Author: Sherry Sylvester

TPPF’s Sherry Sylvester sits down with Texas Public Policy Foundation colleagues Brian Phillips and Sam Pohl to discuss the dozens of news stories where the Texas media creates their own narrative while ignoring the views of the conservative majority of Texans, pushing out daily news reports portraying our state as a bunch of backward, dull-minded, racist, sexist, whatever-ists — while never explaining why hundreds of people move here every day.

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Shortly after the Texas passage of the strongest DEI bill in the nation, Senate Bill 17, Texas A&M decided to revive its long defunct journalism school by hiring Kathleen McElroy. McElroy is a former New York Times writer and head of the University of Texas Journalism School where she describes her primary skill set on her thumbnail profile as “Diversity & Inclusion and Diversity Training.”

Although news reports indicate there was lots of fanfare surrounding her initial appointment, it’s not clear at this point exactly who hired her. A&M’s Board of Regents doesn’t appear to have been involved.

Judging from the play-by-play report McElroy gave to the Texas Tribune, whoever it was has buyer’s remorse. Her tenured position offer was reduced to a non-tenured position, then to a one-year, at-will contract, which she just rejected. She has announced she will remain at the University of Texas where she is a tenured professor.

McElroy reports that she feels “damaged” by what is described as “DEI hysteria” that has overtaken Texas A&M.

It’s not clear why Texas A&M decided to revive its journalism program after getting along fine without it since 2004. Perhaps it was motivated by the fact that the latest Gallup Poll shows that only 7% of Americans have “a great deal of trust” in the media. That clearly sounds like a problem a bunch of smart Aggies should set about to fix.

Still, it’s hard to see how McElroy is the right person for the job. She likes the journalism most Americans have learned not to trust. She told NPR, “We can’t just give people a set of facts anymore. I think we know that and we have to tell our students that. This is not about getting two sides of a story or three sides of a story, if one side is illegitimate. I think now you cannot cover education, you cannot cover criminal justice, you can’t cover all of these institutions without recognizing how all these institutions were built.”

So guess who decides which side of the news story is “illegitimate?”

Her former employers, the New York Times, wrote a short news story about McElroy’s recent issues at A&M, where they decided to “just give people the facts.” They quote a dean who implied the change was motivated by racism, but they also quoted one of her conservative critics, so apparently they did not believe the views of a DEI opponent were “illegitimate.”

It’s also important to note that, although she bills herself as a journalism professor, her comments about “these institutions” closely reflect the stated mission of the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education:

“Engaging 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.”

As for the “DEI hysteria” at Texas A&M, when their Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs testified before the Texas House regarding Senate Bill 17, he said there were “pockets of DEI at the university” but the administration was unaware of it.

But A&M’s State of Diversity Report in 2020 insists that “racism, hate speech, safety and belonging issues are evidence of systemic cultural problems that are enduring trends at Texas A&M.”

Whether the “DEI hysterics” are the result of only a few isolated DEI programs or “systemic cultural problems,” it will be hard for anyone to know because McElroy would make sure that only the “legitimate” side of the argument will be reported. Those with “illegitimate” views will be ignored.

Importantly, not one DEI officer who testified against Senate Bill 17 made a case that DEI programs have led to successful academic outcomes for minority and marginalized students. In fact, the data show just the opposite. At Texas A&M, 82% of African Americans reported they felt like they belonged in 2015. By 2020, that percentage had dropped to 55%.

Perhaps that’s because A&M’s multicultural service programs have created racially segregated programs that divide students by identity group, which, among other things, has resulted in racially segregated graduation ceremonies for Asian, African American, Latinx and LGBTQ students.

The journalists who make up the Texas media haven’t reported problems with DEI on any Texas campus, likely because the concerns of critics are viewed as “illegitimate.” Indeed, when McElroy chose to go to the Texas Tribune with her story, she picked a reporter who has described DEI opponents pejoratively as “conservative Texans—from locally elected public school trustees to top state officials—[who] have labeled several books and schools of thought that center the perspectives of people of color as ‘woke’ ideologies that make white children feel guilty for the country’s history of racism.” She didn’t quote any of the critics.

