Irate grad aims furious complaint at U. of Texas Alumni Association

by WorldTribune Staff, March 13, 2018

A University of Texas School of Law graduate blasted UT’s alumni magazine for prominently featuring illegal aliens who are filling “coveted seats” at the university and for a “puff piece” on liberal UT President Greg Fenves.

In an open letter to the Texas Exes alumni association and editor of the association’s Alcalde magazine, which first appeared March 11 on Misrule of Law, 1980 UT grad Mark Pulliam decried what he called the “political advocacy” of what is supposed to be “a politically-neutral alumni organization” and its “non-partisan magazine.”

Pulliam noted that an Alcalde article headlined “Lives on Hold,” “is a sympathetic profile of three illegal aliens (or ‘Longhorn Dreamers,’ in SJW parlance) who fill coveted seats at UT – displacing Texas residents who are U.S. citizens – and, due to the generosity of Texas taxpayers, pay heavily-subsidized in-state tuition. Despite these benefits, along with perks such as spending a semester studying in Washington, D.C., internships, cushy part-time jobs at city hall, and participation in the UTeach program, the subjects of the profile exhibit little gratitude, but instead display a raging sense of entitlement: engaging in noisy protests, agitating through slick, well-funded activist groups (Jolt, ULI), and stridently demanding amnesty and citizenship.”

The article “reads like a press release from an open-borders advocacy group,” Pulliam said.

“With more than 28 million residents, Texas is a huge state, with diverse views. But recall that President Trump carried Texas by a wide margin, based in significant part on his pledge to build a wall, secure the borders, and enforce federal immigration laws. For decades, Texas’ voters have elected only Republicans to statewide office. Austin is a blueberry floating in a bowl of tomato soup. A pro-illegal alien/pro-DACA/pro-amnesty/anti-Trump slant may be appropriate for Texas Monthly, the Austin American-Statesman, Texas Observer, the Austin Chronicle, or similar left-leaning publications, but Texas Exes purports to be a politically-neutral alumni organization, and Alcalde is supposed to be its non-partisan magazine.”

Pulliam also said that “Texas Exes seems to have lost sight of the fact that it is an alumni organization, not the public relations department for UT President Greg Fenves. The cover story written by Alcalde editor-in-chief Dorothy Guerrero, ‘The Fenves Effect,’ is an embarrassing puff piece. Your 106,000 members (and the estimated 482,000 UT alumni overall), especially those with children attending UT, are concerned with many things: the high and rising cost of tuition; the toxic climate of political correctness on campus; the burgeoning academic bureaucracy; the indoctrination of students by professors using their classrooms as political pulpits; the infringement of free speech on campus; and the party culture that leads to casual, alcohol-fueled hook-ups among students.”

“President Fenves has done nothing to address any of those issues. Instead … President Fenves has presided over the removal of historical statuary, abused the university’s Title IX policy for investigating sexual assaults (resulting in the denial of due process and exposing the university to litigation), condoned the one-sided application of dubious campus speech codes, issued a risible ‘rape survey’ that conflated poor judgment with forcible rape, and allowed the subject of campus free speech to be monitored by identity politics zealots associated with UT’s Division of Diversity and Community Engagement.”

Pulliam continued: “Moreover, President Fenves’ virtue-signaling tenure has been marred by travel scandals, campus assaults (including a brutal murder), a mediocre athletic program, and opposition to state law protecting UT students’ Second Amendment rights. Nonetheless, Texas Exes continues to function as a cheerleading section for the UT administration, with Texas Exes President Del Williams leading the cheers.”

Fenves, Pulliam said, “is apparently trying to reshape UT into the image of his alma mater, the University of California at Berkeley. I doubt that many UT alumni share Fenves’ ambition in this regard.”

Read the full letter here


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