The University of Texas at Austin said it would rename a building named after a racist professor, erect a statue of the school’s first black football player, and commission a monument to its first black college students. What is not changing? “The eyes of Texas” a campus anthem with minstrel roots that student athletes want to abolish.
College athletes had asked campus officials to look for a song “without racist overtones” instead of the hymn, which has lyrics inspired in part by the words of Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general.
“‘The eyes of Texas,’ in its current form, will remain our alma mater,” Jay Hartzell, the university’s acting president, said in a statement Monday.
“I think we can effectively reclaim and redefine what this song represents by first possessing and acknowledging its history in an open and transparent way,” he continued. Together, we have the power to define what Texas eyes expect of us, what they demand of us and at what level they support us now. “
Replacing the song was among a long list of requests made by the athletes, who said that if their demands were not met, they would no longer help the university recruit new players or participate in donor events.
On Monday, after the announcement was made, many athletes said they were grateful for the actions the university had decided to take.
Caden Sterns, a defender for the Longhorns football team, thanked the administration on Twitter.
“Great day to be a Longhorn,” he wrote, adding, “I hope to make more positive changes on campus.”
“These are great first steps!” Asjia O’Neal, a Texas volleyball player, wrote on Twitter, adding that she was proud to “be part of the change.”
“Texas Eyes” dates back to Lee and was performed at minstrel shows in the early 1900s.
Lee’s connection to the song dates back to William Prather, president of the University of Texas from 1899 to 1905. In the 1860s, Prather was a student at Washington College in Lexington, Virginia, while Lee was its president.
Lee always ended comments to Washington faculty and students saying “the eyes of the South are on you,” according to historians.
When Prather became president of the University of Texas, he invoked the phrase and changed it to “Texas eyes are on you.”
The students wrote satirical letters with the phrase and put them in tune with “I’ve been working on the railroad.”
The song was first performed by a university quartet around 1903, in a minstrel show at the Hancock Opera House in Austin, where the singers are believed to have worn a black face.
Edmund T. Gordon, professor at the University of Texas Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, who studied and documented the campus’ racial history, said he supported the decision to keep the song in the context of the university’s mission. “promote teaching, learning and research in the service of positive change in our society”. He added that keeping the song and explaining its origins would serve as a “constant reminder to our community that there were problematic aspects of our past that can and continue to impact the present.”
Last month, the athletes asked the athletic department and the university to take action, including creating a permanent exhibition of black athletic history in their Hall of Fame; donating a portion of the annual athletic department proceeds to black organizations, including Black Lives Matter; and rename campus buildings, including one honoring Robert Lee Moore, a math teacher who refused to allow black students in his class after the university broke up.
The university agreed to change the name of the Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy building.
The university added that it “would provide historical explanations within the building as to why previous university leaders chose to name the space for Professor Moore.”
University officials said they would enact a statute for Julius Whittier, who joined the Longhorns in 1970 and became the team’s first black football player, at the Darrell K. Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.
Named after a Texas white billionaire, Joe Jamail Field will be renowned to honor two black soccer players, Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams, former Longhorns Trophy winners and Heisman. That change was suggested by Mr. Jamail’s family, according to the university.
The university also said it would use the revenue from the athletics department to invest in programs that recruit black students and students from underrepresented groups in Dallas, Houston and San Antonio.
The university promised to adopt a plan to recruit and retain faculty members “who bring more diversity to our research and teaching missions” and to expand a committee that oversees campus police to include more community members and a “range broader student base. “
