Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Texas House speaker Dustin Burrows announced today that Texas’ house and senate will now have committees dedicated to overseeing free speech and civil discourse on university campuses, in response to the public assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Both the house and senate committees are made up of seven members, each with five Republicans and two Democrats. In a press release, Patrick and Burrows said the committees will oversee the implementation of Senate Bill 37, which eliminated UTD’s faculty senate, and SB 2972, which restricts “expressive activities” on public university campuses, including bans on First Amendment-protected expression after 10 p.m. and during the last two weeks of each semester.
“Charlie Kirk was my friend,” Patrick said in today’s press release. “He was assassinated for simply expressing his First Amendment rights. The attack on Charlie was an attack on the First Amendment. Those who cheered his murder are also cheering for the death of America. We cannot tolerate either at our institutions of higher learning.”
The committees come in the wake of multiple attacks on free speech at Texas schools. These include faculty senates being dissolved across the UT System, various administrators and faculty being fired at Texas A&M and Texas State and a statewide crackdown on student protests and expression.
Legislation like SB 2972 and SB 37 have been criticized by free speech groups like the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and the American Association of University Professors for restricting schools’ academic freedom and the First Amendment rights of students and faculty.
This is a breaking news story. The Retrograde will provide more details as new information emerges.
One Comment
Patrick is apparently all for Free Speech, as long as it is Speech he finds acceptable and approves of to service his political cause, Christian Nationalism.