Dhairya Gupta and Rahul Kodali (right) speak out after finding themselves at the center of a major row.
And now it’s just people being blatantly racist toward us,” 21-year-old Gupta said. 21-year-old Gupta told the Dallas Morning News that he is a US citizen While the social media narrative took shape assuming that most of these Asian students are on student visa. Gupta said he came to the US when he was 5 years old and got his citizenship in his childhood.
Gupta told The Dallas Morning News that he never heard of Bo French. A day later, they found themselves in the middle of a raging controversy over how universities in Texas are teeming with non-White students. Texas Republican Bo French, who is contesting in a November election, raised the issue, sharing a celebration photo. “It was just us having some enjoyment. So is Rahul Kodali, who was right beside him in the now-viral photo. They are Indian-origin US citizens.
Dhairya Gupta and Rahul Kodali were cheering when the Longhorns secured a victory over the Ohio State Buckeyes in a thrilling match on Saturday.
Racism has risen within the last 10 years — since President Donald Trump’s first campaign in 2016, according to Gupta. Because he believed it was a great school with a thriving athletics department located in a major city that keeps growing, he said, gupta, a senior and computer science major, chose UT.
He’s seen blanket racist statements before, he said, but he had difficulty describing racism being “directly applied to us. “I’d never seen this in lower-level elections, and then seeing this happen right now, just from an innocent moment at a football game at the state’s university, I just thought it was surprising that people are going out of their way to be racist on that,” Gupta said. “We have a different color in our skin, we might speak different languages, but at the end of the day, all of us are still going to the same university,” Gupta said. “I’m going to the games because I like the team,” he said. “I’m not doing it for this old noble cause.”
He met Kodali his first day of school as a freshman, and they bonded over their love of the English soccer team Chelsea. “We’re still standing behind the same team. Kodali, who is also a senior and computer science major, did not like some posts seeming to defend him and other students as assimilating into American culture by attending a UT football game and wearing cowboy hats or cowboys boots.