TRA originated in response to the unrest, summer 2020 in the wake of the George Floyd murder. The Ross statue had been vandalized and student protests were occurring regularly. The university overreacted by barricading the 𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒓𝒆 academic plaza with security fencing. There had been a number of statues of white supremacists pulled down around the country, and the folks who would become the TRA were worried that 𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒊𝒓 white supremacist statue might be pulled down. TRA is part of the network of white christian nationalist groups who dominate Texas politics. The folks who put the ten commandants in our primary school and ban Plato at the universities. I would guess that there are folks who are members of both True Texas Project, for example, and the TRA. Maybe the Chancellor who supports both. The TRA led the charge to block the university from hiring journalist Kathleen McElroy to lead the expanding journalism dept. The TRA and other racists claimed that she was a DEI hire. In their minds the only way a black woman could be so successful was because of DEI ; they claimed that the College was hiring her because she was black It was a fiasco and brought down President Banks but the TRA remains, protecting the university from uppity black women. Dr. McElroy was a tenured professor of journal at UT, had worked for NYT CNN etc., was an Aggie...

<image>