“Silence is getting a bit loud”: Emails show UT leaders took heat for slow response to Bo French post
By Jessica Priest, The Texas Tribune
October 26, 2026
An Indian American student who had lived in California their entire life was scared to move to Texas to pursue a doctorate in economics at the University of Texas at Austin.
But during the Longhorns’ comeback victory against Ohio State in September, the student taught classmates from abroad about football and cheered with them.
“When I was sweating with three minutes to go in the fourth quarter, I knew that UT would be part of me forever,” the student later wrote.
That excitement turned to “shock and despair” the next morning when Bo French, the Republican nominee for Texas railroad commissioner, posted a photo on X of South Asian students celebrating the victory and suggested their presence at UT-Austin was a problem.
As condemnation of French’s message exploded online, UT-Austin President Jim Davis responded nearly 35 hours later by affirming that all UT students were Longhorns without directly addressing French’s remarks.
The tepid response prompted the Indian American student to email the president. “I am glad you believe we are all Longhorns. I do not believe you share Bo French’s thoughts or prejudices. But do you seriously believe that what you have said is enough?” the student wrote. “I would like you to call him out by name and say that his racism has no place on our campus. I would like you to say Indian-Americans are Americans too. I would like you to film a video, look directly in the camera, and tell me I belong here.”
Records obtained by The Texas Tribune show the student — whose name, like all current students, was redacted — was not the only one to voice disappointment in the response by university leaders.
The records also offer a glimpse into the dilemma facing public university presidents as political fights increasingly roil their campuses: When students become targets, is expressing support enough, or must leaders also condemn those responsible?
The day after the Longhorns’ thrilling one-point victory over top-ranked Ohio State on Sept. 12, French posted an image of celebrating South Asian students at 7:52 a.m., saying: “The problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”
As criticism of French spread that Sunday morning, UT officials fielded requests for comment and monitored the backlash.
That afternoon, Patrick Wiseman, UT-Austin’s vice president for marketing and communications, told colleagues in a Microsoft Teams message that he had kept university leadership informed.
“Bo is getting crushed by others,” Wiseman wrote. “No need for us to stoop to these politics and make a UT comment.”
But students and alumni were urging university leaders to speak out. One UT law student acknowledged that university officials should avoid weighing in on political matters but urged Davis to reassure Indian American students that they belonged.
“The silence is getting a bit loud,” the student wrote.
The next morning, UT-Austin spokesperson Mike Rosen told reporters the university did not plan to issue a statement.
Meanwhile, UT communications officials sought to shape news coverage of the university’s international student population. Katie Boshart, director of issues and reputation management, contacted reporters at The New York Times and USA TODAY, urging them to emphasize that international students made up about 4% of UT undergraduates rather than nearly 10% of all students, including graduate students.
Boshart argued the distinction mattered because the controversy concerned undergraduate admissions. Both percentages were accurate but measured different student populations, she said.
By Monday afternoon, alumni, students and parents were still pressing Davis to respond. Davis’ office had received at least 22 emails about French’s remarks.
“Silence in the face of bigotry is complicity,” wrote Rohan Reddy Gupta, a 2020 graduate. “A clear, public condemnation of these racist remarks is not optional; it is a moral obligation.”
That evening, at 6:02 p.m., UT System Board Chair Kevin Eltife publicly expressed support for UT students.
“When I stood on the sidelines at DKR-Texas Memorial Stadium Saturday night and looked up at the seats filled with incredible fans, I saw Longhorns,” Eltife wrote on X. “I’m proud to celebrate all our Longhorn students today and every day.”
Davis reposted Eltife’s statement at 6:46 p.m., adding: “Proud to stand with Chairman Eltife. Our students are exceptional. All of them are Longhorns.”
Neither mentioned French by name or described his remarks as racist.
But the emails to Davis didn’t stop as his office received over a dozen more. Nicolas Cocavessis, a 1978 UT graduate, urged the university president to condemn French directly. Cocavessis pointed to his son and four friends, all U.S.-born children of immigrants, who graduated from UT and built careers in finance, oil, computer science and law.
