Sherry Sylvester

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Sherry Sylvester

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Sherry Sylvester

Author: Sherry Sylvester

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Winners & Losers

9th & Congress: Winners & Losers – May 24, 2024

Every Friday morning at 8:30AM, I join the Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio, in Austin to pick the week’s Winners & Losers. It’s a lightning round that runs the gamut from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world. Here’s who made my list for the week ending on May 24.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz is a big winner for taking on Secretary of State Anthony Blinken for the Biden Administration’s disastrous policy toward Iran, from refusing to enforce sanctions to slow walking arms shipments to Israel, ultimately enriching and enabling the world’s largest sponsor of terrorism.  Cruz didn’t stop there, hitting Blinken for America’s issuing of condolences following the death of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, the “Butcher of Tehran.”

Cruz also filed a Senate bill on IVF (invitro-fertilization) ensuring parents will not lose this important option for having children. Finally, amid lots of noise that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr’s appearance on the ballot in Texas could negatively impact Cruz’s re-election chances, the latest poll continues to show him with a double-digit lead over his Democrat opponent.

Not sure if it’s President, Joe Biden or the American people who are the big losers this week, but Biden’s policies continue to bring hard times and there’s no indication that anything is going to change. A report by the Wall Street Journal this week found that, after adjusting for inflation, which is up 20% since Biden took office, the net worth of American households increased just 0.7%. Under Trump, household net worth increased 16%.  Unlike most Americans, the President seems to be ignoring those pesky facts and instead looking for tricks to help him win the election like forgiving more student loan debt. He added another $7.7 billion this week on top of the $7.4 billion he announced in April. This brings the total amount of student loan forgiveness to $167 billion, double the amount the federal government spends on Pell grants for low-income students. Perhaps he made the move because when the President recently spoke at the Morehouse College commencement, it seemed like the only applause he got was when he mentioned government paying off student loans.

This was a particularly big week for “gaffs” by the President including what will surely become an infamous speech before the NAACP which required 9 corrections on the official transcript, including mispronouncing the NAACP.    My personal favorite was the story he told of being Vice President during the pandemic (he wasn’t) and former President Barack Obama sent him to Detroit (he didn’t) to “fix it.” How do the folks charged with walking that one back even know where to start?

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is a big contrast to the President and earns another week on the winners list for keeping his foot on the gas, announcing that he will continue to bus illegal migrants into New York City. Abbott’s commitment to secure the border has dramatically reduced illegal crossings in the Rio Grande Valley. More illegals are now crossing the border in San Diego.

Lots of celebrities on this week’s list. Former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith, makes the losers list for his statement attacking his alma mater, the University of Florida, for closing down its so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs, like we have done in Texas. Smith makes an impassioned statement that our universities succeed when there is diverse thinking from all backgrounds.  No one disagrees with that, but Smith seems unaware that DEI does not actually allow diverse thinking. Instead, the ideology proscribes that you must view America as a land of white supremacy where everyone is either a virtuous victim or an oppressor.  Smith is on the right track, however, because he says equality is his goal – like it is for most Americans. Unfortunately, the “equity” in DEI is something else – it requires the same outcomes for everyone. To understand the difference, equality means any Texan can try out for the Dallas Cowboys and the best players get a spot on the team. Equity means that 40.2% of the team would be required to be Hispanic, 39.7 % would need to be white and 11.6 % would be required to be African American in order for the Cowboys to equitably reflect the racial population of Texas. With DEI, race and identity are what matter, not skill and merit.

Along the same line, some of his fellow celebrity athletes, LeBron James and Charles Barkley, make the winners list for pushing back against some who some of have charged that basketball phenom Caitlin Clark, is making such a splash because she is white and has “pretty privilege,” (another wacky DEI term). Both athletes paraphrased the old basketball adage, “the ball don’t lie.” Clark has scored more points than any other college basketball player in history. She’s clearly earned any attention she gets.

Not really a correction but an update. Last week Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene made the losers list for attacking Texas U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett for wearing false eyelashes. Greene’s shoddy behavior and lots of news on the “mean girls in Congress” spat followed this week.  Then Crockett said the whole “eyelashes” thing was actually a racist attack.  Apparently, she only has one card to play and that puts her on the Losers list.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick gave another winning speech at the Texas Republican Convention on San Antonio this week and joined the Sherry Sylvester Show podcast afterward to discuss what he saw in New York City when he attended the last day of the trial of former President Donald Trump.  Patrick was inside the courtroom and gives his views on New York Supreme Court Judge Juan Merchan and the court proceedings. It’s Episode 28 and will be posted shortly.

Have a great holiday 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.

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9th & Congress

Texas Hearing Reveals the Tragedy of DEI

Sen. Brandon Creighton, Chair of the Senate Higher Education Sub-Committee, invited seven Texas flagship universities to the Capitol last week to discuss their efforts to combat anti-Semitism and free speech. They were also asked for documented information on what they had done to eradicate “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) programs from taxpayer funded campuses. The academic leaders provided detailed information indicating that DEI offices are closing, people are being fired or re-assigned, forced DEI trainings have stopped and rules requiring a pledge of allegiance to DEI in order to be hired have ended. Whether those changes are sufficient to actually end the stranglehold of DEI on campuses or just window dressing will require continued investigation and monitoring.

