TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester testifies on SB 37, which helps protect our college students from being bombarded with ideology in class, before the Texas Senate Committee on Public Education K-16.
Author: Sherry Sylvester
Every Friday morning I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on 1370 Talk Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. With Texas just past the halfway mark of the 140-day legislative session and March Madness officially begun, here’s who made the list:
Winner: SpaceX Rescue of Astronauts
President Donald Trump gave us a glimpse of what the future could look like when he got his buddy, Elon Musk, to rev up a SpaceX rocket and go get the two American astronauts who were stranded on the International Space Station. Astronauts have been American heroes since Alan Shepherd took that first 15-minute Mercury flight and Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. We love them! Apollo 13 was nominated for nine Oscars.
Stuck here on the home planet, many of us looked at the sky and wondered how we had gotten to a place where we were seeing the same sad shots every day—Suni Williams’ zero-gravity flying hair and Butch Wilcox’s game face were a daily reminder that some things just weren’t right on Planet Earth.
Musk said he reached out to former President Joe Biden months ago and offered to go get the astronauts, but Biden reportedly declined, reluctant to give such a high profile job to a big Trump supporter. It’s not clear if that’s absolutely true, but it sounds like Biden.
Unfortunately for the country, the rescue didn’t get much coverage in the legacy media. Space flights are one of the things that usually transcend media bias. They always have great visuals from the blast off to the splash down. There wasn’t a total blackout on the rescue, but it didn’t merit a big story because it challenged the current lefty narrative that Musk is Darth Vader bent on destroying America on behalf of the Empire.
But for those who got to see it, it was inspiring. Of course, the official Democrat position is that the astronauts were not actually stranded and a private company going to pick them up was no big deal. You can read all about that here.
Loser: Judge Who Tried to Stop the Deportation of Tren de Aragua
After President Trump ordered the immediate deportation of Venezuelan gang members on Saturday, U.S. District Judge James Boasberg issued an injunction ordering Trump to bring them back, prompting the Babylon Bee to release a spoof saying a federal judge had ordered Trump to return the astronauts to the space station.
Boasberg’s action also moved Charlamagne tha God—who is not a Trumper or a conservative—to ask, “Why are they raising hell about a gang being deported?
For just that moment in time, Charlamagne was speaking for most Americans who continue to be puzzled about whose side progressives are on. They want to keep violent gang members in the country, they want to keep the war going in Russia, despite the fact that a half-million people have been killed, and they want to burn down Tesla dealerships, after years of telling us that gas-fueled automobiles are evil. (In case you missed it, the New York Times has a great story about depressed liberals who believe they must now get rid of their Teslas.)
Trump and the courts are in a stand-off, but the gang members are in El Salvador.
Winner: Trump Decision to Eliminate the Dept. of Education
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick were in Washington on Thursday to applaud President Trump’s signing of a new Executive Order to disband the Department of Education. With its demise, control of public schools and universities will return to the states free of the massive regulations and reporting requirements of one of the most unproductive and annoying federal agencies.
Education bureaucrats are apoplectic, but it’s not clear how they can make a case. The Department of Education’s own numbers reveal that reading scores fell to a new low last year and math scores remain stagnant.
States already largely control their school systems, but the Dept. of Education has used tactics like “Dear Colleague” letters over the years to threaten schools to comply with the favorite ideological policies of teachers unions, who demanded that former President Jimmy Carter establish the agency in the first place.
In 2015, President Barack Obama sent a letter to every public school system in the country threatening to withdraw federal funds if they did not allow boys who think they are girls to use girls’ restrooms. Biden copied that strategy during his administration, insisting that he had single-handedly changed Title IX to include people who believe they are the opposite of their actual sex. Again, he threatened withdrawal of federal funds if the school districts didn’t comply, including allowing boys to play in girls’ sports.
The Department of Education also maintains the current monopoly accreditation system in higher education that most often forces colleges and universities to implement DEI policies on their campuses or risk losing low-income (Pell Grants) funding for their students.
If this sounds a bit like an extortion ring, that’s because it is. Trump and Education Secretary Linda McMahon are absolutely right to shut it down.
Loser: Greenpeace
In case we needed another sign that the Green New Deal is officially dead, this week a North Dakota jury ordered Greenpeace to pay Texas-based Energy Transfer almost $700 million as a result of their efforts to block the Dakota Access Pipeline. The jury found the environmental protest group was guilty of trespassing and destroying private property as well as publishing lies about the pipeline. Greenpeace will appeal, of course, but this is an important victory in the left’s on-going war against fossil fuel.
