6 OctOber 1 - 7, 2026 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | Unfair Park | Contents stop until this is all done.” And in a state- ment to the Observer, Harrison, once de- scribed as a ‘cockroach’ by Texas Monthly, again styled himself as a crusader who has won yet another victory over higher educa- tion. “I’ve single handedly done more to end taxpayer funded DEI and transgender indoc- trination, and conduct real legislative over- sight than all the rest of the Texas government combined, and this is just the latest conserva- tive victory I’ve forced from agencies and uni- versities,” the statement reads. “UNT’s LGBTQ library archive is further proof Tex- ans are still being taxed out of their homes and forced to fund leftist indoctrination. The purpose of taxpayer funded higher education in Texas is to train the workforce of tomorrow and strengthen our economy. If someone wants to study transgender literature, fine, but do it with your own damn money.” His calls for defunding the archive echo his final post from Saturday, in which he wrote that UNT “must end the program, not just a website.” ‘Absolute craziness’ The collection, intended to be the largest of its kind in the Southwest, contains thou- sands of manuscripts, personal correspon- dence, newspaper clippings and photographs from various LGBTQ individu- als and organizations in the region. A sepa- rate, still-functioning webpage says the university’s LGBTQ collection holds more than 15,000 items. Steve Atkinson, a founding board mem- ber and President of The Dallas Way, a non- profit created to document LGBTQ history in North Texas, said he was not surprised by the development over the weekend. He reit- erated that the collection, which his organi- zation contributed to, remains at the library and that he has not heard otherwise from UNT officials. Still, he sharply criticized the Republican lawmaker’s attacks. “It’s absolutely craziness for the state rep or anyone else to say that our history shouldn’t be there,” he said. “That our history shouldn’t be part of history. All the claims of it’s all these other things. Well, it’s not any- thing else. All it is is history — period.” He said The Dallas Way is mostly respon- sible for collecting archival material from community members, organizers, and groups. The materials are then stored at UNT, with a large portion digitized as part of the inventory process. Atkinson pushed back on claims of in- doctrination, saying that a university having a Methodist collection does not equate to “them trying to turn other people Method- ist.” He instead focused on the historical and institutional value of maintaining collec- tions like the LGBTQ archive, and said this latest attack reflects a wider trend of doctor- ing the historical record to fit a narrative. “All of our history, every bit of it — of this city, this state, this country — history needs to be taught,” he said. “It needs to be. It doesn’t need to be stifled or swept under the rug, or parts of it don’t need to be hidden be- cause somebody doesn’t like it.” Higher Ed under fire The continued resentment toward what many conservatives see as a leftist education system marked by diversity, equity and in- clusion initiatives follows the lead of Presi- dent Donald Trump’s second term, the early part of which was highlighted by the admin- istration’s high-profile decision to freeze federal funding for universities such as Co- lumbia and Harvard. Brown only had fund- ing restored as part of a settlement in which the university agreed to adopt the adminis- tration’s definition of “male” and “female,” after which Trump posted that “Woke is of- ficially DEAD at Brown.” In Texas, the state legislature has been es- pecially active in targeting what conservative lawmakers view as woke programs. In 2023, state lawmakers passed a bill banning univer- sities from maintaining DEI offices or using diversity-based hiring practices. Last legisla- tive session, lawmakers passed a bill restrict- ing how students can express their views on campus and requiring schools to adopt an- tisemitism definitions for disciplinary deci- sions, as part of a wider conservative agenda to limit Pro-Palestinian activity on campuses. State lawmakers also passed Senate Bill 37 in 2025. The legislation gives university regents, appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott and confirmed by an overwhelmingly Republi- can State Senate, significantly more power over hiring decisions and course content. Widely viewed as an attempt to exert more conservative influence over state institu- tions, the bill has empowered aggressive ap- pointees to take aim at LGBTQ and minority-based studies. In early September, Texas A&M Univer- sity announced it would remove over 200 courses from its core curriculum, including LGBTQ literature, climate change, Black and Latino history, and gender studies, while the University of Texas has announced plans to remove over 100 courses that a university of- ficial called “specialized and sometimes nar- row.” At Texas Tech, conservative administrators and a board under Trump megadonor and Chair Cody Campbell have approved policies