UT ANNOUNCES CHANGES AMID FOOTBALL PROTESTS
The University of Texas has announced a sweeping plan to address concerns voiced by protesting athletes and others on the Austin campus.
The plan includes the renaming of Texas' football field for Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams and a statue for Texas' first Black football letterman.
Longhorns players had requested the removal of "The Eyes of Texas" as the school song, but the school announced it will remain, while the school will teach about its origins, which were in a minstrel show featuring performers in blackface in 1903, hoping "to reclaim and redefine what this song stands for, first by owning and acknowledging its history in a way that is open and transparent."
At Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium, Texas will erect a statue of Julius Whittier, who in 1970 became the first Black player to letter for the Longhorns. It will also rename Joe Jamail Field at the stadium in honor of Texas' two Heisman Trophy winners, Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams, at the request of the family of the late Jamail, a prominent Texas booster.
Monday, Texas interim president Jay Hartzell announced a set of diversity initiatives that included "reconsidering how to best reflect the university's values, both in the symbols and names on campus and in the openness with which UT tells its history."
The athletes also requested inclusion of programs for incoming freshmen discussing the history of racism on campus, and an outreach program for cities such as Austin, Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, along with .5 percent of athletics revenue donated to Black organizations and the Black Lives Matter movement.
The school addressed each of these, saying it would be allocating a "multimillion-dollar investment from Texas Athletics' revenue" to programs that work to recruit, attract, retain and support Black students, and said it will expand UT's presence and outreach in Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and elsewhere.
The school said the timeline for the changes will be released in the future as each project begins.