The Daily Texan 2020-07-28

DT Volume 121, Issue 8 Tuesday, July 28, 2020

‘It doesn’t seem safe.

It just doesn’t.’

The editorial board urges UT to reconsider its plans for reopening campus in the fall. abriella corker / the daily texan staff

Contents:

Senior Videographer Jennifer Xia

Assoc. Managing Editors Brittany Miller, Marcus Krum

Senior Audio Producer Aurora Berry

Internal Relations Director Lauren Girgis

Photo Editor Amna Ijaz

External Relations Director Assoc. Photo Editor Angelica Arinze Jamie Hwang Assoc. Editors Julia Zaksek, Jennifer Beck

Life&Arts Editor Trinady Joslin

Illustration Coordinator Abriella Corker

Assoc. Life&Arts Editor Ariana Arredondo

News Editor Nicole Stuessy

Sr. Life&Arts Reporters

Assoc. News Editors Emily Hernandez, Neelam Bohra

Sports Editor Myah Taylor

Beat Reporters Hannah Williford, Anna Canizales, Hannah Ortega, Areeba Amer Enterprise Reporter Meara Isenberg Copy Desk Chief Jimena Pinzon Associate Copy Desk Chief Irissa Omandam Design Editor Sierra Wiggers Assoc. Design Editor Maria Perez

Aisling Ayers, Grace Barnes

Assoc. Sports Editor Donnavan Smoot, Stephen Wagner Comics Editors Alekka Hernandez, Barbra Daly

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Managing Editor Sami Sparber

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Assoc. Multimedia Editor Faith Castle

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PERMANENT STAFF Editor-in-Chief Emily Caldwell

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News Student commuters prepare to balance in-person and online class schedules.

MANAGING EDITOR

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NEWS OFFICE

Sami Sparber (512) 232-2217 managingeditor@dailytexanonline.com (512) 232-2207

UT must rethink its plan to reopen campus this fall amid community safety concerns.

Life & arts Architecture students research the Neill-Cochran House Museum slave quarters structure’s history to create educational experience.

sports Julius Whittier’s family and friends react to a statue going up in his honor.

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NEWS

News Editor

3

NICOLE STUESSY

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

CAMPUS

Commuters face uncertainty UT students with hybrid schedules may be challenged to find study space on campus due to COVID-19 safety measures.

By Lauren Goodman @laurgoodman

ccounting senior Kristen Moehlman regularly commutes by bus from her North Campus apartment to the UT campus. As many classes have been converted to an online-only format this fall semester amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Moehlman is balancing consecutive in-person and virtual classes in a blocked schedule without enough time to return to her apartment.

“The shift is inconvenient,” Moehlman said. “We’re all struggling with this, (and) it’s been really frustrating honestly.”

Moehlman is one of the student commuters uncertain where to go on campus to take her online courses as she won’t have enough time to get back to her apartment for Wi-Fi and internet access. In an initial letter from Interim President Jay Hartzell outlining the reopening of campus for the fall semester, there was no mention of a plan to open popular study spaces, such as the undergraduate libraries, student activity centers and Texas Union.

“Every person in our community has unique circumstances and concerns to contend with during this difficult time,” Hartzell said.

“We are also reimagining student

life activities, to hold them either fully or partially online or in outdoor spaces.”

James Buckley, the director of facilities and operations for the University Unions, said the University plans to open the student spaces and vendors at the Texas Union and William C. Powers, Jr. Student Activity Center in August. Buckley said this plan is subject to change according to updated COVID-19 safety regulations, which could lead to the removal of some seating to maintain social distancing.

“A lot remains to be seen in terms of what the on-campus population is like with students, faculty and staff,” Buckley said.

“We’ll do our best to accommodate students as well as the campus community.”

According to the UT Libraries website, the libraries are currently operating in phase 3 of the Research Restart plan, which allows for contactless pickup of materials. All libraries are closed until further notice, according to the website.

barbra daly / the daily texan staff As it is still unclear which campus buildings will be open in the fall, Moehlman said she hopes to change her schedule by getting off class waitlists. Her backup plan is to reserve a study room at the Perry-Castañeda Library once it opens before reservations are full.

“I’m not super hopeful that (changing my schedule) is gonna work out,” Moehlman said.

“I know a lot of other students are in my major who are in the same situation.”

