FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Tom Hargis, Director of Communications, ACLU of Texas, 713.942.8146 x103 or 832.291.4776; [email protected]
HOUSTON – Prior to the House’s preliminary vote on SB 215, the Higher Education Coordinating Board Sunset Bill, Rep. Matt Krause (R-Fort Worth) successfully added an amendment that would require state colleges and universities to recognize and subsidize campus clubs and organizations that discriminate. The amendment is a revival of Krause’s failed HB 360.
The following quote can be attributed to Terri Burke, executive director of the ACLU of Texas:
“This amendment moves Texas backwards to the days when opportunities at our state universities were closed to women, people of color, Jews, or just about anybody who wasn’t a straight white male. If Representative Krause has his way, officially recognized campus clubs will once again be able to turn away students for discriminatory reasons. And to add insult to injury, they’ll be able to use taxpayer money to do it.”
The following quote can be attributed to Rebecca L. Robertson, legal and policy director of the ACLU of Texas:
“College and university students have every right to hold discriminatory views and to organize clubs that exclude people based on race, sex, sexual orientation, or political affiliation, but the First Amendment doesn’t give them the right to demand taxpayer funding to pay for it. This amendment is not about free association and free expression. It’s about excluding people.”
