'The Silence Is Getting a Bit Loud': Records Show UT-Austin Leaders Took Heat for Their Slow Response to Bo French's Post
Emails obtained by The Texas Tribune show students and alumni pressing President Jim Davis for nearly two days to name Bo French and condemn his post about South Asian students — while UT's communications team first decided there was no need to comment at all.
University of Texas at Austin leaders faced sustained pressure from students and alumni over their slow, indirect response to a September post by Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas railroad commissioner, according to records obtained by The Texas Tribune. After UT's one-point win over Ohio State on September 12, French posted a photo of celebrating South Asian students at 7:52 the next morning, saying: "The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined."
Inside the university that Sunday afternoon, Patrick Wiseman, UT-Austin's vice president for marketing and communications, told colleagues in a Microsoft Teams message that he had kept leadership informed. "Bo is getting crushed by others," Wiseman wrote, as reported by the Tribune. "No need for us to stoop to these politics and make a UT comment." The next morning, UT-Austin spokesperson Mike Rosen told reporters the university did not plan to issue a statement, while communications officials separately urged reporters at The New York Times and USA TODAY to emphasize that international students made up about 4 percent of UT undergraduates rather than nearly 10 percent of all students.
Students and alumni kept writing. One law student urged Davis to reassure Indian American students that they belonged: "The silence is getting a bit loud." An Indian American doctoral student who had cheered at the Ohio State game wrote: "I would like you to call him out by name and say that his racism has no place on our campus. I would like you to say Indian-Americans are Americans too." Davis' office had received at least 22 emails about French's remarks by Monday afternoon, and more than a dozen more followed. Rohan Reddy Gupta, a 2020 graduate, wrote: "Silence in the face of bigotry is complicity."
On Monday evening, UT System Board Chair Kevin Eltife posted his support for UT students on X at 6:02 p.m., and Davis reposted it at 6:46 p.m. — nearly 35 hours after French's post — adding: "Proud to stand with Chairman Eltife. Our students are exceptional. All of them are Longhorns." Neither man mentioned French by name or described his remarks as racist. The Tribune notes that the UT System Board of Regents adopted an institutional neutrality policy in August 2024 stating that officials should not, in their official capacity, express positions on issues of the day, though it is unclear whether it played a role: neither Davis nor Eltife responded to the Tribune's requests for comment, and UT-Austin and UT System officials did not answer its questions on the record.
