United States Energy Secretary Rick Perry said in a recent statement that he believed the win of a gay student for the Texas A&M University student body president was disappointing. Perry said he felt proud for the openly gay student's declaration as the winner but it turned to disappointment after he received reports about the number of votes, as well as the disqualification of the other candidate.
Perry wrote about the matter in his column for the Houston Chronicle titled, "Did A&M favor diversity over right to due process?" His column came out after reports said the openly gay student, Bobby Brooks, actually received 750 fewer votes than his opponent, Robert McIntosh. Perry, however, cleared he took pride in the win of Brooks because it reflected a commitment of the students to treating everyone equally.
For the disqualification, school officials removed McIntosh from the race because of allegations such as voter intimidation and for not providing receipts for the glow sticks used in his campaign video. They dropped the voter intimidation charges but he still got dismissed from the electoral proceedings due to the receipts over the glow sticks, USA Today reported.
Perry said the disqualification meant mockery of due process and transparency. He added, "The desire of the electorate is overturned, and thousands of student votes are disqualified because of free glow sticks that appeared for 11 seconds of a months-long campaign." Perry also questioned in his column what if McIntosh became a member of the minority instead of a white male and concluded the outcome would have been different, CNN said.
Texas A&M responded to the comments of Perry. They said the comments surprised them and Perry's suggestion about reversed roles denied the "Texas A&M of today where accountability applies to all." The spokeswoman for the university, Amy Smith, added Brooks took the responsibility seriously after they declared him the new student body president over McIntosh's disqualification and they look forward to working with the former.
