AUSTIN – Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick issued the following statement today announcing that he has asked the University of Texas to host a panel to discuss the book Forget the Alamo, which purports to examine the motivation for the fight for Texas independence and the defenders of the Alamo:

“After learning that the authors of the book Forget the Alamo, which is highly critical of the defenders of the Alamo, had been scheduled to make a presentation at the Texas State History Museum without any rebuttal or critique, I immediately made sure the event was cancelled. The Texas State History Museum is overseen by the Texas State Preservation Board on which I serve, but I had not been informed that the event was being held.

“We are all interested in continued study and research on the history of Texas and the people who founded our state, but we must make certain that the information being put forward at state-sponsored events is well-researched and based in fact.

“That is not the case with Forget the Alamo, which has been debunked by a number of professional historians who point to the book’s shoddy research and selective use of facts. Virtually no respected Texas historian agrees with the thesis of this book — that the defenders of the Alamo were fighting for slavery in Texas. With its incendiary title, the authors clearly want to make Forget the Alamo another 1619 Project — a polemic posing as history which has also been debunked.

“The authors of Forget the Alamo are not historians — one is a Democrat operative and the other two are newspaper reporters.

“It is time that these writers are asked tough questions by serious historians about their research and thesis. I have asked the University of Texas if they would host a panel with the Forget the Alamo authors alongside history experts to explore the scholarship of this book, debate the facts and get to the truth. The university has agreed to host this event and I hope it will be scheduled in the next few weeks.”