Accounting senior Kyle Cruz, who is living in the Riverside

neighborhood this year, is making plans for the scenario that his usual study spaces won’t be available or will be filled to capacity. Cruz said he hopes he finds a friend living in West Campus where he could watch his virtual class from their apartment before attending his in person class on campus.

“It would be impossible for me to finish my class here at 10:45 a.m. and then drive to campus and then walk to McCombs to make it to my 11 o’clock class,” Cruz said.

Cruz said he thought the hybrid class format may be

unnecessarily requiring students to go back to Austin to take in-person classes for their major. With social distancing in a classroom, Cruz said that even the confusion of both in person and online schedules aside, the college experience will be diminished.

“The reason why we go to an in-person university is for the cooperation and the enrichment of actually interacting with our peers,” Cruz said. “It takes away from the experience that we’re all paying for.”

4

News Editor

NICOLE STUESSY

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

NEWS

STATE

Texas invests $118 million to fund new student aid

By Areeba Amer @areeba_amer

Texas will invest an additional $118 million in federal funding in support of higher education initiatives, including new student aid, according to a July 22 press release from Gov. Greg Abbott.

“By investing in our students and institutions, we will make our workforce and our economy even stronger,” Abbott said in the press release.

The investment includes $46.5 million in emergency student support intended for students whose families have been severely impacted by COVID-19, according to the press release.

“We have large numbers of students whose financial situation has suddenly changed as a result of COVID-19,” said Harrison Keller, commissioner for the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board, in an interview. “These adversely impacted students need to ask for a reinstallation of their financial aid package, and these additional funds will be distributed to institutions to help address those needs.”

The funding will be distributed to institutions’ financial aid offices. Students can apply for the funding through the school’s financial aid office for the 2020-21 academic year.

The $118 million also includes $46.5 million in financial aid targeted toward workers who need short-term job credentials to assist in their job search, or who never completed a secondary education certificate, Keller said.

“We have … large numbers of Texans who filed for unemployment in the last few months, and many of the jobs that they lost aren’t coming back or aren’t coming back quickly,” Keller said. “A short-term workforce credential makes a big difference for

amna ijaz / the daily texan file Gov. Greg Abbott speaks at a March 13 press conference at the Texas State Capitol. The state will allocate $118 million to colleges and universities in Texas, including a $46.5 million investment for students directly affected by COVID-19.

helping people reskill or upskill so they can get back into the workforce.”

That money will be distributed through public higher education institutions. Interested applicants will be able to get the money for this school year, Keller said.

“Over the next couple of weeks we will work with the institutions to make sure we can get the dollars to the institutions efficiently,” Keller said.

The funding includes $15 million toward improving data infrastructure and $10 million to improve online learning, according to the press release.

“The primary focus of that funding will be enhancing

quality around the courses that most students take and frequently transfer to other institutions,” Keller said. “(The funding) will be matching grants to institutions to support faculty innovators in developing new instructional materials or dramatically enhancing existing instructional materials.”

Earlier this month, Abbott announced Texas would invest $57 million from the federal coronavirus relief bill to offset potential cuts made to state financial aid programs, including TEXAS Grants and Tuition Equalization Grants, according to a July 8 press release.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said we move forward on a full the $118 million investment economic recovery.” will help the Texas economy in the future.

“This $118 million in federal funds is a strategic investment in Texas’ We have large numbers of higher (education) students students whose financial and our future situation has changed... workforce,” Patrick said additional funds will be in the July 22 distributed to institutions press release. to help address those “It comes at a critical time needs.” and will pay big dividends as HARRISON KELLER

texas higher education commissioner

NEWS

News Editor

5

NICOLE STUESSY

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020 CAREER

Future teachers worry about completing certification

By Andrew Zhang @andrewczhang

As the COVID-19 pandemic forces local school districts to restrict visitors and start the school year online, future teachers face uncertainty with their certifications, which require in-person observation and instruction.

UT teaching certification programs span multiple semesters, according to the College of Education website. To achieve certification, students accumulate field-based experience hours observing and assisting teachers in local classrooms and spend their final semester student teaching for 70 days. However, many local school districts, including Austin ISD and Georgetown ISD, will start online in the fall.

Jill Marshall, UTeach-Natural Sciences co-director, said the program has decided to not send students into classrooms for observation and assistance this fall. With school districts limiting visitors in the classroom, she said the program can’t guarantee all their students will get their required hours.

