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Notes
While the story of Johnny Manziel (Johnny Football) is compelling and an interesting research topic on its own, it was excluded from this article because it was not directly connected to the research topic.
Neoliberalism can loosely be defined as the economic principles of Hayek, Friedman, and other members of the Chicago School of economics who advocated for “complete overhaul of the public sector, calling for floating exchange rates, the privatization of public works, educational vouchers and increased monetarism … as a solution to stagflation. Friedman assumed the potential and limitless prosperity through their engagement with unshackled market relations” (Newman and Giardina Citation2011, 181). The defining characteristic of neoliberalism in this context is the “consistent expansion of the economic form to apply to the social sphere … In the process they transpose economic analytical schemata and criteria for economic decision making onto spheres which are not, or certainly not exclusively, economic areas” (Lemke Citation2001 197). Neoliberalism is thusly used as a technology of power that pushes “not only the individual body, but also collective bodies and institutions (public administrations, universities, etc.), corporations and states have to be “lean,” “fit,” “flexible,” and “autonomous” (Lemke Citation2001, 203). In this sense “the body becomes a useful force only if it is both a productive body and a subjected body” and that, “the political investment on the body is bound up … with its economic use” (Foucault Citation1977, 25–26).
Militarization within intercollegiate athletics is not necessarily limited to the present neoliberal moment. Vasquez (Citation2012) writes that college football at America’s military institutions (the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Military Academy in particular) has helped shape many of the governing policies of college football. Both Oriard (Citation2009) and Montez de Oca (Citation2013) note that football has served to reproduce patriarchal pro-military values within college campuses dating back to at least the Cold War era.
It should be noted that the issue here is not that soldiers are being given an opportunity to get an education, but rather that universities are in some cases altering their curriculum to appeal to or generate favor with military personnel.
It should be noted that neoconservatism and neoliberalism are not used here as interchangeable terms. My references to neoconservatism are meant to invoke the Reagan coalition’s combination of paleo-conservative social values—including the need for religious involvement in governmental affairs, strict constitutionalism, and the ownership of firearms (Ashbee Citation2000)—with neoliberalism’s free-market and pro-military values (see; Adler Citation2006; Brown Citation2006).
Although Texas A&M was the first institution of higher education in the state to open, the University of Texas was already conceptualized in the state legislature as the flagship university for the state of Texas (Jacobs Citation2002).
Although the University of Texas-Austin is probably a more left-leaning institution than A&M, to say that UT has been actively attempting to undermine White hegemony is probably an overstatement.
Although both male and female Longhorns do grow horns, the male horns grow outward and up, making them better for fighting other bulls for mating rights. This pattern is the one associated with the University of Texas and the live animal mascot Bevo is always a bull Longhorn.
A&M’s Corps of Cadets website does include a page on women in the Corps and in 2015 the Corps of Cadets was led by a woman for the first time in its history. This section is not meant to imply that women do not participate in the pageantry of the Corps but rather notes that their participation and sacrifice is overlooked in favor of their male counterparts.
The fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, has been involved in several racist incidents on numerous campuses, including the video of racist songs that was recently produced by the fraternity’s chapter at the University of Oklahoma (New Citation2015).
The joke centered on a Sam Houston State woman going into a welfare office to request assistance and telling the officer that the only way for her to identify her large number of children was by using their last names.
This should not be interpreted as a comparison of the ideologies at work at Texas A&M and those of the Third Reich, which are clearly not the same. Rather, this comment should be read as comparison between the military pageantry at A&M and present in Riefenstahl’s work.