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THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6

OPINION Trump I versus Trump II, 10 days in — how is this term different from the last? A4

@THEBATTONLINE

SPORTS How will Aggie softball’s new lineup replace lost talent in 2025 season? B1

FIRST PITCH

FREE BASEBALL SCRIMMAGE ON FEB. 8 AT 4 P.M.

‘They rarely have all the facts’ The notification was one of a million. She let it sit for a moment before grabbing the phone and bringing it to her face, expecting nothing more than a question from her co-worker or a response from the student she was helping. But the email, sent from Texas A&M’s Office of Open Records, was unusual: Under the state’s Public Information Act, she was being asked

For the past two years, President Mark A. Welsh III has faced pressure from right-wing website Texas Scorecard. A&M’s 27th president holds steady nevertheless. By Nicholas Gutteridge Editor-in-Chief

for copies of her syllabi and all emails she had sent containing the words “DEI” and “transgender.” The professor’s main confusion came from the requestor, however. It was a name she had never seen before. Who would be interested in what was ultimately less than a dozen emails? Her case wasn’t unique among faculty and staff. Representatives of Texas Scorecard, a right-wing website that publishes articles about state and local politics, submitted more than 100 open records requests to Texas A&M and the System from 202224. “Virtually every article they publish is not fully factual, sometimes not even close to factual,” President Mark A. Welsh III told The Battalion in a sit-down interview in November 2024. “They have never printed a retraction when we provided them the facts.” Scorecard’s posts, however, spread like wildfire. “I do find it interesting in all the articles and things over the last couple of years, I think there have been

maybe four or fivecoures that are taught here that they’ve called out, out of 4,600,” Welsh said. “So even if you made the assumption that there was something wrong with those courses, this is clearly a very specifically targeted effort for some reason, with some long-range purpose in mind. But you’d have to ask them. I don’t know what it is.” Originally the print and online publishing arm of Empower Texans, a now-defunct advocacy group that spent millions pushing Republican priorities in the state legislature, Scorecard spun off into an

independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit in 2020 chaired by Tim Dunn, a West Texas oil billionaire — one of the largest Republican donors in the state. His son-in-law Keith Uhles works as director, and the website’s top two roles are held by Aggies: publisher and president Michael Quinn Sullivan ‘92 and Chief Executive Officer Nathan Ofe ‘09. Beyond online posts, podcasts and email lists, the website also hosts a directory of state politicians and ratings for each, where it derives its Scorecard branding from, created by the groups Young Conservatives of Texas and Texans For Fiscal Responsibility. The latter is a long-time affiliate of the expansive political machine Dunn funds and directs. The authors of Scorecard’s posts, often hardline, conservative activists, submitted 94 open records requests to A&M and 23 to the A&M System from late 2022 to 2024. These requests target records of all types, including syllabi, funding numbers, communications containing specific keywords and certain statistics, like a January 2024 request for the number of hormone replacement therapy treatments University Health Services offered. The fo spurred a two-part Scorecard series titled “Den of Degeneracy,” written by senior Scorecard writer Robert Montoya. Montoya emailed the Board of Regents’ official email address on Jan. 24, 2024, and, in almost 1,800 words, detailed the information he collected on on-campus gender-affirming care, Transcend and Aggie Roses, independent student organizations that champion transgender rights and feminist values, respectively. Montoya asked 10 times whether certain details helped “secure the core educational mission of Texas A&M.” If not, he asked, “what are you going to do to return the university to its core educational mission?” The group’s executive assistant forwarded the inquiry — which was sent to the general Board of Regents email — to each regent’s individual email on Jan. 26, 2024. SCORECARD ON A3

Graphic by Kynlee Bright — THE BATTALION

Eckleburg Project bounces back Aggieland’s literary magazine returns thanks to new leaders with renewed vision, passion for writing By Sophia Munoz Life & Arts Writer The ever-present eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg may have simply been a metaphorical observer in the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic “The Great Gatsby” — but at Texas A&M, the eyes of the student body also dabble in poetry, photography and prose. Inspired by the hit 1925 novel, The Eckleburg Project is Aggieland’s own literary magazine dedicated to amplifying student voices through artistic expression. After a period of behind-the-scenes

challenges that kept it on hiatus from 2022 to 2024, new leadership has revived the publication with fresh innovation and a renewed vision. “I love the idea of a student literary journal, especially because I know so many people who have a huge passion for writing,” managing editor and English freshman Madeline Kiser said. “But they think that because of their major, they’re not going to ever be able to get their work out there. This is honestly just a really good thing for anyone if they want a chance to be published.” Established in 2013, The Eckleburg Project has created an outlet for students looking for a personal approach to media. Pieces unique to the magazine are featured in its print and online semester editions, with authors ranging from in-house staff and designers to outside artists and writers.

“We combine student artwork and student writing, prose, poems, all that kind of stuff, and end up publishing it at the end of the semester,” head of design and visualization senior Alyssa Lazarchik said. “ … We also invite the student body to get to submit their own work, which is really special because then there are people that maybe don’t have time to make their own artwork, but they want to put it somewhere. Then that gives them an avenue to do that.” Although the student body is never short of creativity, a combination of decreasing submissions, dissolution of leadership and lack of funding led to the past halt of print copies. In the project’s most recent magazine, Lazarchik was tasked with designing a staff-only edition for all of 2024 as a result of dwindling submissions. ECKLEBERG ON A3

Photos by Ashely Bautista — THE BATTALION

Left to right: Editors of The Eckleburg Project, freshman head of marketing Julie Megason, freshman managing editor Madeline Kiser, senior head designer Alyssa Lazarchik, and senior editor-in-chief Brigham Pettit, walk down the steps at Evans Library on Monday, Feb. 3, 2025.

Online classes available