In this episode of “No, This Isn’t a Satire Piece From the Babylon Bee”…

So yeah, with everything going on in the news, today, who’da thunk a story about George Floyd would make the news? 

Floyd, as you remember, was a 46-year-old African American from Minneapolis, who was tragically killed by former police officer Derek Chauvin on May 25, 2020. Chauvin was found guilty of murder after Floyd resisted arrest and Chauvin restrained him by kneeling on his neck. It’s important to mention that even CNN reported in 2021 that heart disease and fentanyl in Floyd’s system were factors in his death.

Fast-forward to last Saturday’s Socialism 2025 conference and the no-longer-hallowed halls of education.

Want proof?

In his speech, McNally, surprisingly, suggested renaming the University of Houston to “George Floyd University.” Yes, he was serious. Moreover, he further proposed eliminating tuition and doing away with the university’s conventional grading system.

Dressed in a keffiyeh (a traditional “Palestinian” scarf), McNally discussed opposing state power through the establishment of a large-scale activist movement. Among his ideas for reducing state influence over the University of Houston — a public institution — was his outlandish idea to honor Floyd:

We would open the university up in such a way that it becomes a resource of the broader community. And I can tell you with great confidence that in the Third Ward of Houston, that means that we will be renamed the George Floyd University.

All of a sudden you got a glimpse of what it means when we control the streets because the cops were backing off. They were completely outnumbered. You begin to sense what happens when the balance of social forces, even in one small situation, shifts and how the horizons of possibility change. For that period of time, that part of downtown Houston was not in their hands anymore. It was in our hands. It was in insurgent hands.

Not to snicker, but McNally is as white as they come. Given the intensity and violence at of some of the Black Lives Matter riots in the aftermath of Floyd’s death, I can only wonder how that “It was in our hands” would’ve turned out for this guy, but I digress. 

McNally also called for abolishing campus police and replacing them with “democratically constituted and elected safety committees,” restoring the university’s LGBTQ+ center, declaring the school a “sanctuary campus” from ICE officers, and fighting to “abolish tuition and grades.”

A veritable Shangri-La for all, huh?