Winner: Texas Senate
The Texas Senate is moving at its usual warp speed, passing out dozens of bills this week which will now make their way to the Texas House. There’s too many to list, but a couple of my favorites are the bill to ban Drag Queen Story Hour in public libraries, which is long overdue for final passage along with legislation to remove inappropriate books from school libraries. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has taken the lead in stopping THC stores from selling products that contain several times more THC than actual marijuana sold on the street. THC sales were initially allowed in Texas only to provide medicinal doses and the Lieutenant Governor wants to crack down on the thousands of stores that have gone rogue and are selling massive doses with few guardrails to prevent sales to children.
Winner: Texas DEI Ban is Copied by California
Texas passed the strongest anti-DEI ban in the country in 2023, forcing state colleges and universities to close their DEI offices, end mandatory DEI training, and eliminate the requirement that all applicants for teaching or administrative positions be required to sign a so-called “diversity statement” asserting their allegiance to DEI and outlining how they would implement DEI programs should they be hired.
On Thursday, the University of California system announced that they would eliminate the diversity statement requirement at their 10 campuses too, just like Texas did.
Recall that California is the same state that launched a boycott against Texas and other states because they didn’t like our policies prohibiting children from undergoing puberty blockers or unnecessary surgeries or allowing boys who think they are girls to participate in girls’ sports. The boycott stipulated that no California sports team could travel to Texas or any state with similar laws to compete in any sports—Final Four, Big 10 Championship, whatever. They finally realized the boycott didn’t work when more states passed laws like Texas after the boycott began.
California’s change of heart on diversity statements was not a sudden realization that students should not be divided on the basis of race, gender and sexual preference. Instead, it was prompted by President Trump’s promise to withdraw federal funding to universities that continue DEI programs. Texas provided the model and showed California the first step. That’s why we’re the winner.
Winner: Finland is Happiest Country in the World Again
After an extensive poll by Gallup, Finland has once again been found to be the happiest country in the world. This is the eighth time they’ve come in the top spot. For some reason, the cold, dark countries dominate the happiness competition. Denmark is No. 2 again this year, Iceland is No. 3 and Sweden is No. 4. The Netherlands and Norway are also in the top 10. The only countries with decent weather on the top of the list are Costa Rica and Israel. The United States has fallen to No. 24, just under the United Kingdom, which is No. 23. The report from Gallup includes findings that suggest happiness may be linked to kindness and generosity, so perhaps cold isn’t the only factor. If we all try harder to be kind and generous, perhaps we can raise our happiness competition score. USA! USA!
March Madness Begins with Three Texas Wins
All three Texas men’s teams that played in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament last night were victorious. Texas A&M beat Yale, the University of Houston beat SIU Edwardsville and Texas Tech defeated UNC at Wilmington. All three will play their second round games on Saturday. Baylor plays tonight.
The Women’s NCAA Tournament starts today. Stephen F. Austin plays Notre Dame and TCU takes on the New Jersey school, Fairleigh-Dickinson. The women from the University of Texas, a number one seed, will play William & Mary in the first round tomorrow night.
Have a great weekend!
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
Sign up to receive this in your inbox every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress.
Follow me on X @sylvester1630 and follow my podcast, the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Ray Sullivan is a Texas media legend who served as the spokesperson for the Bush-Cheney Presidential Campaign and as Chief of Staff to Texas Gov. Rick Perry during a time of media transition from the 24 hour news cycles to omnipotent digital. Currently, his lobby clients include some of the most influential tech companies in the world. Sherry Sylvester spoke with Ray about what he sees and doesn’t see in media now.
Listen to the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple or Spotify.
Subscribe to the 9th & Congress newsletter.
Every Friday morning I join the Cardle & Woolley Show on 1370 Talk Radio in Austin to announce the week’s Winners & Losers. March and the President blew in like a lion. Here’s who made the list:
Winner: Trump’s First Speech to Congress
One thing that was clear from President Donald Trump’s first speech to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday is that the president understands the American people—and the Democrats don’t. In fact, after the speech was over and the smoke cleared, it looks increasingly like the Democrats don’t even like the American people.
The pageantry of a presidential speech to a joint session of Congress is great fun. When the words, “Mr. Speaker, the President of the United States,” boom through the chamber of the U.S. House of Representatives and our television sets, it’s a bit of a rush for most red-blooded Americans—except, apparently, for the current Democrat members of Congress, who could not be bothered to drag themselves out of their seats to demonstrate the customary respect for the commander-in-chief.
Predictably, Trump used his speech to review the greatest hits of his first 44 days in office—but before he could even get started, he was interrupted by Texas Congressman Al Green, D-Houston, who heckled him with such ferocity that he had to be thrown out.
Following Green’s lead, Democrats proceeded to ignore the guests Trump invited to the speech including:
- Payton McNabb, whose high school athletic career ended when she suffered a traumatic brain injury after a boy playing on a girls’ volleyball team spiked a ball at her head in a volleyball match in 2022.
- Stephanie Diller, the widow of a New York City police officer killed during a traffic stop last March. The suspect in her husband’s case had prior arrests and was out on bail.