But it was the students, not the academic leaders, whose testimony in the second half of the hearing demonstrated how DEI has destroyed serious thinking among many students and faculty on Texas campuses.

About 240 mostly students signed up to testify or present written statements at the hearing and 147 actually spoke. Even though the pro-Palestinian protests at UT made national news, only 47 people signed up to testify about free speech on campus. Thirty-seven of those were from Austin, nine were professional organizers in some capacity and three identified themselves as professors at check-in.

An even smaller group, 22, signed up to testify about anti-Semitism. The majority of the remaining students were there to protest the elimination of DEI programs at the University. A few came from other schools around the state, but 45 of the 72 students who testified were from Austin, including 24 who identified themselves as professional organizers.

The DEI testimonies frequently overlapped with those who were speaking in support of terrorism against Israel, but the message they delivered all drove home a single point — DEI has become deeply embedded in their view of the world and themselves.

Many didn’t seem able to say who they were without describing “what” they were: “I am a (insert racial or ethnic group) who is (insert gender, lack of gender, previous gender or combination of genders) and (insert sexual preference or proclivity).” Because DEI dictates that individualism is racist, they believe racial and gender identity is what defines them.

The majority of those who showed up were women. This is not only because of the ideological gender gap that shows women are 15 times more likely to identify as liberal than men, but also, as Heather MacDonald recently observed in the City Journal, women are more likely to be in majors that provide time and even give extra credit for activism and protests.

But despite what they’d learned in class, more than a few of the women were so overcome with emotion because their DEI advisor was leaving or a DEI program was closing down that they could not hold back their tears. One young woman said the DEI ban had resulted in “the most emotionally exhaustive year of my life.”

Another half-sobbed that she was “ashamed to have graduated from UT” [because police had been brought to campus to end the occupation]. Still another had experienced such “stress and anxiety” since the ending of DEI programs that she “could not wrap her head around the fact that she had graduated.” And, of course, another demanded that the Committee acknowledge that the hearing was being held on land stolen from indigenous people – adding that she had been too “emotionally drained” by the banning of DEI to focus or carry on with her life.

To be sure, not all of the women were overwhelmed. Some were angry, screaming at the Committee in tantrum-like outrage. One woman yelled, “You don’t care about us!” Another screamed that students “couldn’t survive without DEI programs.”

And yet another attacked the Committee with total disdain, explaining that requiring the universities to become “race blind and sex blind denies our identity.” Several attacked the Committee with contempt, with one saying, “get a hobby and stop promoting white supremacy.” Another angrily asked, “What kind of world do you live in?”

The answer to her question is Texas where almost 70% of voters believe that all students at Texas universities “should be treated the same regardless of the race, ethnicity or sexual preference.” The same percentage supported UT’s decision to call in the state police to stop attempts to occupy the campus. Both data points include majorities in every racial and ethnic group.

That world also includes America where 80% of the country supports Israel in the war against Hamas.

The 47 students who came forward to discuss unrest on campus told the Committee they had protested peacefully and had been wrongfully mistreated by a militarized state police.  Although it made national news, the protesters vociferously rejected the fact that outsiders had been involved in planning the protests, ignoring the video footage of Hamas propaganda pamphlets found by school officials at the encampment, including one entitled “Glory to Gaza” that celebrated the death of Jews and made it clear that the eradication of Israel – not a cease fire or a two state solution – is their goal.

A state trooper had reported to the Committee that buckets of softball sized rocks had also been found. Students throughout the hearing vehemently insisted that was a lie and many ended their testimony with the sign-off, “Free Palestine,” said in much the same way you would expect to hear “Hook ‘em Horns.”

Several also argued that using the phrase “From the River to the Sea” was not anti-Semitic, which is particularly rich coming from UT students, where many students have insisted “The Eyes of Texas” is racist because it was written over a hundred years ago during a time of racism and segregation.

Meanwhile, “From the River to the Sea” was chanted by Hamas just seven months ago when the terrorists were killing innocent civilians, raping women, mutilating babies in Israel and advocating for the death of all Jews.

This is an example of some kind of time-space continuum problem that appears in those steeped in DEI. The darkest passages of American history – slavery, Indian removal, segregation – are viewed as contemporary events while the current terrorist war to eradicate the Jewish people either didn’t really happen or is dismissed as somehow irrelevant.

Some analysts have suggested that the students are trying to emulate the anti-war protests of the 1960’s, but the protesters on campuses today are not “Peaceniks.” They are not chanting “Make Love, not War,” they are chanting “Global Intifada!”

In the end, the Senate Higher Education Committee hearing exposed the tragedy of what DEI has done to the minds of young Texans. The students who attended see themselves in terms of their race and gender identity and they see America as a wholly racist and misogynist place. It is ironic that in begging lawmakers to re-instate DEI programs, the students’ testimony made it absolutely clear why the Texas Legislature must completely end DEI on public college campuses. It has warped the thinking of so many students that they seem unable to discern good from evil.

