Bo French, candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission, attends the Conservative Political Action Conference in March at the Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center, in Grapevine.
Callaghan O’Hare
REUTERS
FORT WORTH
Bo French hates Texas.
But he has oil money and a cadre of trash-talkers behind him, so most Fort Worth leaders are too gutless to criticize him.
There is no other way to explain the events of the last week, when a spoiled son of Westover Hills went on his latest public tirade and was met with loud pushback across America — but mostly embarrassed silence in Fort Worth and Tarrant County.
This time, the Republican candidate to regulate the oil industry on the misnamed Texas Railroad Commission complained about some of Texas’ top college students — just because they don’t look like him.
French posted a photo on X.com of a crowd of happy Indian-American students. They were wildly cheering the University of Texas Longhorns’ come-from-behind football victory over the No. 1 team in the country.
His comment: “I heard UT graduation this year looked like this. … The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
French explained later in so many words that he was referring to residency status, not race. Children of immigrants here on work permits are counted as residents up to age 21, meaning they count toward the state requirement that UT admit 90% residents in each freshman class.
Tarrant County Republican Party chairman Bo French spoke to a Republican women’s club meeting Feb. 10, 2024, at the Enchiladas Ole restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas. Bud Kennedy bud@star-telegram.com
But when reporters found students in the photo, the first two identified were both American citizens. About one-third of U.S. college students are first- or second-generation immigrants, but a majority are American citizens.
In other words, what French saw was mostly a section of cheering American college football fans, because a lot of the smartest kids in Texas and America today are Indian-American and Asian-American.
He thinks that’s all wrong.
Then, Fort Worth leaders sat in near-complete silence.
They shook their heads and tut-tutted the French family’s wayward boy just as if he were a curly-haired brat wreaking havoc in the grand ballroom at a blue-blood country club.
Look, Bo French is not a TCU frat boy anymore.
Bo French at a gala welcoming the touring company of “The Lion King” to the Bass Performance Hall Aug. 30, 2002. The gala was at the Maddox-Muse Center. Sharon Corcoran Star-Telegram archives
He is a relentless and power-hungry politician running for statewide office, driven to overthrow Texas leaders and use the force of law to restore control of the state to “heritage” white Texans and Americans.
That, in turn, would keep control in the hands of two maniacal West Texas energy billionaires: Tim Dunn of Midland and Farris Wilks of Cisco.
They want Texas governed their own way, only by extremist archconservatives and only by their hardline teachings under a Christian God, without any say-so whatsoever for Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims or anyone else.
Fort Worth and Tarrant County have always had a few little nut nests. We are prone to spot outbreaks of resentment, hatred and bigotry.
The Fort Worth Klan No. 101 gathered with 5,000 Klansmen from across North Texas for a parade through downtown Fort Worth, Texas, Feb. 16, 1922. The photo was taken before the parade in YMCA Park on West Vickery Boulevard east of Jennings Street. Roy Jernigan Basil Clemons Photograph Collection, UT Arlington Library Special Collections 
A 1923 Ku Klux Klan gathering in Fort Worth, including a campaign sign in the background for city Finance Commissioner Chester L. Jones. Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection UT Arlington Special Collections
In the 1910s, Fort Worth was the home of the movement against women’s voting rights in Texas.
In the 1920s, one of the largest Ku Klux Klan klaverns in the South marched down Main Street in white hoods and sheets under the banner, “America First.”
On Juneteenth 1939, a white mob provoked in part by Charles Stowe, a Confederate veteran’s grandson, destroyed the home of 12-year-old Opal Lee’s family in a white southside neighborhood.
In 1956, whites in the then-farming-town of Mansfield rioted against school desegregation.
Today, the national white supremacist Patriot Front group is led by residents from Haslet and Grapevine.
Yet today, like in the 1920s and 1950s, our leaders are somehow unable to speak out boldly.
As far as I can tell, north Fort Worth City Council member Charles Lauersdorf is the only local Republican official who has spoken out publicly against French’s sneering mockery of Indian-American students cheering at a UT football game.
“This is exactly why a fanatic like this should never hold any office,” Lauersdorf wrote in a courageous Facebook post, sharing French’s X.com comment.
“People like Bo French are the problem,” Lauersdorf went on: “He probably doesn’t realize that a majority of what he sees are likely American students chasing the American dream.”
In a follow-up post, Lauersdorf, a Marine veteran, said he’s disappointed in those who defend French’s comment as conservative.
“ Conservatism doesn’t require us to abandon basic decency or pretend racism becomes acceptable just because someone on our side says it,” he wrote.
I just can’t imagine anyone resenting some of Texas’ smartest kids cheering wildly for their football team and getting an education.
Even U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Houston said French’s post was “idiotic.”
We need to hear that more in Tarrant County and Fort Worth.
This story was originally published September 17, 2026 at 1:13 PM.
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Bud Kennedy is a Fort Worth Star-Telegram opinion columnist. In a 54-year Texas newspaper career, he has covered two Super Bowls, a presidential inauguration, seven national political conventions and 19 Texas Legislature sessions..
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