- January Littlejohn who sued the local school board for allowing her 13-year-old daughter to present herself at school as a boy without her consent.
The Democrats’ facial expressions varied from blank stares to contempt as Trump told the stories of his guests. Either the Dems didn’t believe the stories were true or they didn’t care.
They refused to stand to acknowledge Mark Foley, who had been imprisoned in Russia for over three years before Trump conducted a prisoner exchange for his release.
When the families of Laken Riley and Jocelyn Nungaray were introduced, Democrats again did not rise for the grieving mothers whose daughters were both killed by illegal aliens last year.
Trump said when he began his speech that there was nothing he could do that would make the Democrats smile, clap or applaud and he went on to prove he was right. When he introduced D.J. Daniel, a 13 year old battling brain cancer who dreams of being a police officer, there were few dry eyes in the house, except for the Democrats who did not join in the standing ovation for D.J., but remained glued to their seats.
Trump made D.J. an honorary Secret Service agent, delighting him, his family and the entire country. It was an enormously kind and lovely gesture on the part of the president—and politically, it was brilliant.
Trump’s speech was a triumph because he made it clear he is on the side of ordinary Americans. The Democrats went to great pains to make it clear they are not.
Loser: Democrats Go Pro-War
If you just watch news reports, you will miss what Trump has been saying about the war in Ukraine since his inauguration—that his primary concern is the huge death toll. An estimated half million people have been killed in that war—2,000 a week. The president has repeatedly called the loss of life “senseless.”
It seems few could disagree, but the Democrats did not applaud the president even when he says he wanted to end the war and bring peace.
In fact, the only point in the speech where the Democrats applauded was when Trump charged that many Democrats wouldn’t care if the war continued for 5 more years—at which point, most notably, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, clapped.
It is hard to imagine such an avalanche of bad political calculations—malpractice doesn’t begin to describe it. Dressing in pink—the girly, girl Barbie color—to send a message of support for women, just days after killing the very popular ban on men in women’s sports. And then there was the auction paddle props with childish messages that were asking to be mocked on social media.
Still, clapping to continue the Ukraine war gets my vote for the worst thing progressives did all week. Some on their side knew they blew it, but everything they tried to do to fix it as the week rolled on just made it worse.
Winner: Gavin Newsom Says Men Playing in Women’s Sports is “deeply unfair.”
On his new podcast, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a likely Democratic presidential candidate, said it was “easy to call out the unfairness” of men and boys playing in women’s and girls’ sports. But we will see how easy it will be for him. The Human Rights Campaign, the powerful transgender rights organization, slammed him immediately and other progressives soon followed.
Newsom was quick to add the dishonest talking point that, even though it’s unfair, compassion and grace are needed for transgender kids because they are at a higher risk for suicide than their non-gender confused peers. Compassion and grace are always a good idea, particularly now in the season of Lent, but children afflicted with gender dysphoria also need our help to get counseling, the only effective treatment for the mental health issues that are virtually always part of a gender confusion diagnosis. Those include bi-polar disorder, depression, PTSD and substance abuse, all of which is why they are at risk of suicide—not the stigma of being transgender.
Winner: BlackRock Distances Itself from ESG
In 2021, Texas led the fight against so-called ESG—Environmental, Social Governance policies—when lawmakers passed legislation barring state pensions and endowments from investing in companies that boycott fossil fuels. BlackRock was at the top of the offenders list. This week, BlackRock announced they are on a new path and the company that gave us “woke capitalism” has now pretty much declared it dead. According to news reports, when BlackRock dropped out of the national climate change group, Net Zero Asset Managers, the organization more or less collapsed.
When Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick made Senate Bill 21 a priority in 2021, the blowback against him and the Texas Senate was enormous, but, as usual, they were way ahead of the curve. If you haven’t looked at the Lieutenant Governor’s priorities for this legislative session, here’s the list.
Loser: Democrats Blocking the Ban on Men in Women’s Sports
Perhaps it’s not fair to hit the Democrats twice on this—since they failed to stand up during the President’s speech when he introduced a young woman who sustained a traumatic brain injury when competing against a male. But it needs to be underscored that Democrats really do intend to die on the hill of so-called transgenderism.
On Monday, Senate Democrats blocked legislation to ban boys playing in girls’ sports. 51 Republicans voted to bring the bill to the floor but they needed 60 to end the filibuster. And 43 Democrats and two independents voted against it. A New York Times poll in January found that 79% of respondents (and Gavin Newsom) said biological males who identify as women should not be allowed to participate in girls and women’s sports. That includes 67% of Democrats polled. Who are they representing?
