Texas A&M University spent $40,000 to bring actor Danny Glover to campus for a Martin Luther King Jr. Breakfast speech, an investigation by a student group, the Texas Aggie Conservatives (TAC) revealed.
Glover’s speech drew national outrage after a video taken by TAC activists exposed his claim that the Constitution’s Second Amendment was created to preserve slavery.
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Internal emails which reveal the cost of the event were acquired by the TAC through the Texas Public Information Act.
The documents and contract obtained by the TAC reveal the speaking cost for the event was over $40,000 and was drawn from a university fund that is supplied with money from the administration, various departments, as well as student funds. Glover was paid $27,000 of that money as a speaking fee.
The revelation that student funds were used to bring Glover to campus directly contradicts a statement from an A&M spokesperson who told Campus Reform last month that student fees were not used. Full-time students pay a mandatory fee of $1,326.09 each semester or 2,652.18 for the year.
The conservative student group, the TAC, has responded to Glover’s remarks by circulating a petition demanding administrators provide a more balanced roster of school sponsored speakers. So far that petition has garnered about 1,200 signatories.
