Federal Judge Shuts Down “Unconstitutionally Vague” Drag Ban at Texas A&M University
“Draggieland,” an annual drag show scheduled for this Thursday at Texas A&M University, can now proceed as planned.
By Mathew Rodriguez March 25, 2025
A federal judge ruled on Monday that “Draggieland,” an annual drag show scheduled for this Thursday at Texas A&M University, could proceed as planned. She also blocked the university from enforcing its blanket drag ban, calling the policy “unconstitutionally vague,” and implied that drag shows are a protected form of speech.
“To ban the performance from taking place on campus because it offends some members of the campus community is precisely what the First Amendment prohibits,” U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal wrote in her opinion in Texas A&M Queer Empowerment Council v. William Mahomes.
Draggieland — a portmanteau of “drag” and “aggie,” a nickname that harkens back to the school’s original name, Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas — is an annual pageant put on by the Texas A&M Queer Empowerment Council (QEC) in which contestants answer questions about LGBTQ+ culture while in drag. Since the event’s inception, it has repeatedly sold out, per the Texas Tribune.
The QEC said they were “overjoyed” with the decision in a statement posted online on Monday. “This is another display of the resilience of queer joy, as that is an unstoppable force despite those that wish to see it destroyed,” the statement reads. “While this fight isn’t over, we are going to appreciate the joy we get to bring by putting on the best show that we can do.” QEC was represented in court by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE).
In its own statement, FIRE said that the university “has the utmost duty to respect the First Amendment rights of students” and that it cannot “banish speech from campus just because it offends them, any more than they could shut down a political rally or a Christmas pageant.”
In February, Texas A&M University banned drag events on all 11 of its campuses. At the time, the university’s board said that drag shows are “inconsistent with [the system’s] mission and core values, including the value of respect for others.” The board also said that drag itself involved the “mockery of objectification of women,” which would likely “create or contribute to a hostile environment for women.” The false claim that drag mocks women and femininity is often included in right-wing and anti-trans complaints about drag performances.
At the time of the ban, a spokesperson for the ACLU of Texas called the move a “waste of time and resources” that showed that the university is “more focused on culture wars than educating their students.”
In her ruling, Lee struck down several key components of the university’s argument against drag shows, including Draggieland. According to the ruling, the university’s Board of Regents argued that the ban is “intended to serve as providing an effective learning environment to its students”; however, Rosenthal ruled that there’s no plausible way that the drag show could interfere with students’ education.
“Draggieland is set to occur at 7:30 in the evening, when most classes are likely not in session, and in a venue where academic classes are not typically held,” she wrote. “There is no evidence that Draggieland causes any interference with students’ ability to obtain an education.”
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The university also argued that allowing a drag performance could threaten federal funding as it might be seen as the university supporting “gender ideology” and flouting Donald Trump’s executive order, which would block money from institutions supporting anything that goes beyond a binary concept of gender. However, Rosenthal ruled that allowing an event does not endorse it and that Texas A&M has a “constitutional obligation to allow different messages and viewpoints, including those viewed as offensive to some, to be expressed at a university that is committed to critical thought about a wide range of conflicting and divergent viewpoints and ideologies.”
The judges’ ruling is a temporary ban based on the fact that QEC was “likely to succeed” in its case to show that the university’s ban violates the constitution’s First Amendment. While the show will go on as scheduled, the litigation between QEC and the university will continue.
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