9 Texas Colleges Make List of Worst Schools for LGBT Students

Our daily roundup of Texas headlines.

By Becky FogelAugust 30, 2016 11:14 am

The Standard’s news roundup gives you a quick hit of interesting – sometimes irreverent – and breaking news stories from all over the state.

A national gay rights group ranked the worst colleges for LBGT students and nine of them are in Texas. Campus Pride named 102 schools in their list.

The group says two of the Texas schools openly discriminate against LGBT students: Arlington Baptist College and Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene.




When a Victoria, Texas family reached out to the Harris County Public Library earlier this summer, they weren’t looking for a book or a DVD. Instead, the Vincik family wanted to print a three-dimensional prosthetic hand for their 5-year-old daughter, Katelyn.

The Freeman Branch Library in Clear Lake has an innovation lab equipped with a 3D printer. Patrick Ferrell runs the maker space there.

“Looking over the plans and the ideas of how these hands work, none of them are terribly complex or technically unobtainable,” Ferrell says. “And I knew that we had some volunteers such as Mike [Craig] and others that were interested in 3D printing a prosthetic hand.”

Mike Craig is a retired professor and library volunteer.

“And when I found out about that I said, ‘Hotdog, here it is!’ This is exactly the project I’ve been looking for to apply this technology for a very, very worthy cause,'” Craig says. “So I sent back my message to Patrick saying count me in, I’m on board.”

The family and volunteers were working off a blueprint from a British group called e-NABLE.

“An analogy that I would use for this whole process: it’s like building up the image of a book by laying one page of the book at a time, layer by layer, page by page, that book will be built up in three dimensions,” Craig says.

Ferrell, Craig, and the other volunteers had a chance to meet with Katelyn and her parents before printing the prosthetic. And aside from measurements, there was one other decision that had to be made.

“One of the nice things about 3D printing is that you’re customizing things – you made it exactly how you want.,” Ferrell says. “We asked her what colors did she want when she was here to visit and she wanted pink and purple. So we made sure we had pink and purple filament available … and I think it came out looking fantastic.”

After this initial success – the team said they’d definitely do a similar project again.




Austin’s Donut Taco Palace is the stuff of legend. It’s inspired songs and appeared on Buzzfeed. But one of its most remarkable treats is under attack. The University of Texas is trying to get the shop to stop from whipping up their Longhorn donut.

And much like the matter-of-fact moniker of the store itself – the donut looks how you’d expect: it’s shaped like a hand making the Hook ‘Em sign.