Editorial Roundup:

The Dallas Morning News. June 18. 2020.

The Eyes of Texas are watching how UT handles troubling traditions

It seems anywhere two or more Longhorns gather together, they will sing “The Eyes of Texas.”

The song is ubiquitous on the University of Texas campus and off, played at raucous football games and formal gatherings of dignitaries, at freshman orientation and graduation, and it isn’t unusual for someone to strike up an a cappella version at an off-campus bar, frat party or alumni fundraiser, with everyone joyfully joining in.

So the idea that the tune that unites the thousands of people associated with one of the state’s largest university has racist roots that are hurtful and divisive is creating cognitive dissonance among many Longhorns. A group of UT football players has called for the school to spike the song, and also rename some buildings that honor long-ago leaders who supported the Confederacy or segregation, and, among other things, make donations to black student associations.

The players, in a letter to administrators, said they would stop attending recruiting and fundraising events until their demands are seriously considered. We are pleased to see football players assuming a leadership role in a crucial debate and to see administrators agreeing to discuss their concerns.

The University of Texas finds itself at a crossroads, forced to choose a direction and compelled to take a clear-eyed view of its traditions, even at the risk of drawing fire from some alumni and donors. We hope UT administrators, professors, students and alumni will see this not as a problem that needs to go away, but an opportunity to lead the state in a discussion of how to deliberately choose the traditions that are worth carrying forward, and how to lay down those traditions that, in truth, never stood on moral high ground.

Removing statues and names of Confederate leaders should be an easy call. It matters whom a society venerates, and it also matters what value system a society uses to determine what should be celebrated. Our view is that we shouldn’t honor those who took up arms against the United States or opposed the recognition of the basic, individual rights of black people. This call should be made even easier, given that a building name or a statue represent static recognition; there is no new meaning or new value associated with it. That monument continues to represent the wrong side of a historical struggle.

We recognize, however, that the benign lyrics of a song pose a different challenge, and in that challenge we see an opportunity. That opportunity starts with more people learning the history of the song, including its troubling past.

“The Eyes of Texas,” sung to the tune of “I’ve Been Working on the Railroad,” was first performed for a UT audience in 1903 as part of a minstrel show, according to the Texas Exes alumni organization website. UT President William Prather picked up a phrase from Robert E. Lee, who liked to remind students at Washington and Lee University: “The eyes of the South are upon you.” Prather ended all of his talks with a warning to encourage good behavior: “The eyes of Texas are upon you.” Students wrote the song as a good-natured ribbing of the university president, and it was an instant hit.

This birth story is reflective of the light-hearted way many white people viewed the oppressive, destructive racism of the time and therefore should lead us all to discard the values it represented from its start.

The challenge, and the opportunity here, is to consider what to do when an institution with such a past has remained a living institution all of these years, evolving with the times and assuming new values and new meaning along the way. If, over time, it evolved to discard views based on hatred or indifference to oppression and adopt admirable values of inclusion and unity, can it leave its past behind? The hard reality is that many modern institutions have similarly troubling roots, so we must decide what to do about them as well. Can an institution outlive its past? Can a tradition, which grew out of a society living its worst instincts, evolve into something sincerely enjoyed by people of good spirit today?

This is a critical question to ask because there is a long history in this country and across the world of institutions that continue to endure but were formed or transformed under hate-driven ideology. Singing “The Eyes of Texas” can be tradition that ends, but regardless of the song’s fate, isn’t this moment about taking the difficult and uncomfortable steps required to talk about this history and think about all of the implications it entails?

We should hope that part of the conversation we are having today will involve forging traditions that truly unite all of us. We suspect the only way the song will live on is if the school and alumni genuinely forge a consensus on why it is a tradition that needs to be preserved. Otherwise, it will be consigned to the past. Connections to Lee and minstrel shows are precisely the type of thing that have been ignored for too long, so the only way the song will be loved by future generations is if this proves to be a moment that fuses new meaning into old lyrics. If the UT song comes to be seen as a shared tradition that served as a catalyst for opening up a long-needed conversation and enhanced understanding, then “The Eyes of Texas” wil be an old tradition with new purpose.

The eyes of history are on Texas now. Will future generations sing our praises until Gabriel blows his horn, or lament our unwillingness to see the full sweep of our past?

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Houston Chronicle. June 17, 2020.

One thing could stop Texas’ COVID-19 spike. Why is Gov. Greg Abbott blocking it?

Gov. Greg Abbott, it’s time to stop sending mixed messages on COVID-19. We understand the need to ease Texas back to normalcy, but as our economy reopens the pandemic’s reach is spreading too.

The latest numbers show an alarming upswing in cases and hospitalizations across Texas. On Tuesday, the number of reported cases increased by 4,487. That includes older cases that hadn’t been previously reported, but even leaving those aside, it was the largest one-day increase in new cases on record.

The number of people hospitalized due to COVID-19 also reached a single-day record of 2,518 patients, which is putting a strain on many facilities in the state’s largest cities, including Houston, San Antonio and Dallas.

In Harris County, COVID-19 hospitalizations reached an all-time high last week, according to County Judge Lina Hidalgo. As of June 10, hospitals in the 25-county Houston region were using 88 percent of their ICU capacity.

More than 2,000 Texans have died from the insidious virus, with 48 deaths reported on Tuesday alone.

Even as the numbers rise, too many of our fellow Texans are letting up on the very safety measures that helped flatten the curve and allowed states to reopen. That is likely contributing to the spike in cases, and could lead to a surge that overwhelms hospitals and results in more deaths.