Winner: Texas Wins the Governor’s Cup… again
It’s not really news that Texas has won the Governor’s Cup from Site Selection Magazine again. This is the 21st time the Texas has scored number one in attracting new and expanded business facility projects. The state has won the award every year for the past 13 years. Texas has added over three hundred more corporate headquarters over the last decade, prompting Gov. Greg Abbott to call the Lone Star State “the headquarters of headquarters.”
Winner: Texas A&M’s Drag Show Ban
What was really great about Texas A&M’s Board of Regents resolution last week to ban drag shows on campus was that they rightly stated that drag shows denigrate women. The Aggies’ Queer Empowerment Council is outraged of course and national groups are making noise about free speech, but the question that should be asked is: Would a blackface performance be allowed on campus? As I wrote a couple of years ago, drag is blackface targeting women.
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History describes blackface as “…comedic performances of ‘blackness’ by whites in exaggerated costumes and make-up. Blackface cannot be separated fully from the racial derision and stereotyping at its core. By distorting the features and culture of African Americans—including their looks, language, dance, deportment, and character—white Americans were able to codify whiteness across class and geopolitical lines as its antithesis.”
If you change blackness to women, you have a precise definition of drag—”comedic performances of women by men in exaggerated costumes and make-up…distorting their features, their looks, language, dance, deportment and character.”
Blackface also perpetuated the most violent racism in America by pushing racial stereotypes that black men were stupid with enormous sexual appetites. If you have ever seen a drag show, you know they present the exact same stereotypes about women. The Texas A&M Board of Regents is exactly right to shut them down.
Loser: Oscar Winning Fans of the “Sex Worker Community”
Last week, after the movie “Anora,” which I and millions of Americans have not seen, won the Oscar for best picture, the actress who played a stripper turned prostitute in the film used her award-getting moment in the sun to proclaim her support for the “sex worker community.” Later, the film’s producer said that sex work should be decriminalized. So far, there has been no outcry from any feminists on the left about glorifying the danger, abuse and degradation of women that is a byproduct of prostitution. Movies are movies, and there’s always been a lot of them about prostitutes, but at a time when the human trafficking of women and girls is an epidemic in America, we should not use films about prostitution as a platform to suggest it is simply another career choice for women.
Loser: Maxine Waters Suggests Musk Rigged the Election
Speaking of antics, after 2020, so-called “election denial” became a big attack line for Democrats and their allies in the media. Anyone who questioned any of the data following the 2020 election was treated as if they were a flat earther. Now comes U.S. Rep. Maxine Waters, D-California, first screaming that Elon Musk should “go back to wherever he came from” —tough words for a legal American immigrant. Then she charged that somehow Musk may have been involved in rigging the outcome of the 2024 election. Sounds like election denial.
Winner: Schools Revive Shop Classes
A report in the Wall Street Journal this week detailed that schools across the country are bringing back shop classes in order to teach students all kinds of mechanical and building skills in preparation for blue collar jobs in the workforce. Reviving shop classes, like virtually all innovation in education, is done at the state and local level, which is why Trump and new Secretary of Education, Linda McMahon, were right this week to move forward with the plan to abolish the Department of Education, which played a role in getting rid of shop classes in the first place.
As the Wall Street Journal points out, shop classes were shut down in the late 1980’s when reports indicated that reading skills in our schools were low. Thirty years later, those scores are still low—and we need to fix that. But we can also bring back shop classes!
Winner: Texas Longhorns Lose Coin-Toss But Still No. 1
The Texas Women’s Basketball team is still ranked No. 1, after decimating Florida last Sunday, 72 to 46. They lost the coin-toss to South Carolina for the top seed in the SEC Tournament and they play Ole Miss this afternoon at 5 p.m. in the opening round. Hook ‘em.
Have a great weekend.
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
Sign up to receive this in your inbox every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress.
Follow me on X @sylvester1630 and follow my podcast, the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Jay Rubin is a longtime leader in the Austin Jewish Community, working on a number of efforts to increase support and understanding of Israel and issues in the Middle East. At the 2025 Texas Policy Summit, Jay spoke with Sherry Sylvester about the painfully slow release of the hostages, the status of the war in Gaza and the steadfast support of Texans, including Gov. Greg Abbott.
Listen to the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple or Spotify.
Subscribe to the 9th & Congress newsletter.
This commentary was originally published by the San Antonio Express-News.
Diversity, equity and inclusion are words that appeal to American values, but DEI programming departs from American tradition.
Both President Donald Trump and Gov. Greg Abbott have pumped up their efforts to end diversity, equity and inclusion, known as DEI, programs everywhere they find them — in public schools and universities, government agencies and the military.
Trump’s Jan. 21 order also targeted publicly traded companies, and in Texas, Attorney General Ken Paxton has focused on Costco and its support for DEI.
But I wonder if its executives really know what DEI is.
A lot of people don’t exactly know what DEI is, and that is intentional. DEI sounds like a good thing. Diversity and inclusion are strong American values, and as for equity — that’s like equality, right? Even U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders doesn’t know the difference.
