Kate Rogers has filed a federal lawsuit against Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and others. Credit: Courtesy / Katie Rogers
Kate Rogers, whom right-wing officials pushed out of her leadership position at the Alamo Trust, has sued Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham and others, saying they laid siege to her First Amendment rights.
Rogers filed a lawsuit Monday in San Antonio federal court demanding that she be reinstated as president of the Alamo Trust, which oversees the historic battle site. She also seeks unspecified damages from Patrick, Buckingham and the organization’s board.
The suit alleges Patrick and Buckingham violated her constitutionally protected free-speech rights by pressuring the Alamo Trust board to remove her over a 2023 grad-school dissertation she wrote in which she discussed the importance of conveying the history of indigenous people at the Alamo.
Rogers, who served in her position for four years, further alleges the Alamo Trust and the Remember the Alamo Foundation, another defendant named in the suit, retaliated against her by stripping her of her severance pay for being quoted in a recent Texas Monthly article.
The piece in question examined a right-wing backlash against the Alamo’s leadership after the historical site posted an October social media message in celebration of Indigenous People’s Day. Rogers resigned on Oct. 23.
“The fighters at the Alamo courageously held off Santa Anna’s troops for thirteen days. But Lieutenant Governor Patrick and Commissioner Buckingham only needed eleven days to lay siege to the First Amendment,” the suit maintains.
An Alamo Trust spokesperson declined comment on the suit, saying the organization wouldn’t discuss pending litigation. Neither Patrick nor Buckingham was available for immediate comment.
In addition to the Republican officials Patrick and Buckingham and the two Alamo-affiliated organizations, the suit individually names Alamo Trust Board Chair Welcome Wilson Jr. and Hope Andrade, a former Texas secretary of state who took over Rogers’ role, as defendants.
The suit argues that Patrick personally pressured Rogers to resign, even though he “did not, and cannot, cite any example” of how the personal views she expressed in her academic dissertation hindered her job performance or the obligations under her state contract.
When Rogers wouldn’t commit to resigning on a phone call with Patrick, the lieutenant governor allegedly asked Rogers, “Are you going to say I called you?”
“Because Rogers was not willing to keep Lieutenant Governor Patrick’s call a secret, Lieutenant Governor Patrick said, ‘Then I need to end the call,’” according to the suit.
Patrick, one of the Texas Republican Party’s most zealous culture warriors, demanded Rogers be fired in October over the dissertation she composed while completing her doctoral degree in education.
Days earlier, Buckingham targeted the Alamo leadership in a tweet blasting its social media post recognizing Indigenous People’s Day. “Woke has no place at the Alamo,” Buckingham replied, adding, “We will be holding those responsible accountable and will be implementing a new process to ensure my office has oversight.”
In the court filing, Rogers maintains that both Patrick and Buckingham tried to micromanage the Alamo’s restoration project and that she had to mediate a “power struggle” between the pair.
The suit further argues that Patrick admitted in an opinion piece published by the Express-News after Rogers’s ouster that her scholarly writing simply reflected “her personal view.” In the same op-ed the lieutenant governor extolled the Alamo as an important symbol for the “fight for liberty and independence.”
“The Alamo cannot ‘remain a symbol of liberty and freedom for’ Texas if Lieutenant Governor Patrick and Commissioner Buckingham use the Alamo to suppress the personal speech of anyone who disagrees with them,” the petition states. “Otherwise, we need to change ‘Remember The Alamo’ to ‘Remember The Alamo But Don’t Say Anything About It That Upsets Texas Officials.’”
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