At the same time, without any evidence such as increased minority enrollment, improved grades, graduation rates or job placement, the same reporter writes that: “DEI offices have become a mainstay on college and university campuses across the country for years as schools try to boost faculty diversity and help students from all backgrounds succeed.”

Of course, efforts to help students from all backgrounds succeed on Texas campuses will continue, unimpeded by Senate Bill 17.

Texas A&M may want to reconsider if it really needs a journalism school. Unless it can find someone who believes in reporting all sides of the news, it may want to chalk up the McElroy experience as a bullet dodged and take a pass.

Sherry Sylvester discusses the Supreme Court’s ruling that America’s colleges and universities could no longer use race as a factor in determining who could be admitted with Dr. Richard Johnson, Director of the Booker T. Washington Institute at Texas Public Policy Foundation.

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Testifying in support of Senate Bill 17, University of Texas at Austin professor Daniel Bonevac told members of the Texas House Higher Ed Committee that Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) programs function as “campus thought police…indoctrinating students and training activists.”

Dr. Bonevac is in a position to know. He’s a tenured professor who has been teaching at UT for more than 40 years. He has seen what DEI has wrought—up close.

He reports that dissent from the DEI orthodoxy is not tolerated on campus and by dissent he means “laughing at the wrong joke, liking the wrong social media post, asking the wrong question in class” — all of which can lead to serious, career-ending consequences.

We have seen these dramas play out across the country. But throughout the debate on Senate Bill 17, the anti-DEI bill by Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe and Rep. John Kuempel, R-Seguin, Texas colleges and universities continued to insist, despite piles of evidence to the contrary, that it wasn’t happening at their institutions.

Texas academic leaders routinely testified that DEI was nothing other than a support program for minority students, veterans and students who are the first in the families to go to college. They ignored video evidence of statements like that of former UT Dean of DEI, Skyller Walkes, screaming at a group of students that “an educator in a system of oppression is either a revolutionary or an oppressor. Which one will you identify as?”

Walkes left UT to an even higher ranking job at Columbia. After this report came out, her name was removed from UT’s website.

Texas Tech University officials were incredulous when confronted with evidence showing that a biology professor was disqualified from a job there for stating that he treats all his students equally. The head of DEI at Texas Tech announced last week that she is leaving Texas to take a similar job at the Northern Illinois University.

Last month University of Texas Psychology Professor Kirsten Bradbury asked the following question on a test:

Which sociodemographic group is most likely to repeatedly violate the rights of others, in a pattern of behavior that includes violence, deceit, irresponsibility and lack of remorse?

The correct test answer was “wealthy white men.”

Bradbury issued a non-apology. There’s no indication she has suffered any repercussions from the university.

Christopher Rufo found curriculum materials at University of Texas’ College of Communication promoting the idea that “objectivity,” “individualism,” and “worship of the written word” were all “characteristics of white supremacy culture.”

Rufo also found that a professor of educational psychology and African Diaspora Studies teaches that “white supremacy is so pernicious . . . it is responsible for virtually every ill that we see within our communities.”

These and a host of other egregious examples of DEI in action on Texas campuses were all treated by academic leaders as one-offs perpetrated by some rogue professor or administrator. Once evidence to the contrary surfaced, it was usually quickly removed from university websites.

When the Vice President for Diversity and Community and Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin testified on the bill to end DEI in Texas, she was not asked about the DEI doctrine of white supremacy and gender theory. She said DEI programs at UT were focused “on the success of students.” When legislators questioned her about anti-discrimination programs, she didn’t let them know that civil rights, Title VI and Title IX compliance are separate programs and not part of most DEI offices.

When Gov. Greg Abbott demanded that universities stop using diversity statements which require adherence to DEI principles when hiring faculty, Texas A&M quickly renamed their faculty hiring guidelines from Strategies and Tactics to Improve Diversity and Excellence (STRIDE) to simply the Faculty Hiring Handbook. However, the so-called “Berkeley Rubric” from the University of California, which require candidates to be scored based on their diversity statement, was not removed. This means candidates would still be downgraded for using words like merit, color-blind or best-qualified.

