Texas

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  2/25/2021
  

  Fired for Tweeting?

  "In a written statement to The Chronicle, Burnett said, “Collin College is a government organization that has unconstitutionally sought to punish me for my speech as a private citizen." 

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• SOURCE: Texas Tribune
  3/1/2021
  

  “UT Needs Rich Donors”: Emails Show Wealthy Alumni Supporting “Eyes of Texas” Threatened to Pull Donations

  A number of wealthy University of Texas alumni have threatened to withhold donations unless "The Eyes of Texas," a song with roots traced to blackface minstrelsy and the Lost Cause mythology, is reinstated as the Longhorns' postgame anthem. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  2/21/2021
  

  Texas Failed Because It Did Not Plan

  An analysis of three interrelated failures of planning, logistics, and markets that led to the Texas electrical disaster. 

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  2/21/2021
  

  Why Texas Republicans Fear the Green New Deal

  by Naomi Klein

  The Texas blackouts show the political and social dead ends of the market revolution and the fossil fuel economy, says Naomi Klein. Politicians and industries wedded to the status quo are attacking the idea of a "Green New Deal" because it's encouraging people to imagine alternatives. 

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• SOURCE: Informed Comment
  2/17/2021
  

  From COVID to Power Outages in Ice Storms, the Texas Republican Party has Created a Failed State

  by Juan Cole

  Texas Republicans have gotten out of the way of the market and preached the futility of government action. A non-winterized utility grid is the result. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  2/23/2021
  

  Energy Deregulation Worsened the Texas Crisis — And Enron is Partly to Blame

  by Gavin Benke

  The problems in Texas are a product of an approach to the energy business that Lone Star State companies like Enron pursued at the end of the 20th century. 

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• 2/18/2021
  

  The Texas Weather and Power Catastrophe

  by HNN Staff

  The combination of severe winter storms and persistent cold and a deregulated energy supply system without compulsion to invest in winterization has left Texans without power, heat or drinking water for days. Senator Ted Cruz appears to have decamped to Cancun while politicians blame wind and solar power for frozen natural gas refineries.

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• SOURCE: Chronicle of Higher Education
  2/16/2021
  

  What a Public-Information Act Request Revealed About My College President

  by L.D. Burnett

  Were threats of disciplinary action against a professor for her private tweets demanded by angry state legislators holding the purse strings, or were they efforts to silence critics of a college president's handling of COVID protocols? 

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• SOURCE: Bitter Southerner
  2/9/2021
  

  Houston Hip-Hop and Chinese Chicken

  by Alana Dao

  The story of a restaurant run by Chinese immigrants in Houston is the story of the growth of the diverse Gulf coast metropolis and its fusion of ethnic cultures.

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• SOURCE: Spectrum One News
  1/26/2021
  

  Website Documents Over 700 Lynchings in Texas

  Jeff Littlejohn of Sam Houston State University has launched a website to make accessible information about more than 700 documented lynchings in the state of Texas. 

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• 1/24/2021
  

  Misremember the Alamo

  by Douglas Sackman

  Like most Americans, when Trump tries to "remember the Alamo," he gets it all wrong. His recent visit to Alamo, Texas was 240 miles south of the mission so holy to many Texans, but it was closer in spirit than Trump probably realized. 

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• SOURCE: Texas Monthly
  1/5/2020
  

  Until 1968, a Married Texas Woman Couldn’t Own Property or Start a Business Without Her Husband’s Permission. This Dallas Attorney Changed That

  Louise Raggio was the Texas attorney who pushed for the Marital Property Act of 1967 which legally allowed married women to take legal and financial actions without their husbands' permission (her prior legal career had been in technical violation of the law). 

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• SOURCE: Texas Observer
  12/11/2020
  

  Selena’s Life and Legacy in Corpus Christi

  Historian Cynthia E. Orozco discusses the life and legacy of the Tejana singer Selena Quintanilla as a new Netflix biographical series launches. 

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• SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
  12/13/2020
  

  Are Republicans Serious about a Secession Movement?

  Richard Kreitner, author of "Break It Up," argues that calls for secession have been a regular feature of American political life, though they usually amount to criticism instead of action. 

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• SOURCE: Texas Observer
  12/8/2020
  

  The Long, Winding Road that Led to the SBOE’s Decision for Texas Schools to Teach Abstinence-Plus Sex Education

  As with social studies, sex education in Texas has been subject to the control of social conservatives in positions of power in the state's educational establishment, demonstrating how the movement has shaped textbooks and curriculum for a generation. This may gradually be changing. 

• 
• 11/8/2020
  

  There is Nothing Sacred About the Military Vote

  by Rachel Gunter

  After a patient count, Joe Biden has claimed victory, and fears that late-arriving military absentee ballots could be subject to litigation that might decide the election have receded. This is fortunate, because history shows parties won't hesitate to interfere with the military vote for political advantage.

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• SOURCE: Made by History at The Washington Post
  11/2/2020
  

  Whether Biden Wins or Loses, Texas is Now a Political Battleground

  by James Henson

  "Ironically, the return of real competition to Texas politics stems from the very thing that originally opened the door for Republicans: the political and cultural changes tied to the growing diversity that fractured the old Texas Democratic Party."

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• SOURCE: Made by History at The Washington Post
  10/19/2020
  

  Conservative Activists in Texas Have Shaped the History All American Children Learn

  by Rob Alex Fitt

  "Liberal groups such as People for the American Way were aghast at what was happening in Texas. They launched counter campaigns in the early 1970s to try to break conservative activists’ stranglehold on the textbook selection process, to no avail."

• 
• SOURCE: Austin Chronicle
  9/25/2020
  

  Ways of Remembering: A Racial Geography Tour of UT-Austin’s Campus

  What makes the campus such a great teaching tool? "Nothing goes up on a college campus that hasn't been thought through," explains Gordon. "Everything that gets placed and gets named on a college campus has a meaning behind it."

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• SOURCE: Made By History at The Washington Post
  9/21/2020
  

  Though Often Mythologized, the Texas Rangers Have an Ugly History of Brutality

  by Jonathan S. Jones

  The link between racial violence and Texas law enforcement goes all the way back to the state’s original police force, the Texas Rangers.