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Infinity LaVey Adonis strutted to the front of the stage in 3-inch heels. On beat, the drag queen cartwheeled into the splits, sending an audience of Aggies screaming like fans at a Taylor Swift concert.
Each performer drew similar raves in the sold-out Texas A&M University auditorium, packed on Monday with both queer and straight fans who came for a glittery celebration of art and inclusivity, called “Draggieland.” But the joyfulness of the show stood in contrast to the events that preceded it, when organizers starred in one episode of a power struggle between the traditional conservative forces that steer the culture of the College Station campus and the emerging progressive voices in a rapidly growing student body.
The drag show went on against all odds, after the university in August pulled sponsorship and funding. While LGBT student groups raised enough money to put on the event themselves, the university’s reaction spotlighted an underlying issue: A&M administration has made multiple decisions that felt regressive over the past two semesters without listening to the input of students, faculty or staff, many Aggies told the Houston Chronicle.
“With all collaboration, it should be equal,” said senior Mikayla Slaydon, head director of the “Fish Camp” summer program for incoming freshman. “And I think a lot of times, administration underestimates student voices.”
The university, for example, became involved in the selection of student leaders for Fish Camp and removed the words “creating a universally accepting support system” from the camp’s mission. In February, A&M administration told student journalists in a directive to move online and stop printing the 129-year-old newspaper, The Battalion.
Some faculty members share students’ concerns and are battling administrators themselves as Texas A&M embarks on an effort to reorganize its academic structure and increase university efficiency. The president’s office received student and faculty input, resulting in findings presented in a document called the “MGT Report.” But as many of those reorganizational plans are adopted, faculty say their concerns are being ignored.
The university acknowledged missteps in some decisions. After news of killing The Battalion’s print edition went viral, A&M’s Vice President of Student Affairs, Gen. Joe Ramirez, issued an apology. A&M walked back its ultimatum and formed a working group to help decide the publication’s future.
“We are pleased to hear from different voices, even though sometimes we all don’t agree on the outcome of a decision,” said Kelly Brown, associate vice president in A&M’s division of marketing and communications. “Not all decisions will be favorable to everyone, however, the administration is committed to continue working together and listening to all campus voices.”
But some students, faculty and staff worry that they don’t have a seat at the table, leaving donors and conservative lobbying groups with outsized influence on Texas A&M, led since June 2021 by President M. Katherine Banks.
“We have a long history of top-down management at this university,” Faculty Senate Speaker Dale Rice said. “To have a great university in the 21st century, it can’t be all top-down decision making. You’ve got to have some of the stakeholders involved in that process from the very beginning.”
Draggieland was heavily protested in past years by conservative students and alumni; and one lobbying group, The Rudder Association, expressed concerns that Fish Camp has “strayed” from teaching about tradition and has been “taken over by the diversity folks,” according to meeting minutes first obtained by The Battalion, which has reported on several efforts to increase inclusivity on campus.
The new Draggieland organizers say then can only speculate what occurred in their case — they said A&M has not answered their questions on why it disaffiliated from the original event. But the protests against the show in 2020 and 2021 provide a clue, they said.
“We had heard quite a number of donors to the university not being happy with Draggieland, saying ‘This is degrading, this is disgusting, this is abhorrent,’” Draggieland showrunner and senior Daniel Hou said. “These donors using these words on admins, I personally think … had an influence on what happened.”

Drag performer Alaina competes in Draggieland, a drag pageant, at Rudder Theatre at Texas A&M University on Monday, April 18, 2022. A&M pulled funding from an annual drag show on campus, so several LGBT groups banded together over several months to plan and find funding for the event. This is one of several unilateral decisions A&M administrators made this academic year, much to the chagrin of impacted student groups.
Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer

A sold-out audience reacts to a performance during Draggieland at Rudder Theatre at Texas A&M University on Monday, April 18, 2022. A&M pulled funding from an annual drag show on campus, so several LGBT groups banded together over several months to plan and find funding for the event. This is one of several unilateral decisions A&M administrators made this academic year, much to the chagrin of impacted student groups.
Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer
A sold-out audience reacts to a performance during Draggieland at Rudder Theatre at Texas A&M University on Monday, April 18, 2022. Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle
Tradition and culture
Tension has simmered for months at the flagship university in College Station, where enrollment has skyrocketed over the past 20 years, and the school has grappled with needs that accompany such growth.
The school, home to more than 73,000 students and more than 1,200 student organizations, is generally considered one of the state’s more conservative campuses. Its credo is steeped in tradition — which many of its roughly 505,000 alumni want to maintain. Some students and faculty, however, hope to see A&M become more inclusive, even if that involves changing tradition.
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“Changes to the university culture are fought violently because that’s conceding at any point we were ever wrong,” said Lilly McAlister, staff in the College of Medicine and president of an area Political Action Committee, Young Dems of Bryan-College Station.
She added that progressive voices on campus are becoming louder: “We’re in an environment where passively held (progressive) beliefs become more important to say out loud.”
A&M “culture” is key to the reasons why donors and alumni weigh in so heavily at the university, said Scot Walker, vice president of A&M’s Association of Former Students.
“I don’t mean this to be flip, but probably most of us think the best A&M was the A&M while we were there,” he said. “It’s difficult, especially for an institution the size of A&M, to effect positive change and hang on to things that make the university special … I think you can do both, and I would argue that Texas A&M has successfully done both.”
The Rudder Association emerged in 2020 with an emphasis on “putting the Aggie back in Aggieland.”
Its impact is hard to discern. Meeting minutes reference several sit-downs with prominent A&M officials. Joe Bourgeois, the group’s president, said the group did not lobby against Draggieland or The Battalion, even though members had concerns with the university’s former funding of the drag show and alleged censorship of conservative pieces at the newspaper.
The Rudder Association did provide input “when asked” regarding Fish Camp, he said.

