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The University of Texas Longhorns band performs during a football game at McLane Stadium in 2019.
AUSTIN, Texas The University of Texas at Austin says that its Longhorn Band will be required to play “The Eyes of Texas” and that it will create a new marching band for students who are unwilling to play the school’s alma mater.
The song has been a mainstay at football games and university events for generations, but critics have argued that it has a racist history because it was first performed at a 1903 minstrel show, a form of entertainment where white performers often wore blackface and presented negative stereotypes of Black people.
Kate McGee, The Texas Tribune
April 22, 2021
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The University of Texas Longhorn Band performed during the 2017 Fiesta Flambeau Parade April 29. The school song, “The Eyes of Texas,” is always a crowd favorite, and was penned by a student from San Antonio in 1903.Edward A. Ornelas /San Antonio Express-News
Next fall, University of Texas at Austin students who play on the football team or watch in the stands can choose whether to sing the “The Eyes of Texas” at the end of the game.
But members of the Longhorn Band will be required to perform the university’s embattled alma mater, according to a press release posted on the Butler School of Music website Wednesday.
The Longhorn Band at Texas football game against Louisiana Tech University on Aug. 31, 2019. The new approach was born out of ongoing financial issues and concerns with âThe Eyes of Texas,â which ramped up in earnest last June in the wake of the death of George Floyd, a Black man murdered by a white Minneapolis police officer. Credit: Eddie Gaspar/The Daily Texan
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Next fall, University of Texas at Austin students who play on the football team or watch in the stands can choose whether to sing the âThe Eyes of Texasâ at the end of the game.
University of Texas Creating Separate Band That Won t Perform The Eyes of Texas After Backlash
On 4/22/21 at 5:32 PM EDT
The University of Texas announced it is creating a separate band for fall 2022 that will not perform its alma mater, The Eyes of Texas, in response to concerns raised about the song.
The university said the Longhorn marching and pep bands will still play the song, while a newly established to be named university band will not be required to, after Texas students and athletes raised concerns last year over its lyrics after the police killing of George Floyd in May 2020, according to a news release from the school.