The Undergraduate Student Congress voted against submitting the Friday before the OU-Texas football game as the 2026 student holiday.
At its Tuesday meeting, congress voted 12-20-0 against the Red River Holiday Act of 2026, which would have submitted Oct. 9 as the fall 2026 student holiday.
In accordance with Section 5.15 of the Board of Regents policy manual, congress and the Graduate Student Senate have the authority to recommend one unscheduled day in the fall semester, which must be approved by the president.
During the meeting, Student Government Association Chief of Staff Henry Christiansen said it has been a 50-year tradition for the Friday before the OU-Texas game to be appointed as the unscheduled holiday. Christiansen authored the bill alongside SGA President Mercer Martin, Graduate Student Senate Chair Summer Edwards and Campus Activities Council Chair Carlee Fort.
“We believe not only is it just celebrating the tradition that is the Red River Rivalry, this also gives people a chance to go down to Dallas for the game safely,” Christiansen said. “It’s busy traffic time down on I-35 so this gives people (an) extra day to go down… it gives them more leeway, especially in terms of assignments.”
Rep. Coleman Morgan asked Christiansen if Election Day on Nov. 3 would serve as a better student holiday to encourage student civic engagement.
Putting forth election day as the student holiday rather than the Friday before OU-Texas has long been a debate within SGA. In 2013, congress approved putting the holiday decision on the fall general election ballot to give the choice to the student body.
Christiansen said even if students were given an Election Day holiday, there would be no guarantee they would use that time to vote.
“Voting is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. usually, and students are able to get that outside their class hours…,” Christiansen said “It's one thing to give people time to vote, it's another thing to actually get them to vote.”
Morgan raised concern that bodies of SGA’s legislative branch weren’t consulted on the bill.
“I appreciate you coming to congress to do this, but this is not an executive issue, so I think not consulting the Undergraduate Student Congress and Graduate Student Senate is a grave oversight,” Morgan said.
After the meeting Tuesday, Martin told OU Daily the executive branch aims to be communicative with other arms of student government.
“We make a good faith effort to communicate — to go off of 50 years of precedent — and don't realize there's an issue. When there are clear issues, you have a deep disagreement, I would love for that to get brought to me, so we can talk about it,” Martin said.
Martin said failing the bill has a negative impact on OU students.
“When it doesn't get brought up…and then fails, who does that actually affect?” Martin said. “The 32,000 students who don't get the Friday off.”
Morgan told the Daily in a Wednesday call this is a complex issue that needs student input.
“This isn't something we're just going to unilaterally decide. We'll go out to our stakeholders. We’ll see what they want,” Morgan said.
Morgan said the vote to not pass the bill was not because congress is against selecting the Friday before OU-Texas as a holiday, but rather that there was not thorough communication from the executive branch before the bill’s presentation.
“Election Day is a more important day, but to that end, we also need to consider what the OU students themselves would most prefer, and if that’s OU-Texas, then we will reflect their beliefs,” Morgan said.
SGA leaders will have the opportunity to present new legislation regarding the fall student holiday at Graduate Student Senate’s Thursday meeting.
Abigail Kallner contributed to the reporting of this story.
This story was edited by Macey Thaxton.