Performer Jessy B. Darling reacts after being crowned 2022 Queen of Draggieland, by former queen Cora Cadette at Rudder Theatre at Texas A&M University on Monday, April 18, 2022. A&M pulled funding from an annual drag show on campus, so several LGBT groups banded together over several months to plan and find funding for the event. This is one of several unilateral decisions A&M administrators made this academic year, much to the chagrin of impacted student groups.
Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographerCensorship concerns
Fish Camp is a three-day summer event for incoming freshmen, and it’s often thought of as the place where Aggies’ intense love for their university begins.
The camp used to be a registered student organization, meaning it was independently run by students. Slaydon, the program’s director, said she learned after the fact that the university in the fall changed Fish Camp to a “student organization that supports a university program.” The categorization allows more funding, but it is less autonomous: Students technically run the show, but they report to the university.
A&M further changed the camp’s mission statement to remove a phrase about creating an accepting environment, Slaydon said. The university then aligned Fish Camp’s official values with the A&M’s official values — meaning it removed a camp value of “diversity.”
And Fish Camp experienced major setbacks in planning because the selection of leaders and counselors now has to be approved by the vice president of student affairs, Slaydon said. They are six weeks behind.
“We just started out on a really bad foot. Collaboration … isn’t the enemy,” Slaydon said. “It would be a different story if the (student affairs) office was more open to learning the process from the get-go.”
The same semester, Draggieland also experienced changes prompted by the vice president of student affairs. The drag show was formerly managed by MSC Town Hall, a “student organization supporting a university program” that brings events to campus.
Leaders were told that they could no longer host Draggieland, said Bella Lopez, a senior who oversees MSC Town Hall’s special events subcommittee. But the decision didn’t make sense to many in the LGBT community: The show had been a rousing success, becoming MSC Town Hall’s Program of the Year in 2021.
Draggieland was self-sufficient and had enough cash to pay for itself through previous years’ ticket sales, Lopez said. The money was stored in a university coffer, however, so losing university sponsorship meant they could no longer access the funds.
“If it hadn’t been successful, if we hadn’t sold out or it was losing money, I think the students would have understood,” said Mindy Bergman, faculty adviser for the transgender and nonbinary advocacy group Transcend. “They were putting on a show successfully. When there’s no explanation … it starts to feel like it’s about the content.”
Several students told The Chronicle that A&M is not a comfortable place to be queer, but it isn’t always a hostile one. Most students are quiet about their views, even if they disagree, they said. The Draggieland decision — which the university did not officially connect to politics — seemed more like a reflection of administrative views than student opinion on LGBT issues, said Bradford Garcia, president of the LGBT Graduate Student Group.
“I’ve heard the phrase ‘silencing student voices,’” said Garcia, a Ph.D. candidate. “I hesitate to jump there, but that’s the feeling.”
Another controversial decision came when the university in February gave editors of The Battalion an ultimatum to stop printing immediately. If they didn’t move to an online-only format, they would lose several resources including their building space and faculty adviser, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief previously told the Chronicle.
Several students said they feel that The Battalion has covered more contentious issues on campus this year, such as sexual assault at Fish Camp. The Battalion is a registered student organization, which means it doesn’t report to university administration, so the threat led students and faculty to immediately raise concerns about censorship.

Attendees line up to get into Draggieland at Rudder Theatre at Texas A&M University on Monday, April 18, 2022.
Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer‘Competing priorities’
Several faculty members said they see similar issues with input concerning the MGT Report, which the university commissioned to assess organizational efficiency.
One of the biggest recommendations that the university accepted is the merging of the College of Liberal Arts, College of Science and the College of Geosciences into a new College of Arts and Science. Among other changes, the university is also reorganizing the provost’s office — despite faculty concerns that changes might impact their freedom to teach on topics they choose — and University Libraries will no longer serve as a “tenure home” for faculty.
The MGT report mentioned a need to evaluate student programming, including Fish Camp, and it expressed a goal to expand the reach of The Battalion. The university received “markedly split” feedback on a suggestion to align the management practices of student organizations, Banks, the university president, said in an official response to the report called “the Path Forward.” But she said that consistency was important and alignment would continue.
In a statement to the Chronicle, Brown referenced “countless competing priorities” that come with running a large university.
“Earlier this year, President Banks commissioned 41 working groups to review and make recommendations related to the Path Forward,” Brown said. “She asked for the direct input of students, faculty, staff and former students. She is seeking other opinions and is most definitely listening.”
Before Draggieland on Monday, University Libraries faculty member Jillian Eslami filed into the auditorium. Her eyes, lined with bright makeup, lit up when she began talking about the university’s disaffiliation with the drag show.
The university’s actions there feel akin to what is happening with the MGT Report, she said. Eslami said she and other coworkers are particularly worried about the changes to tenure.
A&M administration doesn’t seem to be hearing students, faculty or staff across the board, she said. So she raised the question: Who benefits from these decisions?
“For who? For what?” Eslami said. “It’s not for us.”
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Aggies-are-fighting-over-Texas-A-M-s-soul-One-17122385.php