Hometown Glory

Culture war at Kinkaid? E-mail firestorm goes viral

The new Texas Monthly article goes beyond the infamous Hugh "Skip" McGee e-mail.

What started as a viral e-mail among The Kinkaid School's students, parents, and alums has thrust the elite academy into the center of a heated coast-to-coast debate on the blogsophere.

It all started when the proverbial "football-players-dress-up-as-cheerleaders-and-make-asses-of-themselves" skit at the pep rally was pulled at the last minute due to concerns about "negative gender stereotyping."

This was the final straw for Hugh "Skip" McGee III, head of investment banking for Barclay's (with a rumored $25 million a year salary), who sent a scathing five-page missive to the Kinkaid board of directors. Pop culture and media über-blog Gawker describes it as "bullet-pointed explanation of the new white man's burden: Getting subversives fired from your kid's prep school. His rationale includes 'the parent whisper circuit,' 'a gay female coach,' and the time a 'leftist' teacher made his son cry."

Those who love bloated trainwrecks can view the email online, but we prefer the Kinkaid student-penned spoof that is making the rounds and is sure to be posted somewhere on the Internet soon.

The fallout, according to Kinkaid insiders and Gawker? The aforementioned teacher has been fired, the future is grim for the offending principal, and all diversity events planned are on hold. Several activities relating to The Laramie Project (a play about the murder of Matthew Shepard) have been shelved and a school-wide reading of Dr. Seuss' The Lorax has been cancelled.

Reaction? Meet overreaction.

We are perfectly happy to let Kinkaid sort out their diversity issues on their own (our sources say it's far more of a gray, complex issue than Gawker makes it out to be), but this combination of money, power, and a culture war in a Houston prep school was a surefire recipe to go viral.

It's interesting to note that it's the second Houston high school scandal to make national news this fall, after Memorial High School students made a totally gross and misogynist shirt to represent their rivalry with Stratford and were called out by fellow students and the blogosphere.

It looks like the culture war isn't just red state/blue state anymore. While it does lend a bit of scandal and notoriety to our city, at least we have people on both sides of the issues having discussions, however, ahem, interesting, some of those opinions might be.

We're just glad the politics of high school are behind us.

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Thanks, Queen Bey

Pop icon Beyoncé donates $100,000 to University of Houston Law School

Photo by Erza Shaw Getty Images

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Pop megastar Beyoncé Knowles-Carter has donated $100,000 to the University of Houston Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic through her BeyGOOD Foundation. The gift will allow the clinic to hire fill-time faculty to head it, benefiting the students who study there.

“I am delighted that the BeyGOOD Foundation has made this very generous gift to the UH Law Center,” said Leonard Baynes, dean of the UH Law Center. “Not only will this funding help establish a full-time criminal justice clinic that provides pro bono legal services in our community, but it will also supercharge our already excellent criminal law and justice programming.”

The clinic is one of nine at UHLC. It helps students learn to navigate the criminal justice system, especially on behalf of clients that are underserved by skilled attorneys. People of color are affected disproportionately by a lack of good, ethical representation.

Beyoncé, the most decorated artist in Grammy history and easily the biggest musical star native to Houston, has a long history of advocating for criminal justice reform. She was a staunch supporter of the police reform following the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, asking law enforcement to “stop killing us” in a web post. In 2020, she penned an open letter to the Kentucky attorney general asking for justice in the death of Breonna Taylor.

Through her BeyGOOD Foundation, established in 2013, Beyoncé has focused mostly on expanding the prospects of Black-owned business and offering education opportunities to students. Forwarding the cause of legal representation in Texas while also helping out marginalized communities compliments her other philanthropic work.

“At UH Law, we envision a legal profession where ‘everyone has the opportunity to prosper,’ as BeyGOOD envisions, and we will achieve this vision by providing access to strong and effective legal representation in criminal proceedings,” Baynes said. “And together, through this gift, the BeyGOOD Foundation and UHLC will shepherd the next generation of criminal justice attorneys in the city of Houston, the state of Texas and the nation.”