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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Winners & Losers

9th & Congress: Winners & Losers – May 17, 2024

Every Friday morning at 8:30AM, I join the Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio, in Austin to pick the week’s Winners & Losers. It’s a lightning round that runs the gamut from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world. Here’s who made my list for the week ending on May 17.

State Senator Brandon Creighton tops the Winners list for calling in the state’s flagship universities to report to the Senate Higher Education Committee on steps they have taken to end the so-called “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” (DEI) programs that push identity politics on Texas campuses. Despite major pushback from faculty, staff and students, the state’s major academic institutions all reported that DEI offices had been closed and DEI officers had been laid off or re-assigned. The University of Texas at Austin told Creighton they recouped $25 million by eliminating 311 positions and 681 contracts. Continued monitoring and on-going audits remain essential to determine how much of what the academic leaders reported was accurate and how much was an attempt to blow smoke at the Legislature so they don’t take away their state funding. Texas A&M maintained they only had 8 DEI officers, for example, a figure that a review of the data shows is likely wildly inaccurate. All the flagships failed to provide substantive answers to questions about DEI initiatives that remain embedded in hiring practices, academic infrastructure and strategic plans, but Creighton made it clear the era of DEI is coming to an end in Texas.

Creighton was attacked during the hearing by Texas NAACP President Gary Bledsoe who makes the Losers list for accusing Creighton of racist motivations in authoring the DEI ban (Senate Bill 17) last year. A couple students who testified at the hearing also spit out charges of “white supremacy.” Not surprising. If you believe in the ideology of DEI you believe everyone is either a victim or a white supremacist.

Texas State University is on the Losers list, but it’s not their fault. They were about to become the first Texas university to host a presidential debate slated for mid-September, but President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump went around the Debate Commission and made their own deal. Virginia State University, the first historically black college or university (HBCU) to be selected as a debate venue also lost out.

Keeping with the collegiate theme, Texas A&M makes the Winners list for suspending Title IX Director Rick Olshak, who lamented that Biden’s wacky rules that expand Title IX protections to men who think they are women and vice versa did not go far enough.  Governor Abbott made the Winners list the other week for instructing educational institutions to ignore the new rules. So did Attorney General Ken Paxton, who joined 14 states in suing Biden over it.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. will be on the Texas presidential ballot in November. It’s not clear what impact he will have on the presidential race or any down ballot contests, but Texas can be proud that his folks are engaged and we’ve got a ballot access program that works.

Houston State Rep. Shawn Thierry is fighting back a challenge from the progressive wing of her party for voting to outlaw gender modification — Senate Bill 14 — which prohibits puberty blockers, castrations and non-necessary mastectomies, for children. Thierry has rightly called it “Black Genocide” and has put up signs throughout the district reminding voters that legalizing non-necessary surgeries for children that frequently result in sterilization is not a good idea for black kids – or any kids.

These are tough times for U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, from Laredo, but he still managed to make the Winners list this week for being one of the 16 Democrats, and the only Democrat representative from Texas, who voted to rebuke President Joe Biden for withholding offensive arms shipments to Israel after Congress had approved them.

Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene voted against rebuking Biden for withholding arms shipments to Israel, but that’s not why she’s on the Losers list again. She went after U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, for wearing fake eyelashes. I don’t actually know if Crockett’s eyelashes are fake, but as a lifelong feminist, I defend her right to wear them, as well as Greene’s right to pretend she is a platinum blonde. Greene has got to stop these nutty antics. She is forcing conservative women to root for AOC (Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-NY).

Some staffers in the U.S. House are planning a protest of U.S. support for Israel next week and they are telling everyone to show up in a mask, hide their employee tags and wear an outfit that will keep them incognito. The staffers are certainly free to protest – that’s America – but disguising oneself while proclaiming you are standing on principle is not. Those guys who signed the Declaration of Independence were not just risking their jobs and livelihoods. They also knew the British would hang them if they caught up with them. That’s why John Hancock’s huge signature was such a big statement. The fact that the pro-Palestinian protesters are in disguise shows it’s not just Middle East history that they don’t understand. They don’t know much about American history either. Losers.

Let’s close out the Losers list with the always obtuse City of San Francisco which is spending a couple million a year to provide alcohol – a shot or a beer – to homeless alcoholics in the Tenderloin District. The strategy of giving alcohol and drugs to addicts has been tried for decades. It doesn’t work. Only Losers like the people running San Francisco would think it’s a good idea.

** Correction** Last week Barron Trump made the Winners list for being selected as a Florida delegate to the Republican National Convention. Later in the day the news broke that Barron has declined the invitation. He was out of the spotlight when his father was in the White House and it appears he will stay in the background for a while longer. However, he did graduate from high school today, so he’s taken the first step in the critically important Success Sequence – clearly a winning move.

That’s all for now – 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.

