Woke Faculty at West Texas A&M Condemns its Rebellious President

CANYON, TX — A vote facilitated by the faculty senate at West Texas A&M in Canyon has condemned WT President Walter Wendler for not towing the woke agenda when he canceled a scheduled drag queen show on campus in March. According to the Texas Tribune, WT’s faculty senate president Ashley Pinkham said there were 179 votes to condemn Wendler and 82 against it.

The vote has no impact on Wendler’s tenure and was wholly symbolic. The majority 179 faculty members who voted to condemn Wendler hope it sends a message to Texas A&M University System Chancellor John Sharp and the Board of Regents that the faculty wants their drag queen shows to continue unmolested by a university president who dared to challenge the woke ideology the majority of WT’s faculty advocates.

The senate sent out 368 ballots to all faculty and librarians at WT. A spokesman told the Tribune that of that number, 281 ballots were cast.

"Twenty ballots were considered invalid because they were submitted incorrectly or received after the Friday deadline,” the Tribune reported. The Republican-led Texas Legislature will be proud of the WT faculty’s ballot integrity efforts.

Wendler canceled a drag queen show on campus in March citing religious opposition and that drag queen shows are “derisive, divisive and demoralizing misogyny.” More on Wendler’s letter of cancelation.

A free speech advocacy group rounded up a plaintiff and paid the expenses to sue Wendler, WT, the TAMUS, and even the TAMUS Board of Regents, including San Angeloan Randy Brooks who is a TAMUS regent. So far, little movement has happened in the lawsuit filed at the federal courthouse in Amarillo. More on the lawsuit here.

Angelo State University, which is part of the Texas Tech University System, could have its 7th Annual Drag Queen Rave this year, but so far there is no indication that such a show is scheduled with the University Center Program Council. The head of the ASU UCPC would not return our phone calls to confirm a date has been set or not. We also asked publicly concerning drag queen shows on ASU’s campus, What Will General Hawkins Do? Hawkins is the president of ASU.

Free speech on college campuses across the US has become a hot button issue. Turning Point USA engages in conservative activism on college campuses. In October 2022, a TPUSA speech on the campus of UC-Davis by “MAGA Hulk” Stephen Davis was canceled after a rowdy organized protest by Antifa activists clashed with a crowd of “Proud Boys.” Planned speeches by Daily Wire commentator Ben Shapiro have been canceled at numerous universities over the past four years.

No faculty senate stood to condemn those cancelations or stood up for free speech for conservatives.

At WT, the faculty has more problems with Wendler than only his decision to cancel the drag queen show. According to the Tribune, they “accused him of abusing his role as president by running the university based on his own religious ideology and said he has exhibited a pattern of ‘divisive, misogynistic, homophobic and non-inclusive rhetoric that stands in stark contrast with the Core Values of the university.’”

Some in the faculty also condemned Wendler for declining enrollment at WT, which is down about 700 students to 9,275 for the 2022-2023 academic year. Rather than looking inward at the faculty’s lack of awareness, ’[I]n the resolution, faculty also accused Wendler of actively encouraging prospective students to avoid attending a four-year university immediately after high school and attend community college first, which they say has led to enrollment declines,” the Tribune reported.