At the House Higher Education hearing on DEI, Texas A&M’s Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs acknowledged that DEI had been “discovered in some pockets of the university,” but he insisted that the administration was unaware of it.

But A&M’s State of Diversity Report released in 2020 details a vast network of DEI programs throughout the A&M system.

The A&M report parrots the credo of DEI, insisting that, “…racism, hate speech, safety, and belonging issues are evidence of systemic, cultural problems and are enduring trends at Texas A&M.” The report concludes that “dismantle[ing] systemic racism” is essential to advancing Texas A&M’s land-grant mission.

It is unlikely that most Texas academic leaders are committed to the basic premise of DEI—that all American institutions (including all colleges and universities) are predominantly racist, whether consciously or not. Instead, it appears that many college administrators have been captured by DEI hucksters and are in too deep to back out now.

To see how these hucksters work, take a look at the website for the National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Ed (NADOHE). Their mission has nothing to do with student success. Instead, their goal is to create more jobs for diversity officers to do. They see racism everywhere, whether there’s any evidence or not.

Some believe that NADOHE actually foments unrest on campuses so academic administrators will reach out to them for help. You can see how that could happen. As the National Association of Scholars’ John Sailer has documented, the explosion of DEI programs at the University of Texas began after students protested and made demands.

Ironically, NADOHE’s website makes it clear that DEI is little more than a full-employment act for bureaucrats that creates division and resentment on campus and does nothing to help minority students succeed. It is not just the red states that have figured out the truth about DEI. Last month a debate was held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) entitled “Should DEI Be Abolished?” Even the side arguing in support of DEI agreed that it has “gone off the track.”

Texas’ passage of Senate Bill 17, the strongest anti-DEI bill in the nation, does not mean that Texans don’t believe racism and sexism still exist and must be challenged. But it does mean an end to the massive and complex network of DEI programs built on the premise that white supremacy and racism are the primary driving force of our academic institutions and American life.

The goal of SB 17 is to end the powerful incentives and career-threatening penalties that are mandated by DEI, and to return Texas campuses to places where free speech, academic freedom and intellectual inquiry are the values that drive the institution.

When Gov. Abbott signs SB 17 into law, we can hope it is the end of the campus thought police.

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

After early voting ended on Friday night, Texas voting data guru Derek Ryan issued his final report of who voted, compiling all the information available from the Texas Secretary of State, Two telling points emerged for us to ponder while we wait for the polls to close tomorrow night. First, the number of voters who previously voted in Republican primaries leads the number of voters who previously voted in Democrat primaries by over 565,429. Second, early voter turnout is down a half-million votes from the last gubernatorial election in 2018.

Ryan reports that in 2018, 38% of registered voters cast their ballots early. This year, only 31% voted early – and we have 2 million more registered voters!

Low early vote turnout means that two things could happen on Tuesday – one or both parties could blow out their Election Day “get out the vote” efforts, producing another record turnout in Texas or 2022 will look more like 2014 when fewer people voted in the mid-term election in Texas because top of the ballot races weren’t competitive.

We can guess which will happen but nobody actually knows. However, one thing we can bet on is that regardless of the turnout, Democrats and their media allies will insist the Election Integrity reforms passed by the Texas Legislature in 2021 somehow resulted in voter suppression. I am 100% confident making that election prediction.

The Daily Caller published this op-ed over the weekend about the voter suppression scam in Texas and I want to share it with you:

Sylvester: Harris County Texas Wants Biden’s DOJ to Monitor Its Elections. Here’s Why:

Have a great election night!

It makes absolutely no sense for the media to be in charge of political debates in Texas or anywhere else. They don’t even pretend to be neutral players anymore. They are on the liberal Democrat side. 

Which makes it all the more telling, now that the only Texas gubernatorial debate is over, that almost none of the media’s post-debate analysts named Beto O’Rourke the winner. What is amusing is that media analysts can’t seem to understand how, after literally years of biased and dishonest coverage of Texas conservative leadership in general and Gov. Greg Abbott in particular, O’Rourke managed to lose a debate against a man they demonize and misrepresent every day. 