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Sherry Sylvester Show

The Sherry Sylvester Show | Episode 27: The Woke-Hamas Partnership with Chuck DeVore and Erin Valdez

Sherry Sylvester sits down with TPPF’s Chuck DeVore and Erin Valdez to discuss what has happened in the last six months since TPPF’s primer on the connection between the “Woke” movement and Hamas.

Listen to the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple or Spotify.

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Winners & Losers

9th & Congress: Winners & Losers – May 10, 2024

Every Friday morning at 8:30 AM, I help choose the week’s Winners & Losers on the Cardle & Woolley show, Talk 1370 Radio, in Austin. It’s a lightning round that runs the gamut from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world. Here’s my list for the week ending May 10, 2024.

While Harvard, MIT and Penn whine that they can’t shut down the encampment protests on their campuses, University of Texas System Board of Regents Chair Kevin Eltife is at the top of the Winners list this week for a trifecta at Wednesday’s Regents meeting when he said flatly that divestment is not an option for the Longhorns. Eltife also dismissed a threatened vote of no confidence against UT President Jay Hartzell by UT faculty, saying when it comes to the President, the Board of Regents is the only vote that matters. Finally, Eltife praised the state police who stopped those breaking the rules on the UT campus. He invited DPS Director, Col. Steve McGraw to the meeting and the Board gave him a round of applause.

This is clearly bad news for those UT faculty who are angry at the UT President, some of whom claim that UT is pushing “a very right wing agenda.” However, a poll released this week by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) found that almost 70% of Texans agreed with UT’s decision to call in the state police. That includes Democrats, Republicans and Independents – they can’t all be “very right wing.”

The protesters clearly believe they have the moral high ground, but the state police uncovered propaganda leaflets the protesters left behind which included materials that celebrated the killing of innocent Jews and bragged about rockets launched into Israel. The Free Press did a long piece on the role of the so-called “outside agitators” in the campus protests. Almost 50 of the people arrested at UT were not affiliated with the university.

Another big Winner this week is U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson who survived a motion to vacate the Speaker’s Chair from Marjorie Taylor Greene, who earned a spot on the Losers list for ignoring former President Donald Trump, who rightly noted that attacking the House Speaker in an election year is a show of “disunity.” U.S. Rep. Chip Roy was the only Republican to vote with Greene. Four Texas Democrats also voted to vacate Johnson.

President Biden maintains his spot on the Losers list for a bunch of really bad policy statements this week:

U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar is a Loser for suggesting that some Jewish students are “pro-genocide.” She also credits the campus protesters with getting Biden to hold back weapons for Israel. She may be right about that.

It goes without saying that Stormy Daniels is on the Losers list, but let’s not waste space talking about the many reasons why. The whole thing is beneath us.

The Board at Katy Independent School District is a Winner for adopting a policy that notifies parents if their child asks to use a different name or pronouns while they are at school. Taking this stand for normalcy has made the Board a target of the U.S. Dept. of Education Dept. of Civil Rights which is investigating gender harassment under Biden’s wacky new Title IX Policy.

Lost Creek is also on the Winners list for voting themselves out of the City of Austin over the weekend. If you’ve ever spoken to anyone from that neighborhood, you know it’s been a long war over there.

The announcement by the Boy Scouts that they are changing their name to “Scouting America” in order to be more “inclusive” clearly makes them Losers. Give me a break.

Finally, last week comic Jerry Seinfeld made the Winners list for saying that the “P.C. left and liberal crap” had ruined comedy, but his new movie “Unfrosted” proves that’s not entirely true. Worth watching just for the spoof of Jan. 6 where Tony the Tiger in a Viking helmet crashing into the Kellogg’s headquarters is worth the price of a ticket.

That’s it. Have a great Mother’s Day!

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.

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9th & Congress

Not in Texas: Poll Shows Texans Say No to Protesters

A lot of professors at the University of Texas at Austin were really angry when UT President Jay Hartzell announced he was firing 49 people last month who were associated with so-called Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs. Then, after Hartzell followed up a warning to pro-Hamas protesters with a call to the State Police to stop the student “occupation” of campus, the loudest faction of the learned elite on the 40 Acres got out the torches and pitchforks.

657 of them signed a letter saying they have “no confidence” in the UT President and over 800 graduate students signed a letter calling on him to resign. To demonstrate their intellectual acuity, many of them chanted “Hartzell, Hartzell, you’re a clown, we demand that you step down.”

The angry professors had already demanded that all the DEI officers and faculty who were fired be reinstated. Now they are demanding that criminal charges “against students and others” be dropped and that no student face disciplinary action for breaking campus rules for protests.

The professors said, “This is a time for the University to re-establish its reputation as an institution that respects free speech, academic freedom, shared governance, due process, and its own students and faculty.”

But polling released earlier this week by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni (ACTA) makes it clear that a large majority of Texans feel pretty good about the new reputation the University of Texas established by taking a “no nonsense” approach to campus protests.

