In light of the recent nationwide calls for change following the killing of unarmed black man George Floyd and a surge in support for the Black Lives Matter movement, student-athletes across sports at the University of Texas are demanding that the school cut ties with symbols of its racist history.
In a letter released Friday, student-athletes said they would not participate in recruiting activities until their set of demands – which includes re-naming buildings, dropping the school song “The Eyes of Texas,” and committing 0.5% of UT Athletics’ annual income to Black organizations – was met with an official commitment from the school.
Student-athletes are involved in hosting prospective student-athletes on college campuses during the recruitment process. The student-athletes also said that they would not attend donor events.
Among the proposed buildings to be renamed are Robert Lee Moore Hall, Painter Hall, Littlefield Hall and James Hogg Auditorium. The student-athlete group also calls for educating incoming freshmen about the history of racism at Texas.
- Read more about Theophilus Painter
- Read more about Robert Lee Moore
- Read more about George Littlefield, although Littlefield Hall is said to be named after his wife Alice
- Read more about James “Jim” Hogg
- Read more about “The Eyes of Texas”
✊🏾 “What starts here changes the world” #WeAreOne pic.twitter.com/pimHqdhFSs
— 🦅 (@_BrennanEagles_) June 12, 2020
While the letter mentioned that the football team is behind the demands, media outlets are reporting that multiple sports are involved.
The football players say that they will continue to practice and play in games, but will refuse to engage in recruiting new players if the demands are not met. Notably, Texas Governor Gregg Abbot said Friday that his state is working to make sure that the 2020-21 college football season starts as planned, with some fans in attendance, as it reopens amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Texas letter comes on the same day the NCAA released a statement on “social activism,” which encouraged schools to make Nov. 3, 2020 – Election Day – an official off day for student-athletes.
I do not understand why Black Lives Matter leaders do not demand slavery reparations. Renaming buildings and bringing dow monuments are symbolic, but real change will come with reparations. Give 2-3 trillion of $ to black slave descendants instead of giving to corrupt corporations that will pay no taxes and hide profits abroad. That should be #1 demand of BLM.
Black Lives Matter is a DNC funding Trap hole. They’re collecting money through actblue or shareblue and funding it to Dem candidates. You donate to BLM and it goes to Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders campaigns in the 9 digit range. NOT THE BLACK COMMUNITY.
This becomes a thing and shows up as a movement every four years for the last 12 years. Curious. You can find the website traffic if you try. Black lives matter as an organization, is not helping the discussion. It’s creating a divide, it’s exploitation and it’s wrong because of that(The “non-profit“).
I don’t agree with erasing history. Racism exists on all sides. Go try to work at Facebook or Microsoft with… Read more »
So what happens if an athlete or a sport refuses to join this movement? “Nearly 40 student-athletes from seven different sports posted a typed, two-page letter on Twitter that was not signed by any individual.” According to their website they have 500 athletes and 20 sports. I guess my questions were they just not very well organized and went to press too early? Was there a meeting to go over all the demands that all the athletes are comfortable with or are they just assuming that once it has been released on twitter everyone will get on board?
I think what will happen is that those 40 won’t participate in recruiting activities or donor events, and those who want to participate will do so. Doesn’t seem that complicated to me. The school will have to decide whether they want those 40 (and others who may later sign on) to participate or not more than they want to keep the song and the name of those buildings.
The building names have been on the chopping block for a while. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Painter, Moore, and probably Littlefield removed pretty quickly. Hogg there will be a fight over, and the Eyes of Texas there will be an even bigger fight over.
Since it “Doesn’t seem that complicated”, I will tell you is what I find complicated. The article misleading. The title leads the reader to believe that “Student Athletes Demand Change”. There is no mention in your article that it is 40 out of 500 student athletes that posted the letter. I am sorry that my question was so silly. “Nearly 40 student-athletes” out of 500 isn’t nearly as impressive as “Student Athletes”. The article states that “While the letter mentioned that the football team is behind the demands”, so if there are “nearly 40 athletes” that isn’t even 1/2 of a D1 football roster. Then if you figure that “multiple sports are involved” those numbers are even less impressive. So… Read more »
The information about who signed and who didn’t was released after the original letter. We’re preparing an update now.
This is a joke. “Cancel Culture” crazy mob mentality that is never going to be satisfied with anything. If you dislike something, argue against it. Not against the idea of it existing. This makes us look like idiots. We look more like China than the America I am in love with. What are we going to do next??? Rename Washington DC? Tear down the Jefferson Memorial? Get a grip!
This is awesome. Nice work TX athletes! Change the world. Shape the future.
I’ve been working on the Railroad ? Tha t is wha t the world hears when they YouTube this .
I hate Clemson so much because they dropped swimming. But does anyone else find it curious that the Clemson football players successfully lobbied to get John Calhoun’s name removed from buildings and the honors program because he was a slave owner and defended slavery. Yet Thomas Green Clemson, the namesake of the university was also a slave owner. Further, Thomas Clemson resigned his post with President Buchanan administration when the civil war began, returned to South Carolina and enlisted in the Confederate State Army. So to avoid hypocrisy, do the football players also need to lobby for Clemson University’s name to be removed? And to that matter, also the town of Clemson, SC to be changed? Will the football players… Read more »
“You can’t go back and change the beginning but you can start where you are and change the ending.” In most cases, maybe we should all agree that things happened in the past that may not be popular now. That doesn’t mean we have to rename buildings, cities, or songs, but we can move forward to give those things new context. I remember reading articles about black slave owners who have buildings named after them – will those get renamed, too, or do they get a pass?
Southern Democrats have a history of fighting against civil rights and it’s about time we call it out.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-3.xls
Dude, I think you missed your chance. Your flag is being banned and all your favorite monuments are coming down.
I was not aware of the history of The Eyes of Texas, so I’m glad to have learned of it. But I do not want to get rid of it. There is nothing in the lyrics that is remotely racist, and what I feel when I’m in a stadium with 100,000 other people signing it is incredible unity, where everyone — white, black and brown — in that moment is coming together for a common purpose. We could use more traditions that bring us together.
The Confederate States of America had incredible unity, too.
Are you implying that unity in a college stadium today is bad because the Confederacy was united?
You should give “The Death of a Nation” by Dinesh D’Souza a watch if you want a good account of the racist history of the American left.
I try not to read anything by convicted felons who had to be pardoned by impeached Presidents.
Yeah, he committed a hell of a crime in giving someone’s campaign $20k through a straw donor not knowing it violated campaign finance laws. He also received the stiffest penalty ever leveraged for that type of offense, but I’m sure that had nothing to do with the administration at the time and the fact he made a movie about them.
You really should read something because you continually come up short in these threads.
It’s not exactly like UT’s racist past is limited to the post-Civil War era. Check this out. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/09/how-ut-used-standardized-testing-to-slow-integration/597814/