Updated

Updated · The Texas Tribune · Sep 14

UT Students Condemn Bo French's Racist Post as 4% International Enrollment Undercuts Claim

Updated

Updated · The Texas Tribune · Sep 14

UT Students Condemn Bo French's Racist Post as 4% International Enrollment Undercuts Claim

Q: Why did a viral post ignore a university's deep historical ties to the very culture it attempted to alienate?

It ignored those ties because the post was not really about UT Austin’s history or community; it was a racialized reaction to who appeared in one cropped image. The students in the photo were UT students at a football game, and university leaders publicly affirmed that point, saying they saw “Longhorns,” not outsiders. That framing clashed with UT Austin’s own record. The university has long-standing academic and cultural links to South Asia through major library holdings, language collections, and research programs. Its South Asian materials span India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan, and UT’s South Asian language collection is described as one of the largest in the country. The Harry Ransom Center also holds related archival material, including South Asian literary and Sanskrit collections. The viral post also stripped away the actual context of the image. Students said they had waited for hours before the Ohio State game and then moved into open seats in the student section. Nothing in the scene suggested they were not part of campus life; the post imposed that meaning based on appearance. What the episode showed is that online outrage can erase both facts and institutional history. It reduced enrolled students to “foreigners” while ignoring that UT has for decades invested in South Asian scholarship and that the students pictured were participating in one of the university’s most visible traditions.

3 articles · Updated · The Texas Tribune · Sep 14

UT students in the photo Bo French shared said his post turned routine online abuse into a bigger breach because it came from a Republican candidate for the Texas Railroad Commission.
French claimed the South Asian students showed Americans being "displaced" and called UT "filled with foreign nationals," but international students make up about 4% of undergraduates and state law requires 90% of freshmen to be in-state residents.
Students said the image was taken out of context from a 17-second Texas Athletics video showing fans celebrating a late touchdown against Ohio State after rushing to nearby seats in the student section.
Kevin Eltife and UT President Jim Davis publicly backed the students, saying those in the stadium were simply Longhorns, while students said the support countered the racist replies that spread across social media.
The episode lands amid years of conservative attacks on diversity policies at Texas universities, even though UT has been barred from considering race in admissions since the Supreme Court's 2023 ruling.