The ACTA poll, conducted by Texas pollster Mike Baselice, found that 69% of Texans support Hartzell’s “calling in state troopers to arrest and remove students who were violating campus regulations.”

The poll found that the more people knew about the UT protests, the more they supported Hartzell’s action, with support reaching 75% among those who had been closely or even somewhat closely following the news on the protests.

Support for Hartzell did not vary much by age and the gender gap is relatively small – 71% of men supported Hartzell’s action, while 66% of women do, along with majorities of Anglos, Blacks and Hispanics. There’s also no statistical difference in support between college graduates and non-college graduates.

On top of that, 70% of Texans do not believe the UT President should be fired, and there is no gender gap — both 70% of men and women want him to keep his job. There’s also not much statistical difference between college grads and non-college grads, where support for the UT President hovers at 70%.

Media reports echo many in the faculty who insist Hartzell is caving to pressure from Republican legislators and Governor Greg Abbott, both in calling in the state police and firing the DEI officers.

Chelsea Collier, a doctoral student at UT told the Washington Post that “Gov. Abbott is taking a very political opportunity to enforce his agenda, a very right-wing agenda focused on control, not on governance.”

But despite what the UT academics think (and what you see in Texas media) Hartzell has a mandate from a strong majority of Texans including Democrats, Republicans and Independents to keep doing what he is doing to keep the UT campus safe.

Texans also support Hartzell’s clear and decisive action in removing dozens of DEI staffers at UT. Polling conducted by the Texas Public Policy Foundation in early April found that Texans don’t support DEI policies. 68% believe that all students should be treated the same at Texas universities without special programs for Black, Hispanic and Gay students. Only 25% believed special programs should be created for those students to help them fit in and succeed in college. This includes half of African Americans and 63% of Hispanics.

The protesters’ demand that UT divest from companies that do business with Israel was doomed from the start. Texas already has strong laws that prohibit anti-Israeli investment by state agencies and odds are good that legislators will strengthen those laws to make sure academics can’t find a loophole.

It is tragic that American universities across the country – propelled by foggy thinking rooted in DEI – are rioting day after day in support of a terrorist regime that is sacrificing the lives of their own people in order to sway world opinion. Not satisfied with peaceful protests, they break encampment rules and destroy public property while waving Palestinian flags and shouting pro-Hamas slogans. The students don’t appear to see the irony in their championing the masters of genocide – a regime whose only mission is to kill Jews.

There is some comfort in the Lone Star State as we watch this going down around the country. Texas, and the leadership at UT, didn’t give an inch to those who believe supporting terrorism allows them to break the rules.

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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Winners & Losers

9th & Congress: Winners & Losers – May 3, 2024

Every Friday morning at 8:30 AM, I discuss the week’s Winners & Losers on Talk 1370 Radio with Jim Cardle and Lynn Woolley on the Cardle & Woolley show. It’s a lightning round that runs the gamut from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world. Here’s who gets a thumbs up and thumbs down for the week ending May 3, 2024.

I’m making an executive decision to break protocol and pronounce University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell a Winner for the second week in a row for taking quick and decisive action to bring in state police to stop pro-Hamas protesters from taking over the 40 Acres. Even rational college presidents frequently buckle under intimidation from left-wing faculty, but the list of professors at UT who want a “no confidence” vote against Hartzel has grown to over 600 and the UT President hasn’t blinked.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott is also on the Winners list for telling the Biden administration that Texas will ignore the President’s destruction of historic Title IX Legislation. The President announced he wants to include men who think they are women to those who are protected by the law. Attorney General Ken Paxton joins Abbott as a Winner for suing the federal government for attempting to expand Title IX, which literally created women’s sports in America and is protecting women athletes now. The Governor and the Attorney General are fighting to make sure the feds don’t screw that up.   

The men of Pi Kappa Phi at the University of North Carolina also top the Winners list this week for their courage during the pro-Hamas protest on their campus. They stood for over an hour amid heckling and jeers to block the hoisting of a Palestinian flag at UNC and to make sure the American flag did not touch the ground. They were pelted with insults and solid objects but they did not back down.

Another Winner is U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, who is up 13 points over his Democrat opponent Colin Allred according to the latest Texas Politics Project Poll, which historically leans a little Democrat, so Cruz is probably ahead by more than 13. That poll is on this week’s Losers list for a sloppy report on what Texans think about the war in Gaza.

Echoing that poll, headlines all over the state read that Texans are divided on how they feel about the war in Gaza, but that’s probably a problem with how the questions were asked. According to a Harvard-CAPS Harris Survey American support for Israel over Hamas is 80 percent to 20 percent in almost every age group and it hasn’t changed since October 7 despite the campus protests. Even among younger people aged 18-24, support for Israel is almost 60 percent. It is highly unlikely those sentiments are much different in Texas where, despite what you see on some college campuses, Texans tend to oppose terrorists like Hamas.

