Texas, home of LBJ, deserves a New Great Society
The brutal monolithic design of the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin is a bold transgression of the surrounding green space, holding within its walls the unfinished legacy of former president Lyndon B. Johnson’s Great Society. I think about the many dedications to LBJ that decorate Texas, from the Presidential Library, the LBJ School of Public Affairs, Lady Bird Lake, Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, and the LBJ Statue in San Marcos. Johnson’s recognized impact is often latent; a backdrop thin as cellophane in the average immediate consciousness but consequential as the thick concrete of the library named in his honor.
The reality is that Texans benefited immensely from the Great Society. The Austin Model Cities Program lowered crime rates, inequities, and improved infrastructure. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination based on sex, race, color, religion, or national origin, protecting Texans from civil rights violations. Great Society legislation guarded Texas residents from housing discrimination, funded their schools, and provided their communities with job training, healthcare, and food assistance.
With the state-wide tributes to LBJ and his program, it’s no question that Texas should be a political leader in the advocacy for and implementation of the New Great Society. Our state faces persistent civil rights issues unresolved and injurious. Consider the issue of weight discrimination. While cities like San Francisco and Urbana, and even the state of Michigan, have passed laws banning discrimination based on size, Texas has yet to. Depriving someone of their access to housing or employment due to weight prejudice, particularly anti-fatness, is a gross violation of civil liberties.
Consider another civil rights dilemma. In a state as diverse as Texas with 60% non-white residents, intersectional claims based on gender-race or other conjoined identities are left vulnerable to the whim of courts. Without an Intersectional Civil Rights Act like that of California, Texans experiencing intersectional discrimination seeking to combine protected classes face unnecessary and disheartening obstacles.
Further, the Republican Texas government has succeeded in its censorship of education, both K-12 and university. Via book bans and curriculum intervention, the state of Texas has launched an assault on academic freedom. The sort of moral panic around DEI and CRT extends to library bans, which, according to the American Library Association, are opposed by a majority of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. We need leaders who protect the right to learn and read, not ban critical literature based on the changing political winds.
Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” cut nearly $1 trillion from Medicaid over the next decade, threatening access for the 5.3 million Texans benefitting from the program, and Medicare recipients have been warned of higher healthcare costs potentially coming their way. In 2022, 65.3% of Medicaid in Texas was funded federally, with the state covering the remaining 34.7%. With New Great Society leaders in our state government, Medicaid funding could be increased on the state level and thus safeguarded against the federal cuts to the program.
Lastly, the dilemma of rising hate warrants a response as bold as LBJ’s War on Poverty; a War on Hate. The Texas Tribune reported in 2023 that Texas was turning “into a hotbed for hate.” In 2021, Texas ranked third in the United States for hate, and in 2025, the anti-hate program serving queer Texans was defunded. With increasing antisemitism, anti-queer bias, and hate speech in the Lone Star State, a War on Hate is not hyperbolic. It is vital.
Texans deserve to navigate life without being discriminated against for their size, and to advance cases against those who do transgress their rights. Texans deserve an Intersectional Civil Rights Act to protect women of color and others from compound discrimination. Texans deserve fully funded government healthcare programs regardless of the hostile cuts taking place in Washington. Texans deserve the freedom to read and learn, and to teach critical subjects. Texans deserve to be protected against the rising hate characteristic of our time. Texans deserve twenty-first-century civil rights. Texans deserve a New Great Society.