But equity is not the same as equality. Equality means everyone must be given an equal chance to enter the race. The DEI crowd often frames equity as providing the resources that ensure equal opportunity, but it often comes across as everyone who enters the race must win it, regardless of how they perform.
Whatever the framing, Americans don’t like DEI. In 2023, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, where I am a senior fellow, polled Texans before Senate Bill 17, which outlawed DEI programs at public universities, and found that almost 70% of respondents, including a majority of Black and Hispanic Texans, did not want special programs to help minority students succeed.
Texans want every student to be treated the same. That’s equality.
The U.S. Constitution, as well as laws created in the 1960s to prevent discrimination on the basis of race or sex — Title VI and Title IX — remain in full force, and university programs for students, including mentoring, tutoring and counseling programs, continue across every campus.
But that is not what DEI is about, and it never has been. DEI’s mission is to change America’s sense of who we are by challenging our values and rewriting our history.
Contrary to what pro-DEI advocates are saying today, DEI was not part of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Martin Luther King Jr. was motivated by a dream that someday his children would be judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin — a “color-blind” America. Today, DEI proponents have argued the term “color-blind” can perpetuate racism.
As a result of DEI, beginning in kindergarten and extending to university classrooms and company boardrooms, alternative narratives proclaim that America is founded on racism and white supremacy. DEI divides all Americans into two groups — oppressors, who are racists and colonizers, and those they oppress, whom they call victims.
DEI teaches that because of America’s original sin of slavery, we are all doomed to live in a country where those who are oppressed cannot succeed, no matter how hard they try, because racists have stacked the deck against them.
Now higher education officers and other DEI officials are suing Trump because he took immediate and comprehensive steps to end DEI.
It is hard to understand why Trump’s and Abbott’s actions to end DEI are even controversial. Over the last 20 years, DEI has not increased the numbers of minority students on campuses, and a Texas study conducted last year showed DEI programs also didn’t improve educational outcomes, including graduation rates or better job opportunities, for minority students.
DEI is a multibillion-dollar industry that has infiltrated our schools, businesses and government. But instead of making our communities more diverse and inclusive, it has divided us by race, gender, sexual orientation and ancestry. That’s why Trump’s edict to end DEI is both broad and deep. It needs to be.
It’s Day 38 of Trump 2.0 and I joined the Cardle & Woolley Show on 1370 Talk Radio in Austin to announce the Winners & Losers of the week. Here’s who made the list:
Winner: Trump’s First Cabinet Meeting
The transparency of the Trump administration is dazzling but the game-changer that was on display during his first Cabinet meeting this week was the president’s absolute candor. Trump lets the entire world knows exactly what he thinks and why he thinks it. His forthrightness has disarmed the hostile media, at least when they are asking him questions—and they ask a lot of questions. One report revealed that Trump responded to nearly 1,100 questions in his first 30 days in office, compared to 140 by Joe Biden. The media can hate his answers, they can hate his cabinet members and they can certainly hate Elon Musk, but it is very hard for them to build a case that some crazed MAGA-wing conspiracy is going on when Trump and his team are all sitting around a table, responding to dozens of mostly hostile questions in a reasonable way.
It’s the exact reverse of what we witnessed with the Joe Biden presidency. The legacy media told us everything was fine, but in the rare instances that Biden was on TV, the whole country could see there were serious issues.
Now the legacy media is telling us that terrible things are happening, but we can see with our own eyes that Trump and his team are functioning across the board in real time. They have moved beyond campaign promises, the rubber hits the road every day—criminals are being deported, bureaucrats are being fired and sanity is returning to our institutions.
Trump also doesn’t think it is onerous for bureaucrats to be required to respond to an email to confirm they are working—a “pulse check,” as Musk said.
No workers in America are more coddled than federal bureaucrats. They are better paid, with better benefit packages, shorter work days and fewer actual work requirements. Plus, it is almost impossible to be fired. Taxpayers who work in the private sector have none of those protections and are still required to shell out big chunks of their paychecks every month to pay for the federal bureaucracy. The media is trying to whip up sad stories about poor federal workers, but it’s unlikely any outrage will erupt.
Winners: Sens. Brandon Creighton & Paul Bettencourt Draw Line in Sand Over DEI Compliance
Texas Senate Higher Education Chairman Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe and Local Government Chair, Sen. Paul Betterncourt, R-Houston, called out Texas public universities yesterday, charging many were not in compliance with Senate Bill 17, Texas’ anti-DEI law. In a letter to the universities, the Senate leaders, who both serve on the Senate Finance Committee, declared their requests for increased funding were frozen until the universities demonstrate they have done more than relaunch, rename or re-authorized racially divisive DEI programs.
