{"id":23429,"date":"2025-10-27T20:22:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:22:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/23429\/"},"modified":"2025-10-27T20:22:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-27T20:22:09","slug":"appeals-court-will-reconsider-west-texas-am-drag-show-ban","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/23429\/","title":{"rendered":"Appeals court will reconsider West Texas A&M drag show ban"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sign up for The Brief<\/a>, The Texas Tribune\u2019s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news.<\/p>\n

Audio recording is automated for accessibility. Humans wrote and edited the story. See our AI policy<\/a>, and give us feedback<\/a>.<\/p>\n

A federal appeals court will take a second look at whether West Texas A&M University can ban drag shows, setting aside an earlier ruling that found the university\u2019s ban likely violated students\u2019 free speech rights.<\/p>\n

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday tossed a 2-1 ruling by a three-judge panel issued in August and agreed to rehear the case before the court\u2019s 17 active judges.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The panel\u2019s earlier decision<\/a> had sided with the student group Spectrum WT, which is represented by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, after university President Walter Wendler canceled a campus drag show in 2023. The panel majority said the students would\u2019ve likely engaged in protected expression, pointing to their drag show\u2019s context as a ticketed event organized by a LGBTQ+ student group to raise money for a suicide prevention charity, and that the venue, Legacy Hall, was a public forum.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not yet clear whether the university plans to resume banning drag shows while the case is under review. A West Texas A&M spokesperson declined to comment Monday.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur clients will keep fighting for their First Amendment rights and those of all public university students to express themselves on campus free of the government\u2019s heavy hand of censorship,\u201d said JT Morris, FIRE \u00a0supervising senior attorney.<\/p>\n

The court\u2019s eventual decision could also influence a separate lawsuit filed by the Texas A&M Queer Empowerment Council, a student group at Texas A&M University in College Station, which is challenging a systemwide prohibition on drag performances. The Texas A&M System asked the Fifth Circuit to pause that case until it decides the West Texas A&M appeal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The full court has tentatively scheduled oral arguments for the week of Jan. 19.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.<\/p>\n

Disclosure: Texas A&M University, Texas A&M University System, West Texas A&M University and West Texas A&M University have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune\u2019s journalism. Find a complete\u00a0list of them here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune\u2019s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1183,27,29,28,16864],"class_list":["post-23429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-lgbtq","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-west-texas-am-university"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}