The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) is seeking an emergency injunction from the Supreme Court that would allow its clients to host a “charity drag show” in late March at West Texas A&M University.
“Only this Court can halt an ongoing violation of two of the most fundamental First Amendment protections: the bars against prior restraint and viewpoint-based censorship,” reads the emergency request by FIRE, which is representing the LGBTQ-student organization Spectrum WT and two of the organization’s leaders.
The West Texas A&M University president Walter Wendler and vice president Christopher Thomas denied the student organization use of campus facilities for its first scheduled charity drag show in 2023. The student organization had barred minors from attending unless accompanied by a parent, and instructed performers to avoid “lewd” conduct, according to FIRE’s emergency request. The student organization intended to donate proceeds from the event to an LGBTQ-focused charity.
The president claimed in an email to the campus community and on his personal blog that drag is “a performance exaggerating aspects of womanhood” that “stereotype[s] women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others.” He further wrote that drag performances are “derisive, divisive, and demoralizing misogyny.”
“A harmless drag show? Not possible,” Wendler wrote. “I will not appear to condone the diminishment of any group at the expense of impertinent gestures toward another group for any reason, even when the law of the land appears to require it.”
In response to the president’s statement in 2023, FIRE filed a federal lawsuit arguing that his cancellation of the drag show is “textbook viewpoint discrimination” that violates the First Amendment.
“That ‘law of the land’ is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution,” reads FIRE’s 2023 lawsuit. “And our Constitution prohibits public officials, including public university presidents, from silencing Americans because a public official dislikes certain points of view.”
The district court denied FIRE’s motion for a preliminary injunction in September 2023. The organization appealed that decision to the Fifth Circuit, which denied the motion to expedite the appeal of the district court’s ruling in October. Oral arguments are tentatively scheduled for late April, more than a month after the student organization’s scheduled drag performance.
FIRE shared on social media that it has filed the emergency injunction to the Supreme Court because the students’ next charity drag show is scheduled for March 22.
“Free expression at West Texas A&M needs immediate court intervention,” FIRE stated on social media. “That’s why we’re asking the Supreme Court to stop the campus censorship that has persisted for nearly a year.”