Apparently unaware that the majority of Texans of every racial group oppose DEI programs and want the programs removed from colleges and universities, the Texas Tribune tried to suggest the moves against university funding are because Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is on a personal crusade against DEI. Here’s what they reported about an internal email they obtained from Texas A&M:
- “The rumor is the [lieutenant] governor will cut everyone’s institutional enhancement money to try to get higher ed’s attention,” Julie Kopycinski, a top government relations staffer, wrote to her boss, Texas A&M President Mark Welsh.
- “What part of our ‘attention’ is he trying to get,” Welsh responded, according to an email exchange obtained in an open records request.
- “That we have collectively lost our core mission and are still too [DEI] and leftist focused,” Kopycinski responded.
President Welsh apparently didn’t hear that Lt. Gov. Patrick made it clear at the Texas Public Policy Foundation Summit last week that he will not support continued funding for universities that don’t get rid of DEI programs. The universities could lose anywhere from $40 to $50 million each if they fail to comply with the law.
Meanwhile, the Goldwater Institute has just released a report showing that at least five Texas universities are requiring students to take DEI courses in order to graduate.
Loser: Federal Judge Who Blocked Trump’s Anti-DEI Executive Orders
U.S. District Judge Adam B. Abelson temporarily blocked Trump’s two executive orders that declare the racial preferences dictated by Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs to be illegal. Trump withdrew all federal funding from institutions, including colleges and universities, that persist in pushing DEI.
Abelson’s preliminary injunction is in response to a lawsuit from the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADHOE) and the judge assists them in pushing the myth that DEI programs are somehow part of civil rights protections, saying “ensuring equity, diversity, and inclusion has long been a goal, and at least in some contexts arguably a requirement, of federal anti-discrimination law.”
Nothing could be farther from the truth. According to NADHOE itself, their mission is to “engag[e] in ongoing ways to incorporate alternative narratives in the curriculum and provide robust learning opportunities on the history of racism, colonization, and conquest on how higher education and other sectors of society have been complicit in maintaining systems of privilege.”
“Alternative narratives” means rewriting history and dividing Americans into two groups, oppressors and the oppressed, based on immutable characteristics of race or gender.
Dr. Mr. Luther King was motivated by a dream that someday his children would be judged on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. The only “dream” of the NADHOE and the pro-DEI crowd is that one day every child in America will be judged only “by the color of their skin” and maybe their gender identity.
NADHOE President Paulette Granberry-Russell issued a written statement saying that Trump’s actions are a direct threat to their core values. You bet they are! That’s the point.
Winner: White House Press Shake-Up
As a former reporter, I can tell you that few things are greater than being a member of the press corps. Press credentials can get you to the front of the line at virtually any event. When I worked in New York I had a placard in my car that proclaimed: “WORKING PRESS,” which allowed me to park virtually anywhere—handicapped spaces, fire hydrants, and the sidewalk. I’ve had badges at national conventions that screamed “ALL ACCESS” in big baby blacks. It was a great feeling to think I was more important than virtually anybody.
I assume that’s how the people at the White House Correspondents Association felt until this week when Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt informed them that they would no longer get to decide who sits in the front row at the White House briefings, who gets to ask the first question and whose part of the smaller press pool.
Lefty reporters are screaming about the changes, but it is hard to imagine a more democratic move than dragging the White House news operation into the 21st Century and expanding the number of media outlets. Only a tiny fraction of Americans get their news from the New York Times or CBS, so why should they get all the access.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press is still in the penalty box for failing to acknowledge the Gulf of America—but it’s not just that. The AP Stylebook directs what every media outlet is supposed to say about virtually everything. It’s the AP that demanded that news outlets describe unnecessary mastectomies and castrations on children as “gender-affirming care,” as well as insisting that “Black” be capitalized when talking about people, but “white” should remain lowercase because, well, who knows why.
LOSER: MOVEON.ORG is Funding Anti-DOGE protests
There were anti-Trump and anti-Elon Musk marches in Austin last week and in other places around the nation. One of the groups organizing them was MoveOn.org which is putting millions into fighting DOGE with new chants claiming “Congress Works for Us, Not Musk.”
MoveOn.org is getting their funding from mega-lefty George Soros, but for those who may not have been around in 1998, here’s a reminder that they originally organized to encourage the country to ignore the fact that President Bill Clinton had sexual relations with a White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. They said it wasn’t a big deal and the country should just “MoveOn.” I guess their message now is that we should just MoveOn from the billions in bureaucratic waste in the federal government or the millions the Agency for International Development spent funding DEI programs around the world or the hundreds of thousands who have died from fentanyl coming across the open border.
Loser: Rachel Maddow’s Defense of Joy Reid
If you missed the story of how MSNBC host Rachel Maddow defended her colleague Joy Reid, who was fired this week, take a look at it here.
Joy Reid is a racist who hates just about everybody, so we can only assume that Maddow’s outrage is because she also subscribes to Reid’s hate-filled racism. Maddow said she still had “so much to learn” from Reid.
Winner: Californians are Trying to Recall Newsom Again
Californians frequently show up on my losers list for giving their governor, Gavin Newsom, such high approval ratings. However, a report came out this week announcing that Golden State residents are ready to try to recall him again. Here’s some great footage of Mel Gibson, who lost his home in the recent fires, explaining why Newsom has to go.
Winners: Longhorns are No. 1
The women’s basketball team at the University of Texas finally claimed the top spot in the national rankings this week after beating all the top teams in the SEC and a few others. They had a close call last night against Mississippi State but they kept their winning streak going and are currently 28 and 2. They are expected to take the No. 1 seed in the NCAA bracket coming up. They play Florida on Sunday afternoon in Austin, so go root for them.
Have a great weekend!
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
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We put this week’s edition of Winners & Losers in podcast format taped during TPPF’s annual Texas Policy Summit on the University of Texas campus in Austin. You can listen to the entire list — here’s couple of top lines:
TPPF’s Family Success Agenda earns a top spot on the “Winners List” for taking steps to integrate the “Success Sequence” into public policy, ensuring state agencies will support programs to help young Texans finish high school, get a job and wait until they are married before having children.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is also a big winner this week for educating the always obtuse Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation. In case you missed it, Brennan compared Vice President J.D. Vance to Hitler for “weaponizing” free speech. Rubio reminded her that there was no free speech in Nazi Germany, where citizens were jailed if they criticized the government and book burnings were routine.
Former President Joe Biden is still on the “Losers List” this week because we just learned that, in addition to his family, he commuted the sentence of Leonard Peltier, who killed 2 FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota 50 years ago.
Finally, Baylor University in Waco is erecting a new statue — a Memorial to Enslaved Persons — in order to help students and faculty “repent the sin of slavery.”
But wait, there’s more. Watch and listen to all this week’s Winners & Losers here:
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
Sign up to receive this in your inbox every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress.
Follow me on X @sylvester1630 and follow my podcast, the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.
Recorded at the Texas Public Policy Summit’s 2025 Texas Policy Summit in Austin, TPPF Distinguished Senior Fellow Sherry Sylvester shares her Winners & Losers list from the week of February 21.
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Every Friday morning at 8:30 a.m., I join the Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio in Austin where we discuss the Winners & Losers for the previous week. President Donald Trump looks like he may get a complete sweep on his cabinet appointments, and Texas House Speaker Dustin Burrows released his committee assignments—so the legislative games can truly begin. Here’s who made the list this week:
Winner: Trump Proclaims End to Paper Straws (and RFK, Jr. is Confirmed)
There may be no metaphor that better epitomizes the insanity progressives inflicted on the country than the paper straw. Paper straws are worse than non-binary pronouns and those signs that are still stuck on floors everywhere reminding us to stay six feet apart. Based on no science, if you happen to find yourself in a blue city in 21st century America, paper straws are your only option, most often pushed on you by a sanctimonious waitperson who is in therapy to help her manage her fear of climate change.
But this week the paper straw nightmare ended with another victory for the frustrated and annoyed majority. Trump proclaimed that plastic straws are the straw of the land. Just read this beautiful legal language:
It is therefore the policy of the United States to end the use of paper straws [and eliminate] all policies within the executive branch designed to disfavor plastic straws.
Cue Lee Greenwood. So proud to be an American.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was also confirmed this week. President Trump continues to make it clear that when it comes to the federal bureaucracy, there is no baby in the bathwater—it all has to be thrown out. Right up to the end of the confirmation process, the legacy media told us RFK, Jr., might not make it, but in a strong rebuke to his cousin, Caroline Kennedy, who said some very awful things about him last week, the GOP Senate Majority made him Secretary of Health and Human Services on a vote of 52 to 48.
Caroline’s attack on her cousin made it clear that blood is not actually thicker than water. By spewing talking points from the lefty hate machine, Caroline made the Kennedys look like the royal family as she tried to portray RFK, Jr. as the awful Prince Andrew. Instead, she came off like Megan Markle.
Caroline apparently is unaware that few Americans care if her entire family of Massachusetts, blue-blood Democrats sets their hair on fire. RFK, Jr. now holds the highest-ranking position in federal government since his father was attorney general and his uncle was president. Trump has redefined the Camelot dynasty. The name Kennedy will stand for something different in America from now on.
Winner: Mark Fogel Released from Russian Prison
Moving news reports this week announced that Mark Fogel, an American school teacher who had been in prison in Russia since 2021, had finally been released from prison. Fogel kissed the snowy ground at Andrews Air Force Base when he finally landed on U.S. soil. He had been arrested for possessing medicinal marijuana, just like WNBA star Brittney Griner, who former President Joe Biden helped get released in 2022, after she served 10 months in prison.
Every American who is falsely imprisoned should be brought home, but Fogel’s release reminds us that Biden ignored him while trading a notorious arms dealer, nicknamed the “Merchant of Death,” for Griner, a gay, African-American basketball star who had walked off the court in protest of the Star Spangled Banner being played before games.
Happily, Griner’s time in a Russian prison changed her perspective, which was clear when she was one of Team USA’s shining stars at this year’s Olympics. Fogel’s mother had talked directly to President Trump during the campaign and he promised her he’d get her son home. Trump gave Russian Alexander Vinnik, a crypto money launderer, in exchange.
Loser: Californians…What are they thinking?
What were Golden State voters watching during the presidential campaign last year? A new poll shows that 57% of voters say they would back Kamala Harris if she ran for governor of the country’s largest state. Gavin Newsom, who is presiding over the current disasters there, can’t run for re-election. Guess they don’t want to be “burdened by what has been.”
Winner: Cy-Fair ISD Passes Gender Disclosure Policy
The Cy-Fair ISD school board passed a gender disclosure policy last week that will require teachers to inform parents if their son is asking to be treated like a girl at school. Dissenting parents can sign a release for the school to allow their child to say they are a different gender than they are. News reports out of Houston say that “many” parents showed up to protest, but some perspective is needed. Cy-Fair is the third largest school district in the state with about 120,000 students. If even 100 parents show up to protest something—and the photos look like the count was much smaller than that—it’s not indicative of anything about what parents think. A University of Houston poll last year found strong majorities of parents oppose policies that empower children of one sex to declare themselves to be the opposite sex.
Winner: Trump’s Team
As of this writing 16 of Trump’s 22 cabinet nominees have been confirmed by the Senate. This includes Tulsi Gabbard, who became Director of National Intelligence this week. Gabbard, with RFK Jr. and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, were viewed as the longest shots so most of the heavy lifting is done. Our friend and former Texas Public Policy Foundation CEO Brooke Rollins was also sworn in as Secretary of Agriculture this week.
Loser: PBS Brags that 68% of Programs are “Diversity Related”
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting abruptly fired its DEI officers this week after the Free Press published comments from a whistleblower that revealed they were trying to get around Trump’s Executive Order to eliminate DEI. Here’s what he said:
In 2023, PBS boasted that 68 percent of its programming was BIPOC or “diversity-related,” and that BIPOC employees comprised 48 percent of new hires, while women accounted for 75 percent of new hires. “Race is a major determining factor in decision-making,” the high-ranking source said. In 2024, when a round of layoffs led to the dismissal of 24 employees and the closure of seven vacant positions, “the DEI budget was untouched,” the source said.
(BIPOC means Black, Indigenous and People of Color.) The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which includes PBS and NPR, gets a half billion dollars in federal funding. Getting rid of its racist hiring practices and DEI programs are not enough. The federal funding needs to stop and they should compete in the marketplace like the rest of the media. Their news shows will die, like MSNBC, and you can already watch Masterpiece Theatre and Sesame Street on Prime, so it’s not a big leap.
Winner: Super Bowl LIX Breaks Viewing Record
An amazing 127.7 million people watched the Super Bowl on Sunday, the most ever, which is good. We don’t have many cultural focus points anymore where everybody watches the same thing at the same time and even though it wasn’t a great game it’s good to see the country come together. President Trump was cheered. Taylor Swift was booed and the Chiefs’ Tight End Travis Kelce admitted the Chiefs’ loss might have been his fault since he took Swift out to dinner instead of watching tape with the team. Doesn’t matter. The Eagles had a big victory parade today and the fans decided not to burn down Philadelphia to celebrate, so everybody is a winner.
Winner: Texas Women’s Longhorns Rout Kentucky
The No. 3 ranked Texas Longhorns routed Kentucky last night 67-49, setting them up to play LSU on Sunday. Over a million people watched the Texas women defeat the South Carolina Gamecocks on Sunday, breaking their 57 game winning streak. Good to see South Carolina go down after their coach, Dawn Staley, came out last year in support of allowing men who think they are women to play in women’s sports. Not sure how Staley feels about the NCAA announcement last week ensuring that only women will compete in women’s sports, as well as news this week that the U.S. Department of Education is asking the NCAA to return all the awards biological men have won in women’s sports so they can be given to the women who actually won them. The Women Longhorns play the No. 5 ranked LSU Tigers on Sunday at 2 p.m. Central. The Longhorns, the Tigers and South Carolina are in a three-way tie for the top spot in the SEC. Should be a good game.
Have a great weekend.
Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.
Sign up to receive this in your inbox every week at www.texaspolicy.com/9thandCongress.
Follow me on X @sylvester1630 and follow my podcast, the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.erever you get your podcasts.
