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| Protesters in Austin, 2013, against back-door creationism in public schools. Photo by Patrick Michels/Texas Observer. |
This was some headline, in the Texas Tribune, which is a treasure of an online newspaper:
Texas A&M suspended professor accused of criticizing Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick in lecture
Like an "accusation" of such a crime is enough to get you in trouble with the administration.
The professor, Joy Alonzo, an expert in opioids, wasn't even at her own institution; she was giving a guest lecture at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, to a class of first-year medical students including the daughter of Dawn Buckingham, Texas Land Commissioner, a former state senator from the time when Dan Patrick was a state senator too, and a friend of Texas A&M chancellor John Sharp. Shortly after the lecture ended around noon and she was driving home, Buckingham was on the phone with Patrick, and also to the system's vice chancellor for government relations; Sharp opened an investigation, sending Patrick a text a couple of hours later:
“Joy Alonzo has been placed on administrative leave pending investigation re firing her. shud [sic] be finished by end of week.”
At 4:22, the course coordinator in Galveston had sent an email to the class with a "STATEMENT OF FORMAL CENSURE":
