In less than four months, the University of Oklahoma has committed to paying $29,000 combined to two drag-queen performers, an amount that would cover six semesters of tuition and mandatory fees for an Oklahoma student enrolled full time at the school.

The payments became public due to open-record requests filed by the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs.

A performer who goes by the stage name Yvie Oddly, the headliner for the University of Oklahoma’s annual “Crimson & Queens” drag show on April 28, was paid $18,000.

As part of Camp Crimson, described as “an orientation experience designed to assist undergraduate students as they transition into their first year at the University of Oklahoma,” students could attend Drag Bingo on Aug. 15, which the university described as “a signature event during Camp Crimson.”

The celebrity host of Drag Bingo was an individual whose stage name is Kornbread Jete.

OU officials paid Jete $11,000 for the Aug. 15 appearance out of $17,674 total spent on the Drag Bingo event.

The artist event contract shows Jete was paid the $11,000 for “a minimum of two (2) songs” and to host Bingo.

The contract banned recording of Jete’s performance.

Both Oddly and Jete have a social-media presence on X, the site formerly known as Twitter.

On April 23, Oddly tweeted, “If u think u saw me eating hole or slurping c--k in a parking garage at sunrise no u didn’t …unless u did.” On April 18, Oddly tweeted, “Naked guys doing hot slutty sex with their d---s and butts and holes #xxx,” followed by a tweet with a fingers-crossed emoji “that the algorithm understands my wishes.” In a March 11 tweet reviewing a drag-queen show, Oddly described two participants as performing “two of the C—NTIEST lip syncs in the whole franchise.” On Feb. 10, Oddly tweeted, “Now to take this monster c--k to Vancouver…” (Messages not hyphenated in the original.)

Jete recently posted two photos—one from 2021 and one from 2023. In the 2021 photo, Jete is in male attire with a close-cut haircut while holding a black chicken. In the 2023 photo, Jete is in drag as a female.

Jete tweeted, “2021 vs 2023. But I still carry my big black c--k around. Ya just can’t see it.” (Hyphenation not in original.)

Payment for both performers came from student fees at OU.

According to OU’s website, the total per-semester cost of undergraduate flat-rate tuition and mandatory fees for an Oklahoma student is $4,797.45 per semester.

Of the $4,797.45 per semester cited by OU, the university reports that $2,262.45 of that total comes from mandatory student fees. At that rate, a student would have to be enrolled full time at OU for nearly 13 semesters, or more than six years, before the fees paid by that student would exceed the payments made to two drag-queen performers at OU within just four months.

After conducting a national review of public universities, The Wall Street Journal recently reported that between 2002 and 2022 enrollment at OU increased 15 percent but tuition increased by 36 percent even after adjusting for inflation. Once student fees were included, the combined rate of growth was even more dramatic and ranked among the highest in the nation.

“At the University of Oklahoma, per-student tuition and fees rose 166%,” the Journal reported, “the most of any flagship.”

[To read more stories about higher education in Oklahoma or to send an email to the OU regents, visit AimHigherOK.com.]