Officials at a Texas university cannot block a student-led LGBTQ+ organization from hosting drag shows on campus, a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The 2-1 ruling from the New Orleans-based 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals is a major victory for the group, Spectrum WT, which has been in a long-running legal battle with West Texas A&M University officials after the school’s president banned the organization from putting on drag shows on campus.
The 5th Circuit’s ruling will allow Spectrum WT to proceed with hosting drag performances while its legal challenge plays out.
The Canyon, Texas, school gained national attention in March 2023 after its president, Walter Wendler, declined Spectrum WT’s request to host a drag event that month at a venue on campus. Wendler said in a campus-wide email that such performances do not “preserve a single thread of human dignity,” compared them to blackface and argued that they “stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others.”
That categorical ban, the 5th Circuit said, likely violated the First Amendment rights of the student group.
“Because theatrical performances plainly involve expressive conduct within the protection of the First Amendment, and because we find the plaintiffs’ drag show is protected expression, discrimination among such shows must pass strict scrutiny,” appeals court Judge Leslie Southwick wrote in the majority opinion. “Based on the record before us, the district court erred in concluding that the plaintiffs were not substantially likely to succeed on the merits of their First Amendment claim.”
Southwick, an appointee of former President George W. Bush, was joined by Judge James Dennis, who was appointed to the bench by former President Bill Clinton.
Conservatives have said the performances – which often feature men dressing as women in exaggerated makeup while singing or entertaining a crowd, though some shows feature bawdier content – expose children to sexual themes and imagery that are inappropriate.
When US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk ruled against Spectrum WT in September 2023, he focused in part on the possibility that children could see the performance.
“When children are involved,” Kacsmaryk, a noted conservative whose courthouse is in Amarillo, Texas, wrote at the time, “the calculation changes.”
The case simmered as Republican state lawmakers around the country pushed anti-drag laws and other measures targeting members of the LGBTQ+ community. It rose to new heights in March 2024 when Spectrum WT sought the Supreme Court’s intervention. But the high court – without providing an explanation – declined to step in to allow the group to host a show on campus that month.
Judges James Ho, an appointee of President Donald Trump, dissented from the 5th Circuit’s decision Monday in a lengthy opinion that was rife with culture war commentary.
“If university officials allow men to act as women in campus events like drag shows, they may feel compelled to allow men to act as women in other campus events as well — like women’s sports,” Ho wrote.
Echoing the blackface arguments pushed by Wendler, the judge wrote that the “drag shows violate the university’s fundamental mission to ensure a welcoming educational environment for all.”
Attorneys for Spectrum WT, meanwhile, said the court’s ruling “is a victory not just for Spectrum WT, but for any public university students at risk of being silenced by campus censors.”
CNN has reached out to attorneys for Wendler and the other school officials involved in the lawsuit for comment.
