, the group raised some decent money, and the event continued on and off for several years. It got a little risqué at one point, but no one got hurt, and I got a Second Runner-Up sash. (The winner was a bit of a tramp, but that’s another story.)

Thankfully, this all happened more than 30 years ago and Walter Wendler was not the president of our college. Otherwise, he might have labeled it a drag show and cancelled us for being misogynistic.

That’s exactly what Dr. Wendler did last week for some students at West Texas A&M University. “A Fool’s Drag Race” was scheduled to be held March 31 to raise funds for an LGBTQ suicide-prevention group. According to reports from the Texas Tribune, WTAMU administrators guided the organizers through the event approval process starting in February, before President Wendler canceled the event last week.

“A harmless drag show? Not possible.” Wendler wrote in a column his office submitted to the Enterprise and other newspapers last Tuesday.

In the column, Wendler bases his decision to cancel the show on the grounds that drag shows are demeaning to women. He writes: “As a performance exaggerating aspects of womanhood (sexuality, femininity, gender), drag shows stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others and discriminate against womanhood.”

I have never heard a woman say anything like that about drag, nor have I ever heard anyone try to make that argument. Wendler’s comment, and in fact his entire column, is the most tortuous logic imaginable.

Drag shows are the fashionable thing for the far right to hate at the moment. Two years ago, no one had a problem with them. Now, they are portrayed as pure evil. In fact, Potter County GOP Chairman Dan Rogers on Thursday sent a message to the Enterprise calling for people to sign a petition supporting Wendler “in his stand against evil.”

There is evil in this world without a doubt. But it’s not a drag show. It’s the ugliness of people like Wendler and Rogers who demonize others simply because they are different.

People have been enjoying men dressed in drag for a very long time. Milton Berle, Flip Wilson, Jack Lemmon, Bob Hope, Tom Hanks, and many others have all dressed in drag. Who can forget Mrs. Doubtfire portrayed by Robin Williams? Some may say, well these were harmless, but remember, Dr. Wendler says that’s impossible.

Why? What has changed? Supporters of Dr. Wendler will tell you that drag shows today have become inappropriate. But I think really what has changed is the ability for people not to get offended and the ability of people to tolerate different points of view and different beliefs.

Dr. Wendler’s columns have run in the Enterprise for several years; and until last week, he was a man I respected. But as a president of a state-financed university, he has an obligation to stand up for free speech, free expression, and most of all free thought. It’s not only a moral obligation; it’s the law. The Texas Legislature in 2019 – in a rare act of bipartisanship, as reported by the Texas Tribune – required universities to allow any person to engage in free-speech activities on campuses.

Wendler tried very hard to avoid addressing the lightning rod issues that have lately come with criticism of drag shows and instead tried to cloak himself as the righteous defender of womanhood with a healthy dose of bible verses and references to Natural Law. What he needs is some schooling in the United States Constitution, and he’s likely to get that with the lawsuit he’s now facing for his actions.

Does Wendler really believe what he wrote or is he just trying to keep the Randall-Potter county communities happy or pacify some big donor? We don’t know, but we know what he did, and it was wrong.

Wendler’s actions are just an example of what’s going on these days. Our nation is seeing more and more of this kind of behavior. Last week, a Wisconsin elementary school first grade was stopped from performing Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus’ song “Rainbowland.” School administrators pulled the plug on the performance. They also originally canceled a performance of Kermit the Frog’s “The Rainbow Connection” but reversed that decision.

When Dolly Parton and Kermit the Frog are seen as offensive, we are living in a world gone crazy for sure.

Everyone needs to calm down and relax. Drag shows aren’t inherently evil. Dolly Parton can’t possibly be a problem, and Kermit is cool. Instead of spreading hate and dissent, we should try loving one another and be nice to each other – even to people we disagree with.

Reinstate the show, Dr. Wendler. Show the world that you’re better than this and that WTAMU stands for freedom.