mandating course review of all materials to flag mentions of “race, sex, sexual orientation or gender identity.” Fac- ulty are currently suing the school over the policy, which they say amounts to censorship and stifles free learning. Tyler Coward, lead counsel for govern- ment affairs for the Foundation for Individ- ual Rights and Expression, said the state has a right to control how government agencies are managed, but that further restrictions raise First Amendment concerns. “The state does get some say in how their public agencies are managed,” he said. “But when it starts coming into what professors can teach and what librarians might be able to include in the public collections, that starts raising really important free speech and aca- demic freedom concerns that don’t exist in just closing the institutional DEI office.” While the collection seems to be safe at present, Coward said attempts by state law- makers to formally restrict library collections in the upcoming legislative session would have a “deleterious effect on higher educa- tion,” adding that “it might not stop at just this issue.” Meanwhile, UNT’s decision to re- move a webpage based on a few social media posts sends a worrying message, he said. “When institutions start shirking their duty to promote this robust intellectual envi- ronment by deleting certain information that those in power don’t like, that really under- mines the very purpose of higher education and shows that we’re not exactly where we want to be in higher ed right now,” he said. ‘Can utterly destroy histories’ Even prior to this weekend, the University of North Texas has not been immune to the pressure facing Texas universities. In March, university officials announced they would eliminate over 70 academic programs amid a $45 million budget shortfall. Affected pro- grams included minors in Women’s and Gen- der Studies, LGBTQ Studies, Mexican American Studies, Africana Studies, Asian Studies, dance, geology and special education. A month prior, UNT removed an an- ti-ICE art installation in a decision that a professor told the Observer was emblematic of an “authoritarian top-down approach,” while the artist’s representatives said it amounted to “silencing artistic voices.” UNT also notably pulled support for PRIDENTON this summer and enacted a ban on drag shows in 2025, though a federal judge eventually overturned it. Willow Jordan is a third-year history ma- jor at UNT and an executive board member of GLAD, the main LGBTQ student organi- zation on campus. They said that despite the judges’ ruling, university officials are still not allowing drag shows on campus, and added that things feel different in Denton than when they first enrolled. “When I came to UNT, I felt open,” Jor- dan, who identifies as transgender, said. “I felt the ability to open myself up and feel ac- cepted. That grew my confidence today to where I can still open myself up, but I see countless students a lot more uncomfortable with that nowadays, and that’s sad to see.” They called the university’s decision to remove the webpage “appeasement” and added that the decision makes them feel un- safe. But even more than that, they’re wor- ried about erasure. “Primary documents are the, as is in the name, primary connection we have to the past,” they said. “They are the things that tell us what was going on, what the people were experiencing, what things were like for them, and the removal of primary docu- ments, and even some secondary docu- ments, can utterly destroy histories.” ▼ CRIME & PUNISHMENT UNCONSTITUTIONAL HEAT AFTER YEARS OF DEADLY HEAT, TEXAS MUST INSTALL PRISON AC BY AUSTIN WOOD F ollowing years of legal battles, Texas must install air conditioning in all state prisons following a judge’s rul- ing. But it could take a while. The ruling released last week represents what may be the end of a long, grueling saga for inmates and their advocates, who have petitioned the state for years to alleviate in- tolerable heat inside state prisons. In his rul- ing, U.S. District Judge Robert Pitman determined that the conditions inside Texas prisons constitute a violation of inmates’ Eighth Amendment rights regarding cruel and unusual punishment, and that officials have not done enough to mitigate the risk. As part of Pitman’s ruling, the Texas De- partment of Criminal Justice and its director Bobby Lumpkin must develop a plan to in- stall air conditioning in all TDCJ prisons. Unfortunately for inmates, Pitman’s ruling gives the state until December 2029 to com- plete the process, meaning some may have to make their way through up to three more summers of what the judge described as “conditions that cause severe human suffer- ing.” This summer, roughly 88,697 inmates — around 63% of the prison population — lived without air conditioning. The state must also submit status reports to the court every six months detailing plans to overhaul the system, and cannot claim a lack of funding as a reason for failing to complete the system-wide update. The first is due in March. Adobe Stock UNT in Denton has been active in removing anything that might resembel a DEI effort. A ‘Cockroach” Makes Some Noise from p4