The University of North Texas system has ended its temporary pause on drag shows roughly five months after it was put in place.
It comes after the U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this month ruled in a case challenging a similar ban at West Texas A&M that drag performances are likely protected under the First Amendment.
"We're excited that the students will be coming back to a campus where free speech and the principles of a campus with open discourse and debate are going to be upheld once again," said Amanda Nordstrom, an attorney with the Foundation for Individuals Rights and Expression, or FIRE. "Maybe you don't agree with drag shows…or you find them offensive, but that doesn't mean we should ban all expression."
FIRE and the ACLU helped sued West Texas A&M after University President Walter Wendler cancelled a suicide prevention fundraiser drag show by the student group Spectrum WT, even though "the law of the land appears to require" him to allow it.
UNT ordered a pause on on-campus drag performances in March to comply, it said, with state and federal laws while it waited "on a definitive ruling on litigation against other Texas universities from our federal courts to provide necessary guidance."
Following the court's ruling on Aug. 18 the organizations wrote a letter to UNT urging the school to rescind its pause. In response this week, vice chancellor and general counsel Alan Stucky confirmed the system's "temporary pause on drag performances has ended."
Bill Zeeble is KERA's education reporter. Got a tip? Email Bill at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on X @bzeeble.
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