Within the weeks since Kate Rogers was ousted from her position as CEO of the Alamo Belief, Inc., the GOP state leaders who referred to as for her resignation say the half-billion greenback redevelopment plan she was overseeing is shifting ahead and not using a hitch.
However Rogers isn’t going quietly after passages from her two-year-old doctoral dissertation have been held up as proof her private politics have been “incompatible” with the best way state leaders need the eventual museum, guests middle and surrounding plaza to convey the location’s historical past.
Final week, Rogers sued Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, Land Commissioner Daybreak Buckingham and members of the Alamo Belief’s board of administrators, shedding new gentle on their efforts to affect such initiatives and asking that she be reinstated to her position.
In an interview with the San Antonio Report, Rogers stated the present political setting compelled her to combat again towards what she sees as a violation of educational freedom legal guidelines.
Texas’ larger training establishments face rising scrutiny from GOP leaders, who’ve spent the previous 12 months pushing out professors they disagree with, auditing curriculum for references of race and gender and appointing political allies to prime management roles on the state’s largest public universities.
College leaders have little leverage to push again, given the super affect state and federal leaders have over their funding.
However Rogers is now free to talk her thoughts — and hopes doing so might make a distinction past her case.
“Individuals separate from their employment on a regular basis. What’s distinctive about this case is that the rationale that I used to be requested to resign was due to one thing I wrote in my dissertation, which is protected speech below the First Modification,” Rogers stated.
“I felt compelled to combat that, as a result of that’s a harmful precedent,” she continued. “Any person took the difficulty to search out my dissertation. I feel it places lots of people in danger.”
The San Antonio Report sat down with Rogers to speak about how she went from an ally of Texas GOP leaders to an enemy, what her departure means for the continuing Alamo redevelopment undertaking and what’s subsequent for a San Antonian who’s now all of the sudden within the state and nationwide highlight for her political opinions.
The dialog has been frivolously edited for readability and size.
Earlier than these latest extremely public disagreements with state GOP leaders — first a social media put up they deemed “work” after which the dissertation — you have been regarded by many because the individual bringing state and native officers collectively on a undertaking they’d lengthy fought about. How did you wind up in that position?
I acquired referred to as by a recruiter to take the job, kind of out of the blue. After I acquired the decision I didn’t even know what the Alamo Belief was. I used to be really helpful by a few native folks. I feel at the moment [early 2021], as a result of there was a lot controversy surrounding the plan that was being superior earlier than I acquired there, that the board was on the lookout for somebody who understood the native panorama, but in addition the political panorama in Texas, which I discover very ironic now.
What’s it in regards to the Alamo that’s made the political dialogue round it so unstable for thus lengthy?
[The redevelopment] may be very, very controversial, I feel for a number of causes. One is, you do have joint possession of the bodily house between town and the state. There’s a lease settlement that’s now in place that helps to articulate who has management over what. In order that’s one factor, there’s a bodily house.
I feel on each extremes, there’s the parents who wish to say that the one motive for the revolution was slavery. And on the opposite excessive, you might have individuals who don’t wish to discuss something however the 13 days of the siege. So there’s sturdy opinions on either side.
My job once I was there was to attempt to stability these factors of view. There’s numerous emotion surrounding it, in order that’s the ultimate piece of it. What’s the story you’re going to inform? What is going to the narrative be? What is going to folks study once they come to the location, be that college kids or grownup guests?
In a latest exit interview with Texas Public Radio, former Assistant Metropolis Supervisor Lori Houston stated it was actually robust instances on the Alamo earlier than you arrived. How did you change into the peacemaker?
Effectively, I feel that was what the job referred to as for. After I stepped into the position I wouldn’t have essentially stated that was going to be what I used to be doing, and I wasn’t all the time profitable at it. Like I stated, there’s sturdy feelings on either side. We’re additionally at this level in our nation the place it’s exhausting to have productive discourse with somebody who disagrees with you, proper? We wish to label folks: “You’re woke, you’re a racist, you’re this, you’re that.”
That doesn’t assist us to know each other. So I attempted to be a very good listener. Generally, once I felt personally attacked, that was troublesome. And when that occurred, fortunately there have been different nice, sturdy folks on the group, and possibly they’d higher chemistry with a sure particular person who had a powerful standpoint, and possibly they could possibly be a greater listening listener or sounding board for that individual.
I’m not going responsible one facet or the opposite, as a result of I noticed dangerous habits on each [the left and the right], actually, in my position on the Alamo.
So it was a group effort of attempting to know all of the totally different views and attempting to be respectful.
What was it like working with Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, somebody who championed this undertaking however who is just not fashionable in San Antonio? He not solely steered numerous state cash to the Alamo redevelopment but in addition donated some private objects he’d collected for the museum, and as soon as praised the best way totally different factors of view had come collectively to make it occur, earlier than in the end calling in your resignation.
I used to be pleasantly shocked in working with the lieutenant governor. I didn’t actually know him earlier than I took this position, solely what you learn or hear or see on the information, and he may be polarizing, for positive.
However on this position, he was all the time nice. The folks in his workplace have been all the time nice. He was definitely very beneficiant. I imply, let’s be sincere, this undertaking wouldn’t be advancing ahead have been it not for him, so I needed to be grateful for that. I’m nonetheless grateful, as a result of it’s good factor for San Antonio, and a very good factor for our state.
After everybody appeared to be on the identical web page on the museum groundbreaking a 12 months in the past, the place did issues disintegrate? And do you assume there could possibly be backtracking on the agreements you’d reached earlier than this?
