Wealthy alumni supporting “Eyes of Texas” threatened to pull donations | Hacker News Reader

Wealthy alumni supporting “Eyes of Texas” threatened to pull donations

texastribune.org

13 pointsmcguire20 comments

This is where "cancel culture" becomes ambiguous and unhelpful.

So the students don't want to sing the anthem or whatever. They're NOT professional athletes: they're nominally students. So already, I'm not entirely sure if they're even in the same league as say NFL players who are expected to have certain behaviors.

Either way: it seems like the students don't want to partake in the anthem. So what are you going to do? Force them to do so? Whose free speech rights win over?

So lets say a hypothetical "Alice and Bob" (two students who don't want to sing) refuse to sing the anthem. What should the coach do to them? Force them off the team? Is that not "cancel culture" as well?

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That's the issue I have with "cancel culture" as a concept. Any means of forceful (but non-violent) persuasion are suddenly considered unfair to use. Its so ambiguous and unhelpful as a concept for what is, or isn't "fair game" with regards to societal pressures to apply.

Instead, we should look at the core issue and core merits to the case. Is "Eyes of Texas" an anthem that should still be sung today? If its legitimate, then yes, its fair to force the students to respect it. If its illegitimate, then the donors / alumni should in fact be doing the opposite, and asking for a new anthem that the students would be proud to represent.

Once again, the "Cancel Culture" battlecry seems to be the non-sequitur bludgeon to avoid talking about the core issue.

"This professor is in charge of the team/ that tells us whether the song is racist or not? His Twitter account is filled with race baiting and cry baby [Black Lives Matter] junk," the caption below the photo read. "UT better get it together and use its brains, not this biased 'victim' professor at UT!"

There is no ambiguity to me when people complain about cancel culture. It is a thin veil.

Doesn't this same logic apply to the donors though? They aren't professional university funders though. If the university doesn't sing the songs they want, admittedly, a silly reason to me, why should they keep donating?

It seems to me that people donate to universities in part because they want to perpetuate the culture and ideas that they found significant when they were at university or that they want to see more of. The donors disagree with the ideological stance taken by the university, and so, stop donating. I don't see what the problem is. People shouldn't be forced to sing what they don't want to sing or pay for sports or institutions they don't want to support.

> Doesn't this same logic apply to the donors though?

Indeed! I find the entire "cancel culture" argument to be... well. a non-sequitur.

Just a few years ago, when politics were all about whether or not a religious person should be forced to bake a cake for a Gay couple (Masterpiece Cakeshop v. Colorado), we discussed the actual issue at play. Religious freedom vs Tolerance. Not everyone was pleased with the result, but we discussed the actual freaking issue at hand.

Today, people just yell "Cancel Culture" and leave the argument. IMO, I find this entire methodology of discussing things non-helpful.

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What we have here is: Alumni vs Students. One is in the right, one is in the wrong. Or maybe both are right, and both are wrong. Or all the above. Why don't we discuss the core issue at hand, instead of trying to derail the discussion using "Cancel Culture" battlecries?

> Why don't we discuss the core issue at hand, instead of trying to derail the discussion using "Cancel Culture" battlecries?

Perhaps because, to have a discussion, one has to have good-faith actors on both sides of the discussion? If one goes into the discussion with 'I'm going to stop playing sports for you if you DON'T stop playing this song' or 'I'm going to stop donating to athletics if you DO stop playing this song,' then there's no discussion to be had--we're merely down to which entrenched party has more power and sway.

While I see the merits of both sides in this debate, what's remarkable is how administrations at UT and most every other liberal arts college in the US have jettisoned their responsibilities as adults (and supposed intellectuals) to lead their students in the art of discussion over controversial issues. Especially when (1) that's what they're there for and (2) they hold most of the cards. This failure on their part is far worse than some squabble over a silly song.

> 'I'm going to stop playing sports for you if you DON'T stop playing this song'

How about "I don't like that song, so I'm walking off the field before it is played" ??

The story here isn't "Students are forcing school to stop playing the song". (Indeed: the song was still played, and at least one player stood on the field through the duration of the song). The story is "Students are walking off field before song is finished". It doesn't seem like students are taking a very aggressive stance from my perspective.

Then again, I never really liked the whole "school spirit" exercises that I was forced into... being a nerd and all.

"...at least one player stood on the field through the duration of the song)..."

He later said he was waiting to talk to the coaches. :-)

There is a bit more nuance to it than that.

""It's time for you to put the foot down and make it perfectly clear that the heritage of Texas will not be lost," wrote another donor who graduated in 1986. Their name was also redacted by UT-Austin. "It is sad that it is offending the blacks. As I said before the blacks are free and it's time for them to move on to another state where everything is in their favor.""

I, personally (UTexas, 2004), couldn't give a rat's ass about The Eyes of Texas; I don't find it personally offensive, but I'm not the one to be offended by it (even though it's pretty bad). However, I am offended by the "arguments" presented in favor of it. Is discussing getting rid of the donors an option?

"The donors disagree with the ideological stance taken by the university, and so, stop donating."

The ideological stance taken by students. "The university"---the administration---couldn't care less either way; they just want the donations and not to be embarrassed publicly.

The ultimate question here is, "who is the university for?"

That's exactly it. Cancel culture as a term is used as a term to deride anyone bucking the system as this point.

In case a)(this one), it's used to put down people who don't agree with singing a song, later we will see b) where a lot of netizens pile on someone when they had incorrect information and further we will see c) where people displaying Nazi salutes are complaining about deplatforming.

If anyone wants to have a conversation about any of these, then we can, but to decry cancel culture is just trying to lump in the good reasoning with the bad.

A player says they were told by a donor that they wouldn't be able to find a job in the state of they didn't participate in the song:

https://mobile.twitter.com/CSterns_7/status/1366508489929986...

It makes clear the nature of attacks on so-called cancel culture; "it's terrible that peer-pressure is helping determine people's politics. Their politics should instead be dictated by the wealthy and powerful instead. This is mob rule!"

One of the emails says the student athletes need to “do what they’re paid to do” which says it all about how these gross alumni see things.

Hilarious when you consider that the majority of the football team is black. It’s nonsensical for the alumni and donors to make this kind of demand given the song’s origins.

Perhaps they can find some white athletes who will perform in blackface to make the alums happy.

One solution would be to end paid university sports and just give the money to professors or scholarships.

Maybe the most problematic aspect on display here is that it takes billions of dollars of donations to keep their Athletics groups running.

Yes that's always the interesting question. If you would cut a digit or two or maybe even three from all the sums involved here, would the sport get any worse? I doubt it.

For many schools, the donations to the football/basketball programs are actually donations to just the athletic department. Sure the football/basketball teams have top of the line equipment, stadiums and training facilities, but all sports benefit from those donations. Including sports that wouldn't normally attract any donations or ticket sales.

Why would anyone donate a million dollars for this? Nostalgia I guess.

The artists, which is what athletes are, don't want to do it, fair enough, less people pay money, they get less money.

When you kill the past, you also kill ties to the past. If it's a racist song that's the price you pay. If they want to be grown ups they have to leave the virtue signalling on Twitter.

I honestly don't know why anyone donates to Universities anymore anyway, they have become morally corrupt.

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