The Next Bush in Line: Split opinions on George P. Bush as “Latino Leader”

*A follow-up to yesterday’s news about the University of Texas giving its first Latino Leadership award to George P. Bush. Many of you weighed-in on the news. Apparently Taquistas aren’t alone … VL

By Michael King, The Austin Chronicle

Prior to (today’s) award ceremony – and beginning at 4:30pm outside the Student Union, and from 5:30-7pm on the south steps of the Main Building, student activists will be holding a teach-in to protest the award to Bush. Activists say they believe the award “forsakes the vision and mission of the founders of the Center for Mexican-American Studies, and of faculty and staff.” In a press release, they announced, “We love our Latino faculty, and we want to protect their valuable work, so as a community we take on this responsibility to inform students on civil rights, and that an enemy of the freedom we cherish is not our Latino Leader. We believe awarding a Latino Leadership Award to the Texas Land Commissioner politicizes our institutions. We want to tell our youth that this should not be allowed.”

The protesters say they object to Bush’s support of the state Republican platform, and his positions on environmental issues like climate change and hydrocarbon fracking, which they say are “contrary to those expressed by the Latino community in polls and in other public sources.”

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