Controversy over ‘Eyes’ continues.

It would be nice to take them at their word.

When leaders at the University of Texas, including the school president, say they “categorically reject” the ignorance and hate spewed by a small slice of alumni, it would be nice to believe it.

When the Texas Tribune publishes emails full of appalling rhetoric from donors threatening to withhold their contributions if football players aren't forced to sing “The Eyes of Texas,” and when the president responds by saying those threats “bear no influence” on decision-making, it would be nice to believe that, too.

But here's the rub, and there's no getting around it: So far, whether or not it was the school's intention, it sure looks to those emailers like the univer

sity is on their side.

Honestly, what else are they to think? Last October, when only a handful of players stayed on the field at the Cotton Bowl for the school song after a loss to Oklahoma and then-coach Tom Herman said participation in the ritual wasn’t mandatory, the haters went crazy.

Before the next game, the athletic director made clear that all players would be expected to stand on the field for the song and thank the fans.

If there were two sides to this debate — one including the Black players who object to singing a song that had its roots in minstrel shows, and the other including a 1986 Texas graduate who, per the Tribune, wrote that “the (B)lacks are free and it’s time for them to move on to another state where everything is in their favor” — which one got its way?

Later, after outrage over “The Eyes” at least in part contributed to the dismissal of Herman — who, to be clear, hadn’t done much to inspire confidence otherwise — his replacement came into the job well prepared to answer questions about how he’d deal with players reluctant to sing.

“Well, I know this much,” coach Steve Sarkisian said at his introductory news conference. “‘The Eyes of Texas’ is our school song and we support that song. We’re gonna sing that song. We’re gonna sing it proudly.”

Perhaps this was just a coincidence. Maybe the people who hired Sarkisian didn’t make giving that answer a prerequisite for getting a $34 million gig. And maybe this was just about trying to present a unified front in hopes the controversy eventually would blow over.

But imagine you were the 1970 Texas graduate who, per the Tribune, wrote the school saying, “Less than 6% of our student body is black. … The tail cannot be allowed to wag the dog.”

If you then heard Sarkisian’s answer, wouldn’t you be tempted to believe your message had been received?

Again, it would be nice to think it didn’t work that way. I believed Texas President Jay Hartzell when he said, in a statement released by the school, that he found emails like the one above “truly abhorrent and hateful.”

I believed the part of his statement that said emails like those “do not speak for the 540,000 proud Longhorn alumni who actively support our students and university.”

But here’s something Hartzell, athletic director Chris Del Conte, Sarkisian, and all of the other decision-makers at Texas need to realize: If they come out and say that all Longhorns athletes are required to stand and sing “The Eyes,” no matter how uncomfortable it makes them, they’re taking a side.

And it’s the side shared by those they claim to reject.

Hopefully it won’t come to that. In November, Hartzell assembled a committee of professors, staffers, alumni, athletes and band members and charged it with studying the origin and history of the song and making recommendations regarding its future.

The committee’s report will be released next week. If it includes a proposal that addresses concerns about the song — which have been expressed not only by athletes but by band members, regular students and alumni — and comes up with a solution everyone can live with, that will be great.

But if the result is, “Actually, this song is not offensive, and every player will be required to stand and sing it whether he or she disagrees or not?”

Well, whose opinion would the school be categorically rejecting in that case?

This shouldn’t be difficult. Singing “The Eyes” isn’t mandatory for Texas business majors or engineering students. There’s no reason it should be mandatory for football players, who, by the way, aren’t stopping it from being played and aren’t keeping a single donor or alumnus from belting it out after every game until Gabriel blows his horn.

The players aren’t trying to impose their will on anyone else. The people who sent those emails are.

And one way or another, Texas is going to show which side it really rejects.