“I’m not sure how (certain students) will get

the rest of the hours, since they already missed some this semester before,” Marshall said.

When COVID-19 forced schools nationwide to close in March, Marshall said there was a huge turnaround for the UTeach-Natural Sciences program, which emphasizes the in-person learning experience. Students had to suddenly teach online, which they weren’t trained for, she said.

Government officials have decided student teachers can teach online and stay on track for certification if their school is online, Marshall said, but many details of how certification programs should run during the pandemic are still unclear. For example, she said student teachers may be unable to complete 70 days in a classroom, since UT is closing before Thanksgiving.

“After the government declared the emergency (in the spring), (the state) reduced the number of required hours,” Marshall said. “They haven’t done that for fall, but I think in the end they’re going to have to give some latitude.”

Elise Lutz, a neuroscience graduate enrolled in the accelerated UTeach Natural

Sciences program, said it was heartbreaking to leave the classroom she helped out with last spring. She has a teaching internship at a local high school this fall, but is concerned online education will limit her impact as an educator.

“The reason I wanted to be a teacher was to give students a safe space,” Lutz said. “I wanted to be someone students could come to. I worry about social distancing taking a toll on my (relationships) with my students.”

UTeach-Liberal Arts director Carlos Bowles said the program has been working to support their students during the pandemic. However, Bowles said creating plans has been difficult since they must adhere to constantly changing guidelines from local school districts, government agencies and UT. Looking toward the fall, Bowles worries most about students in their student teaching semester, the last part of the program. He said he isn’t sure if students can teach virtually due to technological barriers or if they will even be allowed in classrooms.

Allyson Stephens, an English senior seeking her certification through UTeach-Liberal Arts, is going to start student teaching in the fall. Stephens said she missed about 25 hours of fieldwork in the spring, which makes her less confident in her teaching.

Stephens said that because many students did not receive regular instruction after schools went online in March, she worries about adequately preparing her future students for tests through online learning. After Gov. Greg Abbott canceled standardized tests last year in response to the pandemic, state officials decided July 1 to administer them this upcoming year.

“Expecting them to (take these standardized tests) is, in my opinion, a little bit far-reaching,” Stephens said. “I wish there was a magic solution that I could implement any number of lessons that … make up for these gaps in learning that these students are inevitably going to have, but there’s not.”

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6

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

COVER STORY

EDITORIAL

An unnecessary risk UT should reconsider its current plans for reopening campus in the fall amid community safety concerns.

By Daily Texan Editorial Board @TexanOpinion

he University of Texas community will begin this fall semester knowing a UT staff member, a custodial worker, died from COVID-19 while students and faculty weren’t on campus. The UT community will begin this fall semester knowing UT administration, in response to UT’s first COVID-19-related death, decided “there are no actions or new precautions to take

on campus right now.”

On June 23, Interim President Jay Hartzell announced 3,500 of the 11,000 classes UT plans to offer this fall semester will be available online. This means only about 32% of classes this fall will be completely online, and a staggering 68% will be offered as either in-person or in hybrid mode, with both in-person and online instruction.

This is an unacceptable ratio, given the dramatic increase in the number of cases in Travis County and the state of Texas as a whole since March — the last time UT students were on campus.

UC-Berkeley, UCLA and UC-Irvine have announced their classes will be almost completely online this fall, as have several other universities comparable in size and budget to UT. Many universities in locations experiencing outbreak levels similar to Austin have done the same.

The decisions UT has made regarding student, staff and faculty safety put the UT community, especially its vulnerable members, at unnecessary risk. As the pandemic shows no signs of slowing down in Texas, our University continues to prioritize profit over the well-being of its students and faculty.

We implore UT and the UT System to rethink their fall operations decisions in light of how their students, faculty, staff and other valued community members feel.

We spoke to nine members of the UT community about UT’s decision to return to on-campus classes and promote in-person events. The following are direct quotes from these conversations.

Students and faculty fear that with UT’s current plans, an outbreak is inevitable.

“An infected person on average will transmit (COVID-19), if unimpeded, to two to three other people. You can see how quickly that amplifies in a community,

christina peebles / the daily texan staff

and that’s what we’re seeing in Texas and Travis County right now. Even if the majority of people are compliant, it only takes a few people to start breaking the rules to have a big outbreak on campus.”

