Texas University Receives Historic Gift for Institute to Promote American Values

West Texas A&M University (WT) in Canyon, Texas, has received a historic $20 million gift to establish a new institute that will focus on promoting traditional American values.

“The Institute will illuminate the founding values of our nation as embodied in our region as a means of cementing intellectual processes to make the world a better place to live,” the Hill Insitute website states.

The large donation was made by Amarillo businessman Alex Fairly, president of the Fairly Group, and his wife, Cheryl. They were recognized for their gift during an event on Wednesday at the Fairly Group Club at Bain-Schaeffer Buffalo Stadium on the university’s campus. Mr. and Mrs. Fairly are both WT graduates.

The couple’s gift is the largest family donation in the school’s 113-year history and will be used to fund the Hill Institute, which was approved in February 2022. The institute is named after Joseph A. Hill, the school’s second and longest-serving president. He led the school from 1918 to 1948.

“Joseph A. Hill led this institution through what I argue were some of the most challenging times ever faced by this institution and which demanded bold leadership and responsiveness,” said WT President Walter Wendler during the event to announce the new institute.

Mr. Wendler said the university had been seeking a donor to fund the center since the Texas A&M Board of Regents had approved the interdisciplinary academy of researchers, teachers, and students.

Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was also in attendance and spoke during the event.

American Values

Mr. Fairly told attendees that when Mr. Wendler first asked the couple to serve on WT’s One West fundraising committee, they were not sure if their “philanthropic convictions aligned with higher education.”

“We were no longer sure we trusted the direction we saw higher education taking,” he continued. “So we had a decision to make, to invest or give up at a time when the very thesis of our investment in the education as a nation was under assault.”

However, Mr. Wendler’s commitment to the values of the Panhandle region of Texas persuaded the Fairlys to make the investment.

“When Walter began talking about the Hill Institute being around values, I realized that WT has a leader, as president, who was unafraid to talk about values. I also believe WT is a leader in higher education,” Mr. Fairly said. “And I don’t believe any other university president in America is as effectively talking about and writing about critical issues facing students and families and our world as is Dr. Wendler.”

It will be centered on 10 values: trust, family; hard work and persistence; regard for others; personal responsibility and free will; compatriotism and patriotism; exercise of virtue; free and open exercise of faith; personal and civic loyalty; and rugged individualism, according to the institute’s website.

“These values are essential to the sustenance of our region, state, and nation as they support the production of the food, fuel, and fiber that feeds, powers, and clothes our nation and world,” said Mr. Wendler, who has served as WT’s president since 2016. “Discussing, researching, and teaching values may quite possibly be the most important investment we can make in our future.”

Mr. Patrick said these are the values that once embodied the nation.

“This is the America that all America used to be,” he said. “It should be again; these are American values.”

“There’s a real movement to get God out of America because once you take God out, there’s really no foundation or wall,” Mr. Patrick continued. “It’s only what who’s ever in charge says it is.”

The institute is being solely funded by private funds to emphasize the “true public-private partnership, which is the nature of a Republican form of government,” Wendler said.

‘Impact Far Beyond Our Region’

The Fairly’s gift will embed Hill Scholars — both faculty and students — who “want to better understand how these values impact daily life, create a better community, prepare is for engaged citizenship and shape our nation,” Mr. Wendler said. “We want the mission of the Hill Institute to have an impact far beyond our region.”

Hill scholars will share their insights through regular publications and speaking engagements, the university said in a press release.

”WT will reinforce the best of what families, houses of worship, places of business, farms, and ranches, and the oil fields have instilled in those that come: The way you live matters. The way we live matters,” Fairly said. “The Hill Institute will encourage and enrich these values as the foundation of being an effective citizen in a constitutional republic.”

Upholding Values

Earlier this year, Spectrum WT, the university’s LGBTQ club, organized an on-campus drag show event to raise money for The Trevor Project, a nonprofit that describes itself as working to “end suicide among LGBTQ young people.”

Last month, a federal judge ruled in favor of the university after the LGBTQ group filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Wendler of defying the Constitution and barring a recognized student group.

“The First Amendment does not prevent school officials from restricting ‘vulgar and lewd’ conduct that would ‘undermine the school’s basic educational mission’—particularly in settings where children are physically present,” wrote District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk in his decision. (pdf)

Mr. Wendler canceled the event that was scheduled for March 31, which was open to children so long as they were accompanied by a parent or guardian.

In a campus-wide email, Mr. Wendler said that while he was supportive of The Trevor Project mission, he would not support a drag show at WT.

“Every human being is created in the image of God,” he wrote in a lengthy letter explaining why he had made the decision to cancel the event.

“Does a drag show preserve a single thread of human dignity? I think not,” the letter continued. “As a performance exaggerating aspects of womanhood (sexuality, feminity, and gender), drag shows stereotype women in cartoon-like extremes for the amusement of others and discriminate against womanhood.”

“Any event which diminishes an individual or group through such representation is wrong,” Mr. Wendler said.