In chalking up other Losers, we have to pick the worst policy idea President Joe Biden laid out this week. It’s a multiple choice:

  1. Resettling Palestinian refugees in America
  2. Announcing $6 billion more in student loan forgiveness for art students
  3. Biden’s too little, too late statement on campus protests where he equates the current threat of Islamophobia with the anti-Semitism we are seeing everywhere.
  4. His pronouncement that Japan, India, China and Russia’s economies don’t thrive because those countries are xenophobic and don’t welcome immigrants. Those countries can join New Guinea which is still waiting for an apology for his story that cannibals there ate his uncle.
  5. His micromanaging Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, announcing the U.S. won’t support Israel’s invasion into Rafah.

You probably have your own list. This is undoubtedly why CNN put out a poll this week showing that 61 percent of American’s view Biden’s term as president as a failure. Only 39% believe it was a success.

The reality of that CNN poll seemed to hit left-wing cable news site MSNBC particularly hard when former commentator Al Sharpton noted that the campus protests look remarkably like January 6. Sharpton makes the Winners list by stating the obvious. Of course, MSNBC is a loser.

Jerry Seinfeld and sports commentator Charles Barkley both make the Winners list for straight talk. Seinfeld told the New Yorker that “P.C. crap and the extreme left” have ruined comedy by making people deathly afraid of offending other people. Then, while the New Orleans Pelicans were being eliminated from the NBA playoffs by the Oklahoma City Thunder, Barkley took a shot a Galveston Bay, saying the water wasn’t blue. Read the story to get the drift. Beyoncé’s mother hails from Galveston, and after she called him out, Barkley backed down, but he pivoted to re-activate his long-time allegation that San Antonio women are fat. Barkley has absolutely no room to talk, but he’s a Winner for not letting himself be silenced by “P.C. crap.”

Speaking of comedians, how about U.S. Senator John Fetterman who said this week that there are two factions among the Palestinian protestors at Columbia, “pro-Hamas and really pro-Hamas.” Funny. Winner.

Finally, it almost goes without saying that Kristi Noem is a big-time Loser for this week and many weeks to come. Don’t shoot your dog.

Gotta cut it off here. Have a great weekend!

Listen to Winners & Losers on Talk 1370, the Cardle & Wooley show, every Friday morning at 8:30 AM.  Here’s the listen live link.

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.

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Winners & Losers

9th & Congress: Winners & Losers – April 26, 2024

Every Friday morning at 8:30AM, I discuss the week’s Winners & Losers on the Cardle & Woolley show on Austin’s 1370 Talk Radio. It’s a lightning round with Jim Cardle, Lynn Woolley and me that runs the gamut from public policy and political trends to sports and culture in Texas, America and the world. We just finished a jam-packed week in Texas. Here’s list of Winners & Losers for April 26.

The biggest Winner of the week is University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell who showed college presidents across the country how to make it clear to fact-challenged students who is actually in charge of taxpayer funded academic institutions. As soon as the Palestine Solidarity Committee announced they were going to take over the campus, Hartzell said very clearly, “our university will not be occupied.” He followed up with the list of rules governing peaceful protest on campus and warned students if they violated the rules, they would be arrested. They did and they were.

The protests at the 40 Acres also generated the top Losers of the week, including the American Association of University Professors (AAUP at UT) which has petitioned the Faculty Council for a “Vote of No Confidence” against Hartzell. The Faculty Council Executive Committee said they are “gravely concerned.” If the elites at UT go after Hartzell, he should treat it as a badge of honor.

Austin’s uber-progressive State Senator, Sarah Eckhardt, who texted Hartzell to complain the Texas Dept. of Public Safety had been called to the UT campus is also on the Losers List. Hartzell responded that he’d asked for DPS help because the campus police could not manage the protest alone. We know this because the Senator sent copies of their text exchange to the media. Hopefully, Hartzell won’t bother to communicate with the Senator via text going forward.

It’s not fair to pick on the Austin American-Statesman by adding them to the Losers List since, as I wrote earlier this week, pretty much all Texas media is deeply embedded in the left-wing narrative on the war in Gaza and everything else. In case you missed my newsletter, you can read it here.

That said, if you want to see an analysis of the war in Gaza that is completely devoid of the Israeli perspective or any concerns about anti-Semitism, take a look at this Statesman “explainer” on why the students are protesting. The “explainer” also includes no information on the links between UT’s Palestine Solidarity Committee and the Committee for Justice in Palestine and its reported links to Hamas.

Originally, Thursday’s protest at UT Austin was going to focus on the DEI ban, but the Palestine Solidarity Committee convinced whoever decides these things that going after Israel was more important. The protest of the firing of DEI employees at UT who violate the Senate Bill 17 ban against segregating students by race and gender is currently scheduled for April 29 – but who knows.

Another big Winner this week is Texas Governor Greg Abbott who has made it clear for months that every Texas university should make protecting Jewish students a priority. That’s the difference between living in the Lone Star State and living in New York.