So the brand new museum options eight galleries, together with the foyer. The galleries are chronological, so that you’re beginning with the primary — no matter phrase you wish to use, indigenous, American, Indian, Native American, decide your phrase — that first [group of people who] occupied this a part of Texas some 10,000 years in the past. It strikes as much as the mission period, that a part of our historical past, the Mexican rule over Texas, and the issues that led as much as the battle after which the battle itself. The battle gallery was all the time meant to be the biggest, probably the most dramatic it’s why most individuals come to go to the Alamo. Nobody ever disputed that. After which there’s a pair galleries that discuss what occurred after the battle, in the course of the Military Quartermaster period, after which the influence of the Alamo on fashionable tradition.
That has been the plan for a number of years, and the bodily house is basically designed by way of the reveals. The precise artifacts to enter the galleries have all been chosen.
However there was nonetheless debate in regards to the precise textual content that goes on the wall. In a museum interpretive planning course of, usually, there are stakeholders which might be concerned in that. That’s quite common follow. … [If you asked a museum], ‘How did you develop these textual content panels which might be on the wall?’ They might say, ‘Effectively, we consulted historians, we had group [members] who gave enter and suggestions. So that you begin with a really sturdy and really lengthy define, and then you definately write a script from that.
That’s what was occurring once I left. There was a script that was in course of. It had gone by two drafts, and the Land Commissioner was not proud of its content material. … She was upset in regards to the variety of instances that phrases like patriotic and freedom have been used versus the variety of instances that phrases like slavery and enslaved have been used.
First [the Alamo Trust’s communications director] Jonathan Hume was fired [over a social media post recognizing Indigenous People’s Day], then me, then script author Steve Harrigan.
It’s fascinating to me that cancel tradition was a time period that was kind of created on the left, and now over on the appropriate, it looks like, “Effectively, you’ll be able to’t say that phrase. No matter you do, don’t say that phrase.” It’s exhausting to navigate … and the script course of must adapt to that as they transfer ahead.
Political fights over the Alamo have been happening for a very long time however in at present’s political local weather, presumably different museums and historic websites are experiencing related points?
I feel any historic web site is. You take a look at Monticello, which is certainly one of my historic websites, and also you take a look at the connection between [former President Thomas] Jefferson and Sally Hemings. As new analysis involves gentle, new info are introduced, which is what historical past is. New discoveries are made actually on a regular basis, and it’s a must to adapt to that. So yeah, I feel any historic web site is having to wrestle with this as a result of that’s the place historical past is made. There’s actual archeology occurring.
You take a look at James Monroe’s house, proper down the highway from Monticello, and the entire time that we’ve been pondering, this was James Monroe house. It wasn’t. The true home burned down, however by archeology, that was found in just like the final 25 years.
Sooner or later sooner or later, there could possibly be new details about the Alamo that nobody has ever realized earlier than, and that’s going to power a change in the best way issues get instructed.
… My dissertation was truly in regards to the position of U.S historic websites and museums and supporting social research instruction in Ok-12 school rooms. My analysis websites have been truly Mount Vernon, Monticello, Gettysburg, and the Nationwide World Struggle II Museum in New Orleans. So whereas this has change into this large, public factor, the fascinating factor about it’s, the dissertation wasn’t truly in regards to the Alamo.
Had been both the Indigenous Individuals’s Day put up or the dissertation, which talked about a few of your private disagreements with the conservative-dominated legislature, belongings you really feel like you must have know could be an issue with state leaders? Or do you assume they have been reacting to strain from the conservative activists of their base who these writings it and wished them to do one thing about it?
What I hope comes out as a part of this litigation is the reality. I’d prefer to know the reply to that query.
Buckingham voted for the popularity of Indigenous Individuals’s Week when she was a [state] senator.
Dissertations, technically they belong to the varsity library when you publish them. However you understand, the fact is, when you get it accepted by your analysis committee, they go onto a shelf someplace, and the one people who ever learn them are different college students down the highway who’re doing analysis on the same subject. … Most definitely somebody referred to as the college on the lookout for it.
I feel it’s essential to recollect who you write the dissertation for. The “Position of the Researcher” part [which Patrick took issue with] is meant to speak about any biases that you simply would possibly convey to the desk because the analysis instrument in a qualitative research. As a result of I used to be a scholar on the College of Southern California, professors from USC didn’t have numerous background or data about Texas politics.
What I used to be attempting to clarify was the political complexity that surrounds the Alamo, as a result of you might have very conservative management on the state degree, and far more progressive management on the metropolis degree, and it’s a must to work to bridge these two.
[But], I feel [Patrick thought] it sounded as if I used to be being important of the Texas Legislature. I might see how somebody might learn it like that, and the legislature is the biggest donor to the Alamo undertaking.
I feel it places lots of people in danger if we stay in a spot the place you write one thing at one level in your life for a really particular objective as a non-public citizen, after which later that it’s used as a weapon towards you, for somebody with a selected agenda. That doesn’t really feel like the US to me, it additionally doesn’t really feel like Texas.
So what’s subsequent for you?
It’s all the time been essential to me that my work makes a distinction on the planet. I had a really lengthy profession at H-E-B, and what I liked most in regards to the firm is all the nice they do locally. So no matter I do subsequent, it must be one thing that has which means. I’ve been speaking to people about whether or not that’s right here in San Antonio, or it could possibly be someplace else.
Would you ever think about working for workplace?
I by no means say by no means. When all of this was occurring and I used to be debating whether or not or to not pursue this lawsuit, I used to be speaking to somebody who was lamenting a few of the people who’re in workplace at present, a few of this habits that’s simply not changing into of us as a state or a rustic. The truth is, a part of us is the place we’re as a result of numerous good folks don’t wish to run as a result of it turns into so ugly. However then once more, if good folks by no means run, nothing will ever change.
