... The Texas Minute ...
Good morning,
I end the week reflecting on the cultural time we have entered. It is a time for choosing.
This is the Texas Minute for Friday, September 12, 2025.
– Michael Quinn Sullivan
Lt. Gov. Patrick Questions Welsh’s Future at Texas A&M
- Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is weighing in on the growing controversy at Texas A&M University, openly questioning the leadership of President Mark Welsh following revelations that a children’s literature course included instruction on introducing LGBT topics to minors. Brandon Waltens has the story.
- In a post on social media, Patrick urged the Texas A&M System Board of Regents and newly installed Chancellor Glenn Hegar to continue their investigation into the matter and not to stop with the firing of the professor.
- The firing followed mounting outrage after State Rep. Brian Harrison (R–Midlothian) released video of the professor telling a student to leave class for objecting to the material on religious grounds. Harrison has also subsequently released recordings of Welsh defending the course content and being combative with the student who raised the concern.
- Welsh has had a long history of promoting DEI and LGBT initiatives—policies the Legislature has moved to roll back in recent years over Welsh’s objections.
MORE EDUCATION NEWS
- Texas State University moved quickly to terminate the employment of a professor who called for the overthrow of the U.S. government over the weekend. Adam Cahn has the update.
- So while A&M's president spent two months bullying students for reporting the disgusting actions taking place in a classroom, Texas State took immediate action against a leftwing radical. Why hasn't TAMU ordered a U-Haul for Welsh?
DOJ Releases Guidance To Protect Parental Rights
- Addie Hovland reports that the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division will begin watching for violations of parental rights in educational settings.
- U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi explains that the directive comes after parents have been targeted for speaking out against the radical gender and racial ideologies being taught at government-run schools.
- In 2021, the National School Boards Association sent a letter to then-Attorney General Merrick Garland requesting assistance in dealing with parents voicing concerns over what was being taught in the classroom. The NSBA compared them to “domestic terrorists.”
- The Trump Administration is reaffirming parents' rights to direct their children’s education and to express their views in meetings without being silenced or punished. Bondi said school board members, administrators, and other government officials will be held accountable if they threaten law-abiding parents.
Marine Countersues Girlfriend
- Accused of slipping an abortion drug into his girlfriend's drink to kill their baby, a Marine Corps pilot is asserting his innocence in a countersuit. Travis Morgan has the details.
- Capt. Christopher Cooprider alleges that the woman was obsessed with him, tricking him into getting her pregnant. He is suing her for $100 million in actual damages and $1 billion in exemplary damages.
- Before the baby was killed, Cooprider sent a text message to the woman: "Choosing to have it WILL mess up its life. It will be bad for you, your current kids, and that poor thing … It would be better off not being around."
- "Cooprider is guilty as sin and will be held to account for what he did, both in this civil suit and in the upcoming criminal proceedings." – Attorney Johnathan Mitchell
School Trainer Accused of Sexually Assaulting Student Athlete
- A former Decatur Independent School District athletic trainer and golf coach is accused of sexually assaulting an underage student more than 10 years ago. Erin Anderson reports police believe the man may have victimized more girls.
- Fernando Escobar, 42, worked for Decatur ISD from 2009 to 2020 and was the district’s only athletic trainer when the alleged crimes occurred. His alleged victim was a female student who had been referred to him after an injury.
- The victim told police that Escobar had mentioned his wife finding messages between him and a different female, who is potentially another victim.
- Texas has no statute of limitations for sexual assault of a child or indecency with a child. Escobar does not currently hold a Texas teaching certificate.
Harris County Officials Approve Property Tax Hike
- By a 3-2 vote, Harris County commissioners have approved an increase to the county’s property tax rate. Michael Wilson reports the hike was low enough to be applied without voter approval.
- Commissioners argued the hike was necessary to support rising healthcare costs, citing the $1 billion in Medicaid cuts made by the Trump administration as a driving factor.
- Taxpayers there are facing a confusing budget picture, with County Judge Lina Hidalgo projecting a budget deficit, while Commissioner Lesley Briones is claiming that the deficit would be completely eliminated.
This Sunday on REAL TEXANS
In this week's edition of Real Texans, I sit down with my friend and former colleague, Brooke Rollins. We talk about growing up in small-town Texas, the importance of state-based policy action, and her role as the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
New interviews with REAL TEXANS every Sunday!
Friday Reflection
Picking the Right Side
by Michael Quinn Sullivan
This horrible week has shown us that there are two sides. They share nothing in common.
Anyone who word-vomits platitudes about the “rhetoric of both sides” will be revealing themselves to be dangerously lazy or murderously complicit. Only one side’s rhetoric has been inspiring political assassinations, and that side has been unabashedly cheering the murder of a young father.
The language of the left has been employed with all the subtlety of an air horn, calling forth actual violence against those who engage only in civic discourse. From politicians to media pundits, the left has been using the language of violence to paint targets on everyone from the president to businessmen to activists.
Who will be next?
There is a real difference between the “sides.” These are not the sides of a single coin minted from the same press, but starkly different philosophies. They seek to take humanity in very different directions.
The left would send us down into darkness; it craves death and cheers destruction. The right takes us upward in the light of liberty granted to us by the Creator of the Universe.
I have no doubt that, come Sunday morning, too many pastors will make effete noises about “both sides” bearing culpability in the political assassination of Charlie Kirk. In doing so, they will reveal the false god they worship and the human masters they seek to please.
It is a sinful deceit to compare those who murder a man in front of hundreds of witnesses with one who engages only in peaceful dialogue. It is a vile mind that would compare those who advocate for liberty with those who gleefully cheer a young mother being widowed by an assassin.
While such moral equivalencies might have earned the pastor an “A” in a university’s divinity course taught by a God-hating leftist, they fail the test of Holy Scripture.
There are two sides. They are not the same.
An unwillingness to recognize that fact is to choose the wrong side. Now is the time for choosing.
Quote-Unquote
"Modern toleration is really a tyranny. It is a tyranny because it is a silence."
– G.K. Chesterton
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