— Jaquelin Dudley, molecular biosciences and oncology professor and associate director of the LaMontagne Center for Infectious Disease “Inevitably, within a couple of weeks, people are going to get sick. It (feels) like (administrators) were trying to convince themselves, as well as us, that everything is going to be okay and not taking a real look at what is actually going on.”

— Apoorva Chintala, Plan II and management information systems junior and UT Senate of College Councils membership director “I have a lot of control in my home in San Antonio. But now I’m going to completely (lose) control of my situation when I go back to UT. Worst-case scenario is that somebody dies from COVID-19, which we’ve already seen happen, and nothing happened. I foresee a student getting seriously sick or dying, and that’s the only way we can all go home.”

— Hannah Garcia, government and humanities junior

7

Some students and faculty that do no have the option to teach online may have to put their education or career on hold.

“There are students who are concerned about how safe they’re going to be on campus. If they are immunocompromised, (they are) making those choices of whether or not to go to school or whether or not to take care of themselves.

That’s just been really scary for faculty members who have disabilities and are trying to make that decision about whether or not their tenure will be adversely affected.”

— Nick Winges-Yanez, project manager of the Texas Sibling Network and the Healthy Relationships project and disability studies coordinator for Texas Center for Disability Studies

“If I was to go in tomorrow and say I was to withdraw from the semester or year, I would automatically lose my source of income, I would lose my health insurance, and I think that is enough to be a barrier for some people.”

— Rebecca Johnston, sixth-year history doctoral student

According to some students, current fall plans suggest profits, not community safety, are UT’s top priority.

“I feel UT is being tone-deaf right now. No one is going to buy The Big Ticket. I know they make a lot of money from football, but these student-athletes aren’t paid. They’re putting their health on the line for a system that historically exploits them, and UT still has the audacity to promote The Big Ticket. They should put student safety first, before anything else.”

— Patrick Chukwurah, business junior

LEGALESE | Opinions expressed in The Daily Texan are those of the editor, the Editorial Board or the writer of the article. They are not necessarily those of the UT administration, the Board of Regents or the Texas Student Media Board of Operating Trustees.

sierra wiggers / the daily texan staff “The decisions being made are decisions to protect UT’s ability to generate wealth and UT’s institutional reputation. I think the calculus needs to be switched and UT needs to be asking, ‘How can we best protect our entire community?’ not just, ‘How can we stay in the top rankings as a university, not have to dip into our endowment, not have to spend more of our endowment on support for students, faculty and staff.’”

— Kate Cronin, sixth-year radiotelevision-film Ph.D. student

SUBMIT A FIRING LINE | Email your Firing Lines to editor@dailytexanonline.com. Letters must be more than 100 and fewer than 300 words. The Texan reserves the right to edit all submissions for brevity, clarity and liability.

It

seems

many

students,

staff

and

faculty

members just don’t feel safe teaching or learning in person this fall.

“I decided to teach online. The decision for all of the public health faculty (was) that we would all teach strictly online. There are definitely some concerns; one is the level of cooperation students will have. Obviously we’re not going to have some sort of police force in every classroom enforcing masks, so the onus is on the students.”

— Marilyn Felkner, public health clinical assistant professor

RECYCLE | Please recycle this copy of The Daily Texan.

Place the paper in one of the recycling bins on campus or back in the burnt-orange newsstand where you found it.

“One of my big issues with the reopening plan is face coverings. They definitely make a big difference, but the fact that UT isn’t providing face masks?

I think we get one, but at least give us four or five for a week’s worth of class. It doesn’t seem safe. It just doesn’t.”

– Colin Johnston, second-year urban teaching Master of Science in education student

EDITORIAL TWITTER | Follow The Daily Texan Editorial Board on Twitter (@TexanOpinion) and receive updates on our latest editorials and columns.

8

Life&Arts Editor

TRINADY JOSLIN

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

LIFE&ARTS

FEATURE

Local museum exhibit acknowledges its history of slavery Building on site of Neill-Cochran House Museum is Austin’s last slave quarters structure.

By Grace Barnes @gracebarnes210

ust a few blocks from UT on San Gabriel Street, the Neill-Cochran House Museum is surrounded by fraternity houses and food trucks in West Campus. Prior to the pandemic, art history and architecture classes would frequent the 164-yearold historic home to view the exhibits inside.