“C’mon man, do what’s right!” he wrote.
The criticism continued into the following week.
“You could have called on Bo French to make a public apology,” Greg Rives, a 1998 UT graduate, wrote to Davis on Sept. 25. “In doing so, the UT student population would have seen a president they can count on to have their back. You fumbled.”
Past UT-Austin presidents have spoken out more directly when students were targeted.
In 2017, then-President Gregory Fenves condemned flyers targeting students of Chinese and Asian descent, calling them “completely unacceptable.” Fenves said everyone at UT had the right to learn and work without fear of discrimination. University officials removed the flyers from campus buildings and referred the incident for investigation.
The UT System Board of Regents has since adopted an institutional neutrality policy that could have constrained how university officials responded to French, though it’s unclear whether it played a role because neither Davis nor Eltife responded to requests for comment, and officials from UT-Austin and the UT System did not answer the Tribune’s questions on the record.
In August 2024, months after pro-Palestinian demonstrations led to more than 100 arrests at UT-Austin, the system’s Board of Regents adopted a policy stating that university officials “should not, in their official capacity, issue or express positions on issues of the day, however appealing they may be to some members of the university community.”
The policy aims to let students and professors debate controversial issues without feeling pressure to adopt the university’s position.
Brian Soucek, a University of California, Davis law professor and author of “The Opinionated University,” said such policies typically make an exception for defending a university’s core mission, including educating students regardless of their race or background. He questioned why the UT System’s policy did not explicitly include one.
UT-Austin’s own guidelines, however, allow official statements “on rare occasions in which an event has a unique impact on members of the UT community or has a significant impact on public safety or University operations.”
Soucek said French’s remarks appeared to meet UT-Austin’s exception because they directly targeted students. It is unclear when the university adopted those guidelines or whether the systemwide policy supersedes them.
Soucek said universities increasingly cite institutional neutrality to avoid defending their own missions and values. Some university leaders avoid condemning offensive remarks to keep from amplifying them, he said, but French’s comments had already received widespread attention.
He called UT’s response “an example of universities being utterly cowardly in a situation where speaking would have concrete and positive effects on perceptions of inclusion and racial equality within their institution.”
Brian Rosenberg, who served as president of Macalester College in Minnesota for 17 years, agreed presidents should reassure students targeted by racism, but he was more sympathetic to Davis’ predicament.
Public university presidents face political pressure that leaders of private colleges do not, Rosenberg said. UT-Austin relies on state lawmakers for funding, and university administrators risk repercussions when their decisions anger elected officials.
“In an ideal world, I would say [issue] a stronger statement. In the real world in which he exists, I would say doing what he did was probably as far as he could responsibly go,” Rosenberg said.
Davis addressed offensive speech more broadly in an Oct. 16 message to students and the university after conservative podcaster Myron Gaines used racist and sexist slurs during an appearance on campus.
Students criticized the university’s handling of the event and called for stronger enforcement of campus rules against harassment and discriminatory conduct.
“I can’t make the pain of experiencing offensive comments go away,” Davis wrote. “I know this is easy to say and hard to do, but don’t stop to listen. Don’t stop to engage if you don’t want to be part of it. Don’t take the bait of someone seeking to provoke you.
“These outsiders certainly don’t define UT,” he added.
Three UT-Austin professors, however, took steps to reassure students after the incident.
“We want to express our support for all students regardless of ethnicity, and tell you that if you need someone to talk to, we are here to help,” computer science professors Keshav Pingali, Vijay Chidambaram and Chandrajit Bajaj wrote in an email to students.
Pingali said growing hostility toward Indian Americans prompted the message. He also recognized former students in the photo French included in his remarks and was distressed to learn some feared attending future football games.
Students later visited Pingali’s office to thank him, saying they appreciated knowing faculty members were paying attention, he said.
Eli Friedman, a first-year computer science student who received the email, had mixed feelings.
“The good [part] was, oh look, somebody cares,” Friedman said. “And the bad part was, why does it need to be individual professors? Why couldn’t it have been the university themselves?”
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