A student group seeking to host a drag show at a Texas university asked the Supreme Court on Wednesday to overrule a decision by the school’s president to prohibit the performance, which he described as “derisive, divisive and demoralizing.”
Spectrum WT and two student leaders of the LGBTQ group filed an emergency petition with the high court asking that it be allowed to put on the show at West Texas A&M University. The ban, the group claims, violates the First Amendment.
The university’s president, Walter Wendler, declined the group’s request to host the event. According to court records, Wendler at the time described the performances as “exaggerating aspects of womanhood (sexuality, femininity, gender),” that, he said, “stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others.”
The litigation has been pending for nearly a year and was originally filed ahead of a scheduled drag performance last year, which was later moved off campus. This year, the group has scheduled the show for March 22.
The court asked West Texas A&M to respond by March 13.
The group has described the event as “PG-13,” allowing minors to attend if accompanied by a parent.
US District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, who was nominated to the bench by former President Donald Trump, ruled in September that the group did not have a First Amendment right to hold the performance on campus.
“When children are involved,” Kacsmaryk wrote, “the calculation changes.”
The conservative 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals declined to expedite the case and set arguments for late April.
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