Opinion: Right-Wing Extremists Need Leftist Blood to Function: The right wants faculty and students to fall in line, writes a UT grad student. There’s an alternative. – Columns

I am an English Ph.D. student at UT-Austin with a primary focus in Anglophone medieval studies, or should I say the pseudo-discipline of the medieval? That said, my research also looks at modern white extremism’s co-optation and perversion of medieval references. So, on the one hand, the right wing would approve of what I study. On the other, they would despise it. After reading last week’s article “The Right-Wingification of UT” by Brant Bingamon, who spoke with brave UT faculty, I felt it would be important for readers to hear a graduate student’s perspective. We are being trained as responsible scholars by professors whose livelihood is at risk – so here I am, risking mine.

As a leftist, who predominantly spends their (OoOh scary, a neutral pronoun!) time listening to and reading content produced by the right, I was not shocked when Senate Bill 17 passed in my second year in the College of Liberal Arts, nor was I shocked when my boss was fired from her newly formed, SB 17-compliant position along with 60+ other UT staff. This was always the plan, not an unfortunate byproduct, of the passing of SB 17.

The right is well aware of the consequences that result from their beliefs and policies coming to fruition. They want brilliant scholars to avoid or leave UT, and they want Black and brown faculty, staff, and students to leave or fall in line. The goal is to implant their own scholars and appeal to would-be extremist students (preferably those with easy access to daddy’s credit card).

What’s funny is that none of this would be possible had not the same scholars now being demonized put in the hard work of creating robust fields of study. I wonder if Chris Rufo and his ilk realize that should their purge be successful, they may find themselves rather lost. Without the woke, pseudo-studies left, where will the quackish right find their citations?

I wonder if Chris Rufo and his ilk realize that should their purge be successful, they may find themselves rather lost. Without the woke, pseudo-studies left, where will the quackish right find their citations?

This new right-wing interest in intellectual labor, like other right-wing movements in history, is built on a foundation of negation. The production of intellectual content is not their strong suit, because they are too busy with moral panics and inquisitions intended to prevent the production of actual scholarship. Oh wait, I forgot, one of their failed scholars did write The Turner Diaries – a white nationalist foundational text – and that worked out well for them, but I digress. Like whiteness (gird your loins, Rufo, I’m about to lay some CRT on you), an identity formed and sustained by its vitriolic denial of the personhood of all other racial identities, right-wing intellectualism reifies itself through vampirism. But once the blood is gone, they will starve.

I live my life – academically and personally – under one maxim that contains two parts. The first is “do no harm,” and for this reason I do not plan on leaving UT-Austin. I will not in good conscience deprive Rufo, Dan Patrick, or Greg Abbott of the sweet, sweet leftist intellectual blood they so desperately need. I ask my professors and colleagues to join me as fit food for slaughter.

The other part of the maxim is “but take no shit,” and so the Texas right wing will have to play hardball with me, their food.

Maggie Hawkins is a third-year Ph.D. student in the English Department at UT-Austin. Their research interests lie at the intersection of medieval studies, white extremist studies, and gender studies.