In February, the board of regents unanimously voted in favor of the ban.
The student newspaper The Battalion reports that a student group, The Queer Empowerment Council, with help from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, or FIRE, sued in the southern district of Texas earlier this month.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Lee H. Rosenthal -- A George H.W. Bush appointee – granted a temporary injunction while the lawsuit goes forward.
Rosenthal cited Shakespeare in her ruling.
“Performances by men dressed as women are nothing new,” she wrote. “Men have been dressing as women in theater and film for centuries. It is well-established among scholars of Shakespeare’s literary works that, when his plays were written and performed, female characters were played by young men dressed in women’s attire.” She referenced the Royal Shakespeare Company’s documentation, noting how this practice was standard in Elizabethan England.
The Christian Post reported that in addressing the school's objections, the judge posed the question: "When do performances in which men dress as women cross the line from entertaining to demeaning?”
Jonathan Covey of Texas Values.
"The threshold issue from a legal perspective is whether drag shows are expressive conduct protected under the First Amendment, and the test they do is whether they seek to convey a message. That would be a message that would be clearly understood by observers. We don't believe that that it does."
Different opinion at different A&M campus
He cited a court opinion regarding West Texas A&M University.
"In that case, they said, 'No, drag doesn't clearly convey a message.' This is a highly litigated area, but there are particularly high concerns when a drag show is hypersexualized, when it's available to be attended by children."
