{"id":437229,"date":"2026-09-16T01:48:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:48:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/437229\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T01:48:22","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T01:48:22","slug":"republican-officials-respond-to-bo-frenchs-comment-on-ut-austin-students-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/437229\/","title":{"rendered":"Republican Officials Respond to Bo French’s Comment on UT Austin Students | 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

A social media post by a down-ballot Republican candidate<\/a> is testing the Texas GOP\u2019s effort to maintain unity in an already challenging election cycle<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Bo French<\/a>, this year\u2019s Republican nominee for Texas Railroad Commission<\/a>, posted a picture<\/a> on September 13 of the University of Texas (UT) at Austin student section during its Saturday football game against Ohio State University, in which most of the students in the foreground appeared to be of Indian descent.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard UT graduation this year looked like this. I didn\u2019t believe it. The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined,\u201d French wrote in the caption.<\/p>\n

French elaborated in another post that his remark referred to \u201cforeigners.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI weep for the families in Texas who can\u2019t get into UT because they prioritize foreigners over Texans,\u201d French said<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaker of the Texas House Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock) called<\/a> on French to delete the post, claiming it \u201cdemean[s] people because of their race or ethnicity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gov. Greg Abbott also responded with slight criticism.<\/p>\n

\u201cA selective picture of Longhorn fans celebrating our biggest home victory \u2014 ever \u2014 actually shows a way that Texans unite. We all support our college football teams. The way we win the state is the same way we win football games. We unite under the brand of Texas,\u201d Abbott stated<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t mean that Texas cannot also lead in having the toughest immigration laws of any state in America and freezing H-1B visas at our universities<\/a>,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, this year\u2019s Republican nominee for U.S. Senate, said<\/a> he \u201ccondemn[s] racism in all its forms\u201d in response to a challenge<\/a> by his opponent, state Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin), to condemn French \u2014 \u201cincluding James Talarico saying white men are America’s top terror threat and that he prays to overcome his own \u2018whiteness,\u2019 whatever that means.\u201d<\/p>\n

French defeated outgoing Commissioner Jim Wright<\/a> for the Republican nomination after the March primary election went to a razor-thin runoff<\/a>. Wright was the party favorite, boasting endorsements by statewide politicians including Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham.\u00a0<\/p>\n

French, a former chair of the Tarrant County GOP, ran with the endorsements of Turning Point Action and some elected officials, including U.S. Rep. Keith Self (R-TX-03) and state Reps. Mitch Little (R-Lewisville), Brent Money (R-Greenville), Andy Hopper (R-Decatur), and Wes Virdell (R-Brady).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Texas Railroad Commission regulates the Texas oil and gas industry.<\/p>\n

For the sake of party unity, Abbott eventually lent public support to French after the primary results, posing for a picture<\/a> with all non-judicial Republican statewide candidates in July \u2014 including Paxton and also Burrows, who is not a statewide candidate.<\/p>\n

At the time, Abbott said the July meeting marked the \u201cfirst time ever\u201d that all statewide Republican candidates in Texas had joined to set a group campaign strategy.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The unprecedented gesture of unity took place amid an election year that may prove challenging for Texas Republicans, with Paxton in particular polling poorly in several major surveys<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Other Republican members of the Texas House that condemned French\u2019s post include state Reps. Lacey Hull<\/a> (R-Houston), Drew Darby<\/a> (R-San Angelo), Jeff Leach<\/a> (R-Plano), Jared Patterson<\/a> (R-Frisco), Matt Shaheen<\/a> (R-Frisco), and Dade Phelan<\/a> (R-Beaumont), the former speaker of the Texas House.<\/p>\n

Outgoing U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), whom Paxton is running to replace, also condemned French\u2019s remarks as \u201cintolerance and racism.<\/a>\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopper in turn criticized Cornyn, calling him a \u201csmug globalist.<\/a>\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

State Rep. Jon Rosenthal (D-Houston), French\u2019s Democratic opponent, thanked<\/a> Cornyn for his statement.<\/p>\n

The Texas Oil and Gas Association issued a statement<\/a> condemning French\u2019s post, but it has not withdrawn its endorsement for him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A social media post by a down-ballot Republican candidate is testing the Texas GOP\u2019s effort to maintain unity…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,27167,1865,392,1724,18623,1967,4100],"class_list":["post-437229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-bo-french","tag-dustin-burrows","tag-greg-abbott","tag-immigration","tag-india","tag-ken-paxton","tag-university-of-texas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437229","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=437229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}