The museum’s leadership long suspected one of the buildings was previously home to enslaved people.

Their suspicions were soon confirmed, and they later discovered it was the only structure of its kind still standing in Austin. They then decided to launch a research project into the site’s history with the help of UT architecture classes.

To showcase some of their findings, the exhibition “Reckoning with the Past: Slavery, Segregation, and Gentrification in Austin” was unveiled in February, but the research is ongoing.

Museum executive director Rowena Dasch said they want to learn more about the people who lived in the structure to better reflect how the space was actually used.

“The ultimate goal is to share the space in a way that is tactile and resonant, that gets to the heart of what life often was like in the 1850s,” Dasch said.

Previously, the slave quarters building was used mainly for school tours and housed farm tools students could interact with. After

copyright neill-cochran house museum, and reproduced with permission After realizing one of their buildings was the last remaining slave quarters structure in Austin, the staff at the Neill-Cochran House Museum decided to take a closer look at its history.

taking a closer look at the structure, Dasch said the museum realized this wasn’t a historically accurate representation of the space.

“We took the space out of time and out of context because the (farm) tools were not in any way connected to our site,” Dasch said.

Dasch reached out to Tara Dudley, UT architecture lecturer and historic preservation consultant, a few years ago to help the museum with the project. In fall 2019, Dudley created the African American Experience in Architecture class. “(Dasch) and I began discussing how we might work on highlighting

and getting at that untold history in this particular building a few years ago,” Dudley said. “Finally with this class, we had the opportunity and the manpower to do that.”

Dudley guided students through researching city directory records, tax records and other archival materials about both the physical structure and the occupancy of the building.

The pandemic has slowed the progress of the project, but Dasch said the museum hopes to have a major reopening of the slave quarters building in the next year or two.

“You’ll have the opportunity to be in a space that feels much closer to the way in which it was experienced in 1856,” Dasch said. “We hope that it will be a centerpiece for understanding race in West Austin.”

Tolu Oliyide, a graduate student in Dudley’s American architecture class last fall, was one of the exhibit collaborators. She said the research was crucial to telling the complete story of Austin and the enslaved people who built it.

“This is key to telling the story that … behind every great man or great family that Austin knows, there were these people that built Austin,

and they need to be recognized,” Oliyide said.

Dasch said she thinks it is important to be able to visit places where history happened, and she wants the museum to be such a place.

“It’s easy for us in Austin to not really connect with our history and just focus on the present … without recognizing how we got there,” Dasch said. “What we’re trying to do … is to help people to understand where we’ve been, in order to do something right, moving forward.

This is about history, but it’s also very much about the present.”

LIFE&ARTS

Life&Arts Editor

TRINADY JOSLIN

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

9

STUDENT LIFE

International students debate where to spend fall semester

By Jennifer Errico @errico_jenny

As Norman Wang drove from the Pudong International Airport to his house in Shanghai, China, the economics junior welcomed the sight of congested traffic, full restaurants and crowded streets, something he’d missed while living in Austin.

As of Monday, July 27, the United States is second only to Brazil in new per capita coronavirus cases per week. Some international students like Wang said they wanted to return to their home countries where life more closely resembles what they knew prior to the pandemic.

However, the constant policy changes imposed by the U.S. government and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement have made it challenging for nearly 5,000 international students on campus to find stability.

Edson Santos, an international student from Angola and economics and civil engineering junior, said he wished UT would’ve prioritized letting international students register for in-person classes following ICE’s July 6 announcement. The guidelines said international students taking only online classes could result in deportation.

“We’re not from here,” Santos said. “A lot of us don’t have family here or a place to stay. It’s scary having all this uncertainty in a foreign place.”

When ICE’s decision was later rescinded on July 14, University spokesperson Joey Williams told The Daily Texan that the University supports international students and will continue moving more fall classes to a hybrid format.

Originally, Santos wanted to return to his family in Angola, but decided the risk was too high.

Santos has a two-year F-1 student visa, which will expire in the fall. Though he plans on renewing it, he worries the process will take longer because of coronavirus

delays, and he will be barred from entering the U.S. He is currently staying with high school friends in Florida and will return to Austin for the fall semester.

Santos is also the president of Planet Longhorn, the biggest international student organization on campus, and hopes to use the organization to help support other international students.