With the media in charge, the debate questions on Friday night all leaned in O’Rourke’s favor. There were no questions about the Texas energy policy and how O’Rourke’s support for the Green New Deal would cost millions of jobs and devastate the Texas oil and gas industry. 

There were also no questions about parental rights and school choice which Abbott and a majority of Texans support and O’Rourke opposes. Instead, the media’s education questions were focused on the issues teachers’ unions care about—more money for schools and more pay for teachers and retirees. Student outcomes took a back seat to whether the New York City mayor had actually contacted Abbott’s office about busing migrants there.   

And, of course, they didn’t ask O’Rourke to define what a woman is or if he thinks boys should be allowed to play girl’s sports.

Still, O’Rourke’s prospects seemed good going into the debate.  Polls show 54% of Texans think the state is going in the wrong direction. Texas has had a very difficult couple years, which include the pandemic, a horrifying mass shooting followed by an inexplicable failure to respond by law enforcement, a deadly freeze that paralyzed us and a Supreme Court decision on abortion that has divided Texans.  

O’Rourke clearly went into the debate thinking he would blame Greg Abbott for all that. Using his entitled, rich kid persona, he ignored the rules and launched flailing attacks that repeatedly fell flat. The old suggestions by a previously star-struck media that O’Rourke is, somehow, the reincarnation of Bobby Kennedy are laughable after his debate performance.

O’Rourke attacks repeatedly noted that Abbott has been in charge for the last eight years—he clearly thought it was a killer punch.  

But he doesn’t understand Texans. The Texas Public Policy Foundation conducted focus groups last year asking Texans across the state what they believe about the Lone Star State. We learned that Texans, regardless of race or ethnicity and even most Democrats, are proud of being Texans because, they said, Texas is a state that does things right. 

They listed things like the state’s low cost of living, no income tax, available jobs and reasonable regulations—all results of conservative pro-Texas policies moved forward by Abbott.

No recent pollster has asked Texans if they believe the last eight years would have been better if Democrats were in charge, but if they did, I am confident the answer would be a resounding no. Right next to the right track/wrong track number on most polling results is the disapproval rating for Democrat President Joe Biden, which stands at close to 60% in Texas. Only 37% of Texans approve of his performance and even members of his own party don’t want him to run again. At the same time, a majority of Texans approve of Abbott.  

O’Rourke missed the fact that while Texans believe the state is going in the wrong direction, they don’t blame Abbott. Instead, polls have shown again and again, that Texans’ most urgent concern is the crisis at the border and the 2.1 million people who have crossed illegally since President Biden has been in office. Texans support Abbott’s border policies.

A basic rule of politics is to never believe your own press, but O’Rourke doesn’t seem to realize that virtually all the Texas mainstream media is his press. That’s probably why he misjudged his rude and condescending attacks on the governor and crossed the line of good Texas manners. He thought he could badmouth Abbott because he thinks Texans believe the daily mainstream media headlines screaming that Texas is a backward state whose conservative policies have left it in shambles. But most Texans don’t buy that. It doesn’t ring true with the reality of their lives.   

Republicans finally took control of all three branches of Texas government in 2003, and now, after a generation of reversing the liberal policies of high taxes, intrusive regulation and trial-lawyer packed courts, conservative principles are part of the Texas DNA, right next to liberty and freedom.

If someone is going to overthrow the state’s top conservative leader, he or she will need to be a genuine Texan who understands that the Lone Star State became the country’s top job creator and the top destination for Americans moving from other states because of conservative policies that have rebuilt our state after almost 100 years of Democrat rule. 

O’Rourke showed he doesn’t understand that hard-working Texans know how the economy works because they can see the difference in Texas and blue states around the country. Otherwise, he wouldn’t be putting a higher statewide minimum wage at the top of his platform. Texas voters would never support a plan that would kill both jobs and businesses.    

The media is saying that Abbott stacked the deck by only agreeing to one debate, but Texans saw all they needed to see on Friday night. O’Rourke demonstrated he’s not in tune with the priorities Texans care about. Hopefully, we are seeing his last run for public office.