Governor, as the leader of the state, you should be setting an example.

Instead of dismissing concerns about the rise in cases, pay attention to the eye-popping numbers and the doctors who are warning us all to stay vigilant. “We can’t get comfortable with this virus,” Dr. Faisal Masud, medical director of critical care for Houston Methodist, told the Houston Chronicle this week. “This is not letting us go.”

Listen to nine mayors of your state’s biggest cities who are begging you to allow them to mandate masks, a safety measure shown to reduce COVID-19 transmission.

“We should trust local officials to make informed choices about health policy,” wrote the mayors, who include Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner. “And if mayors are given the opportunity to require face coverings, we believe our cities will be ready to help reduce the spread of this disease.”

Perhaps you thought you had good reason to overrule local officials, such as Hidalgo, when they first tried to pass ordinances requiring face masks in public.

However, it is clear now that many in the public won’t take necessary precautions unless ordered. Don’t let yourself be bullied by fools equating a mask mandate to tyranny. Nothing in the U.S. Constitution allows people to endanger other people’s lives by helping sustain a deadly pandemic.

We were heartened to see that on Wednesday, you gave your blessing to Bexar County Judge Nelson Wolff’s plan to order businesses to mandate customers and employees wear face coverings as of June 22. That’s a start.

Now go a step further and give local officials back the power to require residents to wear masks when they are outside and near other people. That would not take away anyone’s liberty - any more than requiring people to wear seat belts or stop at red lights.

What it would do is send a clear, unequivocal message to all Texans that we cannot let our guard down. And we each must do our part to save lives.

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Amarillo Globe-News. June 21, 2020.

TDCJ should minimize virus risks for employees, inmates

As the coronavirus pandemic has unfolded, it has had a disproportionate impact on marginalized communities, with one of the most profoundly affected being prison populations, places where social distancing is virtually impossible and health protocols are reportedly regularly disregarded.

Such circumstances have been brought to light by numerous inmates across the state. Locked down and out of public view, they have written to media outlets about their plight. While some states took the step of releasing offenders in the face of the virus outbreak, Texas has not done so.

According to a Texas Tribune story earlier this week, the virus has spread rapidly through the state’s prison system with almost 7,500 inmates known to have contracted COVID-19 by midweek. Meanwhile, the number of people infected throughout Texas continues an upward trend since the state began reopening its economy last month.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott initially declared a statewide public health disaster in mid-March. As part of that declaration, inmate visits were canceled at state prison facilities. By mid-April, according to the Tribune, some 200 inmates tested positive for the virus, causing the TDCJ to stop accepting new inmates from county jails, a practice that just resumed.

Consequently, the TDCJ initiated mass testing at the state’s more than 100 prisons, but critics say the moves came too late and at the expense of inmates. Prisons are not built for social distancing; they are built for capacity. By the time, officials realized a contagious virus might be making its way through the facility’s population, it was too late.

For example, the Tribune’s account explained that feverish inmates at the Wynne Unit in Huntsville weren’t tested in April and that sick or exposed inmates were regularly placed near healthy inmates.

“To say the Wynne Unit is taking proper measures and procedures would be a joke,” Dustin Hawkins, a 32-year-old inmate at the facility, wrote in a letter to the Tribune. “Since the pandemic has started, there has been multitudes of sick offenders going untested.”

For their part, prison officials claim to isolate all sick inmates, conduct contact tracing and educate inmates on how to protect themselves from the virus while checking prison populations for symptoms. “Since the novel coronavirus began to spread across the United States in March, TDCJ has acted swiftly and decisively, in accordance with federal guidelines and medical experts’ recommendations, to protect prison staff and inmates from infection,” Texas Solicitor General Kyle Hawkins wrote in a federal court filing and reported by the Tribune.

Still, the number of infections has skyrocketed by more than 4,400 in the past two weeks with almost 7,000 positive tests of inmates and 42 deaths by June 6, according to the TDCJ. Just as important, more than 1,000 employees have tested positive with seven deaths. Officials say the positive tests are a byproduct of mass testing, rather than an infection surge.

In letters to the media, inmates describe an environment conducive to spread of the virus. “To me (and I’m just an inmate) but you don’t spread people around (the) unit not knowing if they are positive or negative … all this random movement is not safe,” an inmate named Rod wrote to the Tribune just a few weeks ago. His last name was not used by the publication for fear of retaliation. “In here it seems they are trying to get us sick.”

Whether one is a TDCJ employee or in the custody of the state, they should not be placed in harm’s way. The contagious nature of this pathogen has been well-documented since its emergence across the U.S. in late February and early March. Protective measures to minimize risk were outlined while people were encouraged to stay at home other than essential errands.

Early warning alarms were sounded regarding the vulnerability of prison populations and other groups such as homeless communities. If there is one thing apparent about the coronavirus, it is the fact that it attacks indiscriminately, although, thus far, it has a more dire impact upon older people or those who have underlying health conditions – sub-groups that also exist in the state’s prisons.

While there have been recent steps to address prison outbreaks, the simple truth for now is the COVID-19 appears that it will be part of everyday life for the foreseeable future. That means prisons must implement consistent health protocols to protect their employees and the incarcerated.

As the adage goes, communities are judged by the way they treat their most vulnerable. There is still an opportunity to demonstrate Texas understands that when it comes to the state’s prison population.

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