Wang, who also has an F-1 visa, stayed in Austin after campus closed. He returned to Shanghai earlier this month and will remain there for the fall semester.

“There’s no right answer,” Wang said. “Whatever I feel might be the right decision today, may feel wrong tomorrow.”

Even if Wang wants to change his mind and return to Austin, he may not have a choice.

“The travel ban on Chinese citizens still hasn’t been lifted,” Wang said. “As a Chinese citizen, I can’t fly directly to the U.S. from China. I have to find a third country to quarantine in for 14 days before returning to the U.S., which is super time consuming and costly.”

Emma Liisa, an international relations and business sophomore, has been in Estonia with her family since June. Originally, she planned to stay because COVID-19 cases have dwindled to only a few per day, making masks obsolete and allowing the country to return to normal.

“All the fun aspects of college, like football games and social gatherings, are surrounded by paranoia, so I (would) rather stay (in Estonia),” Liisa said.

In early July, Liisa decided to return to Austin for the fall because she was unable to sublease or break her contract with the Scottish Rite Dormitory.

Though the July 6 ICE announcement requiring international students to take at least one in-person class was reversed, Liisa said she is still checking her schedule every day in case the decision changes.

ICE released new guidelines on

marissa xiong / the daily texan staff Friday that only affect incoming freshmen at universities offering exclusively online classes, the Statesman reported.

Though the changes don’t apply to UT at this point, Liisa said in an interview prior to the Friday announcement that international students like herself worry about keeping up with constant changes in policy.

“I think international students just want security and certainty that they won’t be uprooted during the semester,” Liisa said.

10

Sports Editor M Y A H

TAY L O R

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

SPORTS

FOOTBALL

A trailblazer memorialized Friends and family react to plans for a Julius Whittier statue at DKR.

By Carter Yates @Carter_Yates16

early 50 years after Julius Whittier’s last game as a Longhorn, the University announced July 13 he would be memorialized with a statue honoring his legacy as Texas’ first Black football letterman.

“It was long overdue,” said Ivey Suber, Whittier’s friend who played running back for UT from 1973-76.

“He’s done so much for the University and supported them for so many years. It was a great day when they decided to recognize him.”

Whittier, who passed away in 2018 from Alzheimer’s disease, joined Texas’ varsity football team in 1970 and was a standout offensive guard for two seasons before moving to tight end his senior year. As Texas’ first Black football player, he was a role model to Black players who joined the team in later years, his sister Mildred Whittier said.

“He paved the way for other Black football players that fol-

copyright mildred whittier, and reproduced with permission Whittier is remembered by his teammates and sister, Mildred, as a trailblazer and role model for future Black student-athletes.

lowed him,” Mildred said. “Players such as Earl Campbell and Roosevelt Leaks — he mentored them, and also encouraged them to attend UT.” Julius’ trailblazing career is not lost on today’s Texas student-athletes. More than two dozen UT student-athletes released a collective statement on June 12, featuring a list of changes they wanted the University to make to create a more welcoming campus atmosphere for Black students. One of those requests was the renaming of some part of the stadium after Julius.

As part of a number of changes geared toward making the University more inclusive and supportive of Black students, Interim President Jay Hartzell said UT will erect the statue for Julius at the Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium and rename Joe Jamail Field for Heisman Trophy winners Earl Campbell and Ricky Williams.

During his time at UT, Julius excelled on the field and in the classroom. He graduated in 1973 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy before returning to Texas for law school and later becoming a criminal prosecutor in Dallas County.

“He had a fantastic football career as well as education having gone to UT,” Mildred said.

“He took advantage of every situation he encountered. He saw the University as a tremendous opportunity to conquer different things.”

However, Julius’ decision to attend Texas wasn’t easy. Growing up in nearby San Antonio, the Whittier family was familiar with rumors surrounding racism at the University. Despite these fears, Julius said he chose to attend UT in order to change the narrative surrounding the school.

“I wanted to see if the myth

copyright texas athletics, and reproduced with permission Julius Whittier, Texas’ first Black varsity letterman, will be honored with a statue at Darrell K Royal-Texas Memorial Stadium.

about UT’s racism was true,” Julius said in an interview during his senior season in 1972. “If it was, I wanted to see what I could do to change it.”

The desire for change that Julius possessed as UT’s first Black letterman parallels the actions of the current student-athletes, Suber said. “(Julius) told me, ‘You can go to any University in the country, but if you come to the University of Texas, you have an opportunity to change the football program,’” Suber said. “I think what you see today is the work that Julius did

back in 1969-1973 and beyond to help the University become what you see today as far as Black athletes go.”

While the statue of Julius represents how far UT has come in 50 years, it also illustrates the fight for racial equality is far from over, Mildred said.

“Change takes time,” Mildred said. “It’s not going to happen overnight, so I am pleased that something has occurred. It doesn’t mean that we are done, but the fact that both parties were able to come together to me was a step in the right direction.”

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B A R B D A LY & A L E K K A H E R N A N D E Z

TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

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TUESDAY, JULY 28, 2020

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Longhorn fans, alumni share opinions on kneeling during anthem, not singing ‘The Eyes of Texas’

By Myah Taylor & Nathan Han @t_myah @NathanHan13

When Chis Branson, a longtime Longhorn fan and Air Force veteran, first saw former NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick sit on the bench during the National Anthem in 2016, he thought it was distasteful. However, his perspective has since changed.

Kaepernick, who initially sat for the anthem to protest racial injustice, began to kneel after Nate Boyer, a former Texas football player and Army Green Beret, told him it was a more respectful gesture. Kneeling is honorable, Branson said, and he supports those fighting for racial equality who choose to kneel during the anthem.

“We look at why we take a knee in a lot of things — to propose, to pray, to honor a fallen friend,” Branson said. “Here’s another thing, to take a knee when somebody’s injured. And right now, our country is injured.”

Numerous athletes have since taken a knee, sparking controversy. Many fans support Texas student-athletes in their choices to kneel, but other members of the Longhorn community hold different opinions about anthem protests.

One Longhorn fan tweeted that the anthem makes him “think of brothers who fought with me and died for their country.” Another tweeted, “By

carlos garcia / the daily texan file Senior wide receiver Lorenzo Joe takes a knee following the Longhorns’ 13-10 overtime loss to Oklahoma State on Oct. 21, 2017. Nate Boyer, a former Texas football player, expressed to Colin Kaepernick why kneeling during the national anthem is a respectful way to protest racial injustice.

all means, kneel, just don’t do it when you’re before the flag.”

Donovan Williams, a Texas basketball sophomore guard, tweeted in response to another user that critics of anthem protests “can’t tell people when and how to express their frustration.”

Boyer said he addressed these contrasting ideas with Kaepernick in 2017.

He explained to the former quarterback that he champions the fight for equality, but also that the anthem is “a sacred time for a lot of people.”

A similar difference of opinion has occurred at UT regarding “The Eyes of Texas,” the school’s alma mater with minstrelsy roots.

Over two-dozen Texas

student-athletes released a collective statement on June 12, calling for the University to make many changes including the removal of the tune as the alma mater, angering many fans and alumni.

UT Interim President Jay Hartzell announced July 13 that several changes would be made to meet other requests, including

renaming multiple buildings on campus, but “The Eyes of Texas” would stay. However, he said athletes will no longer be required to sing it and can leave the field before it plays.

While 1983 UT alumnus John Kincade said he believes fans have reclaimed the song as something positive, he

wouldn’t take issue with student-athletes who don’t sing it.

“I really think that we have redeemed that song and I would love to see all of our students and all of our alumni come together,” Kincade said. “If somebody objects to it, I don’t have a problem with them not singing.”

Junior sprinter Jonathan Jones tweeted, “Speak for yourself. You don’t know how we feel,” in response to a user saying the song is unifying. Junior safety Caden Sterns tweeted that he wouldn’t sing the song, but he’s “understanding on people’s perspectives on what the song means to them.”

1977 UT alumnus Darrell David said he’s always loved singing “The Eyes of Texas,” but was unaware of its history. David said he believes anthem protests will anger many Longhorn fans who grew up with an “Anglo” perception of patriotism like he did, but he understands these perspectives, like the ones surrounding UT’s alma mater, aren’t universally shared.

“When I see a player kneel, what I see is somebody who says, ‘I’m here in America, but I want to make it better,’” David said. “Honestly, should that not be the most patriotic statement … that we want to make this country better for all? And is it not unpatriotic to say, ‘No, I just want to keep it the way it is.

I want to keep it the way it is for me?’”