Abbott also gets more kudos for Operation Lone Star’s success in shutting down the flow of migrants across our southern border. San Diego is now the top spot in the country for arrests of people entering the country illegally. And for those keeping score on the hypocrisy of so-called “Sanctuary Cities,” officials from Denver visited El Paso this week looking for ways to dissuade illegal migrants from coming to the Mile High City.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis makes the Winners List for telling President Joe Biden that Florida schools will ignore his latest move to expand Title IX, the historic protection for women’s sports. Under Biden, Title IX will now include men who say they are women and vice versa, which is one reason Biden is on this week’s Losers list.

There are a few other policies that also landed the President on the list. First, Biden said he’d repeal the Trump tax cuts if he’s re-elected. Then, while New York City was engulfed in campus riots and House Speaker Mike Johnson showed up to denounce anti-Semitism, Biden went into the Virginia woods and made an Earth Day commercial with Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, praising the Green New Deal. Then, his own press, meaning the New York Times, went after him, for “systematically avoiding interviews and questions from major news outlets”, noting that his refusal to talk to the media sets a very bad historic precedent. Finally, his wacky story that his uncle was eaten by cannibals in World War II has created an international incident and soured relations as New Guinea protests being disparaged by the charge that their country is home to people eaters.

Texas Public Policy Foundation makes the Winners List for bravely going after off-shore wind turbines and making a difference. New York State announced they are shutting down several wind power projects. TPPF made it clear from the beginning that they weren’t just tilting against windmills!

In Sports News, Tyler Guyton was selected by the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL Draft last night. Tyler played at Oklahoma, but we are going to forget that. He’s from Manor.

Could go on, but we gotta stop. Listen to Winners & Losers on the Cardle & Woolley show every Friday morning at 8:30 AM on 1370 Talk Radio in Austin. You can listen live online 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.

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Sherry Sylvester Show

The Sherry Sylvester Show | Episode 26: The Making of A Classic with Martin Jones

TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with Emmy nominated producer Martin Jones to discuss his recent collaboration with the Texas Public Policy Foundation and our leading filmmaker Stephen Robinson to produce “The Making of a Classic.” The latest episode in the Forging Texas series is about a race film that was filmed in Dallas in 1941 entitled “The Blood of Jesus,” which was written, directed and starred the legendary Spencer Williams. It was the first Texas film to be selected for preservation in the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress.

Listen to the Sherry Sylvester Show on Apple or Spotify.

Subscribe to the 9th & Congress newsletter.

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9th & Congress

Texas Media Covers DEI Like NPR

Conservatives weren’t surprised by National Public Radio (NPR) Senior Editor Uri Berliner’s recent whistle-blowing account showing how NPR is actively involved in pushing a progressive agenda. Berliner detailed how the taxpayer-funded news outlet simply stopped asking questions and instead took a partisan side on most issues. During the pandemic, NPR declared that to suggest that COVID-19 might have started as a lab leak was racist, so it didn’t interview anyone who believed what finally was found to be true—COVID-19 most likely originated in a lab.

NPR did not cover reports that Hunter Biden’s laptop was anything other than Russian misinformation because, as one of his colleagues told Berliner, “it would help Trump.”

And in 2020, after the George Floyd murder, Berliner noted that rather than investigating charges made by Black Lives Matter that so called “systemic racism” drives every aspect of American life, NPR simply accepted the BLM premise as a given and reported on everything from law enforcement to housing to the economy with the assumption that virtually everything is rooted in “systemic racism.”

Such directives are hardly limited to NPR. Systemic racism in higher education has never been questioned by the Texas press, and coverage of Senate Bill 17, the DEI ban, has been predicated on an NPR-like “no questions asked” directive from the beginning.

Immediately after the bill went into effect, the Austin American Statesman’s overview of the implementation allowed the opponents of the bill to define the issue—the Texas House Democratic Caucus, the Senate Democratic Caucus, the NAACP, the Mexican American Legal Caucus, and LGBTQIA+ all agreed that the lack of resources for DEI initiatives creates “a void in addressing systemic inequalities and fostering an inclusive learning environment for all students.” These advocates did not say how DEI addresses such inequalities, and the reporter didn’t ask.

At the end of the news report, she includes a 7-month-old statement from the author of the bill, Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe:

“With this bold, forward-thinking legislation to eliminate DEI programs, Texas is leading the nation, and ensuring our campuses return to focusing on the strength of diversity and promoting a merit-based approach where individuals are judged on their qualifications, skills, and contributions. What sets SB 17 apart from other proposals is that the legislation delivers strong enforcement with mandates to return Texas colleges and universities to their core mission—educate and innovate.”

There’s a lot to unpack there, as Creighton’s statement challenges everyone else who is quoted in the Statesman’s news report—but the reporter doesn’t unpack it.

That’s because she’s following another directive from the NPR playbook. In addition to pursuing stories that focus on “racism, transphobia, signs of the climate apocalypse [and] Israel doing something bad,” reporters were directed to put out stories that show “the dire threat of GOP policies” (my italics).

The “Dire Threat of GOP Policies”

Throughout the debate, passage and implementation of the DEI ban in Texas, the press has portrayed it as a malicious Republican initiative.

