A&M is no longer that little ol’ ag school of yesteryear when just a little hazing of “fish” in the Corps or building gigantic homecoming bonfires were all in a day’s curriculum on campus in College Station.  The 12th Man, which helped the football team win all those games, and the lifelong camaraderie that made you an Aggie for life is now being overshadowed as the university is now saying the quiet part out loud – that it’s funded and controlled by a bunch of pot-bellied bigots who believe that only white guys should be in charge and only strict compliance to the party line will keep you enrolled or working for A&M.  Overstated?  Hardly.  A&M is now openly censuring and threatening any academic who strays out of line, speaks a word of criticism of a state official or teaches the “wrong” history in class.

Case in point is that of Joy Alonzo, a respected opioid expert and A&M professor.  A deeply experienced and award winning pharmacist, Alonzo has brought millions of dollars in research grants to the university and is an expert in opioids, teaching the use of Narcan and other treatments to those addicted.  This last spring she gave a guest lecture at UTMB about opioids in Galveston, but before she could drive back to College Station, she had been reported for criticizing Dan Patrick.  From there the story reads like something out of the 1930s Germany where academics and intellectuals were silenced for saying the wrong things.  Within two hours, A&M Chancellor John Sharp was communicating with Patrick and his chief of staff.  Alonzo was immediately suspended, pending an investigation.  Alonzo was terrified.

Among his communications about the complaint, Sharp sent this email to Patrick’s office: “Joy Alonzo has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation re firing her. shud [sic] be finished by end of week.”  –  signed “jsharp.”  Within another couple of hours, UTMB leaders sent an email to its students saying that Alonzo’s comments “about Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick and his role in the opioid crisis did not represent the opinion of the university.”  The email included a formal censure of Alonzo, even though they didn’t even know specifically what the hell she had even said.

Here’s where the story gets worse, if that’s possible.  Alonzo was reported by a well-connected mole in the classroom who happened to be a daughter of Texas land commissioner Dawn Buckingham, a long-time Patrick ally, and a freshman med student at UTMB who attended the lecture.  Patrick had endorsed Buckingham’s campaign, and she is also close to Sharp and attended his wedding.  You know exactly what happened.  Daughter called Mom, Mom called Patrick, Patrick called Sharp and the fire was lit.  Within hours Alonzo was suspended and threatened with firing by Sharp who was kowtowing to Patrick.

Since the investigation turned up NO ONE who could actually testify as to any wrongdoing, Alonzo ultimately kept her job (I certainly hope she’s looking for another) and is back to work at A&M, but the irreparable damage is done.  The infuriating thing about this entire sorry episode is that no one even knows exactly what Alonzo said that was so offensive.  Other students couldn’t remember anything except a vague reference to Patrick’s office.  The only clue is in Alonzo’s lecture slides that correctly stated that the state legislature, rather than funding opioid treatment programs, legislated stronger criminal charges for those selling the drug.  UTMB is just as culpable in this circus as A&M since it fired off the student email and censure of Alonso ON THE SAME DAY the complaint was filed and before any investigation was completed.

Add this story to the one about Kathleen McElroy, the UT professor of journalism who was recently hired to resurrect the A&M journalism program.  McElroy is an A&M alum.  Previously mentioned pot-bellied redneck alums found out about her hiring (she’s African American and had dared to have a job as an editor who wrote about diversity at the NYTimes) and raised so much hell about her hiring that the university actually reneged on it’s offer of a five-year tenured position, changing it several times, ending up with a one-year untenured position.  Since she is already a tenured professor at UT, she wisely rejected the offer.  The president of A&M and the interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences ended up resigning over the sordid incident (not the hiring, but the reneging).

There is most certainly something rotten in College Station, and I’m not talking about overripe fruit in the cafeteria. A&M has been taken over (again) by hate filled racists and radicals trying to repeal the 20th Century and return the college to the bad old days.

“Sieg Heil!”  Fits better now than the quaint “Gig ’em Aggies!”.