After the firing of DEI employees at UT, the Texas Tribune makes it clear Republicans are to blame:

“Republicans have become increasingly critical of the culture at higher education institutions. [UT President Jay] Hartzell and other university leaders must balance the concerns of the students and faculty who breathe life into their campuses, and Republican leaders that provide critical funding that keep the lights on.”

An Austin American Statesman editorial screams: “The Harsh Consequences of The Texas GOP fervor to crush DEI.” It follows a previous editorial calling the anti-DEI ban “a Republican war on academic freedom” and still another decrying Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s “attack on diversity politics.”

The opening line of a Houston Chronicle story reads, “as Republicans attack diversity, equity and inclusion programs on college campuses…” while the Dallas Morning News makes the partisan divide clear in a February news story noting that DEI bans similar to the Texas law are popping up in dozens of states, while Democrats are standing up against them.

Despite the unshakeable fidelity of the Texas press to the narrative, support for the DEI ban is not particularly partisan. The Texas Public Policy Foundation conducted a statewide survey earlier this month asking voters if Texas universities “should create special programs for black, Hispanic and gay students to help them fit in and succeed in college” or if “all students should be treated the same at Texas universities without special programs for black, Hispanic and gay students.” Almost 70% of voters responded that all students should be treated the same, regardless of race or sexual preference. That included 51% of African Americans, 63% of Hispanics and 73% of Anglos.

The Rise of Feelings Over Facts  

When Berliner’s boss, Kathleen Maher, responded to the allegations of bias at NPR, she never said he was wrong. Instead, she said he had hurt everyone’s feelings with his “disrespectful” and “hurtful” comments. The elevation of the relevance of feelings over facts is one of the most frightening things that is happening in journalism today, and Texas media coverage of DEI is riddled with it.

A Texas Public Radio story on the firings at UT reported a student was “devastated” and “felt pretty betrayed” by the actions following the DEI ban. Again, the story provides no clue about why this student’s feelings were newsworthy.

Instead of digging into the facts of DEI programs, some news outlets like KVUE simply found a couple students who said they were sad DEI offices were closing and reported that. One student inexplicably said, “This is just [the state of] Texas … Texas does not want us here. Texas has never wanted us here.”

That is a very strong allegation, but we have no idea what she’s referring to since the reporter asked no follow-up questions.

KXAN reported the feelings of two journalism students at UT who were distraught about losing funding for their student group. One student said she came to UT “with a certain expectation of being, you know, supported and validated and to have spaces where we can be like, fully loved, right?” It is not clear whether that is a realistic expectation for college, even among Generation Z.

The Texas Tribune called UT’s Multicultural Center the “beloved” Multicultural Center so often in news reports that when a national outlet picked up the story they also used the “beloved” adjective before the building’s name. The question “beloved by whom” was not answered by either outlet.

Some outlets garbled hard facts as well as feelings. KVUE reported it was told over a thousand people had protested the firings at UT, but outlets that actually covered the protest gave 200 as the crowd count. For perspective, there are about 51,000 students at UT Austin. The number of people who were let go was also a moving target. News reports ranged from over 40 to almost 60 in a dozen news reports. The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) at UT published a list of 62 people, but so far no media outlet as taken the trouble to follow-it up.

The Houston Chronicle pulled in its data team to report that minorities and women were most impacted by the anti-DEI program layoffs at the UT: “Black staffers were disproportionately affected, making up nearly a third of the cuts while accounting for just 7% of the total university staff, excluding tenured faculty. Roughly three-fourths of the employees let go were women, though they make up just 55% of the total staff.”

The Houston Chronicle doesn’t say why it used the official number of 49 from UT instead of the list of 62 of those laid off from AAUP at UT.  It also failed to ask any questions about these numbers. For starters, if only 7% of UT staff are black, how many of them are working in DEI programs? If the answer is most of them, isn’t that a red flag that should be addressed? Similarly, if over half the staffers at UT are women, how many of them are relegated to DEI programs, compared to other departments at the university? Also, a quick look at UT’s website from last year indicates that at least 150 people were working on DEI efforts. Why were only 49 (or 62) of them fired?

Of course, those questions just dance around the big one—why has black enrollment continued to stagnate at under 5% at UT despite millions invested in DEI?

Creighton will hold hearings with the leadership of the state’s universities next month where he will undoubtedly ask for answers to some of these questions, although it is not likely the media will report them. Instead, you can bet reporters will characterize the hearings as one more example of the “dire threat of Republican policies.”

Texans of all races oppose DEI on Texas campuses because they understand it is not the evolution of racial integration or the civil rights movement. The ideology of DEI refutes those constructive movements as “oppressive.” DEI’s goal is re-segregation—not equal treatment under the law, but the creation of what’s been called “hyper-race consciousness” that fuels division and distrust. To see exactly how absurd this “hyper race consciousness” looks in action, note that a leader of the opposition to the DEI ban heads what is called the UT Austin’s Queer Trans Black Indigenous People of Color Agency. It’s not clear what kind of “agency.” The reporter didn’t ask.

Sherry Sylvester is a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation and the former Senior Advisor to Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick.