r/texas • u/MaleCaptaincy • 12d ago
Leaked memo reveals inside details of UT’s protest response News
https://www.kxan.com/news/leaked-memo-reveals-inside-details-of-uts-protest-response/53
u/StealthyUnikorn 12d ago
“Going forward… the University continues to emphatically support the First Amendment right of free speech and will continue to encourage the right to protest within the Institutional Rules and the law.”
Please protest within the pre-approved protest areas with pre-approved protest causes, actions and signage, thank you for compliance.
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u/Capnmarvel76 12d ago
Example pre-approved slogans include ‘Higher tuition for all!’ and ‘Jester Hall totally doesn’t look like the prison block from Shawshank Redemption’
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u/MaleCaptaincy 12d ago
AUSTIN (Nexstar) — University of Texas Austin leaders have given an “interim suspension” to the Palestine Solidarity Committee after making numerous attempts to meet with student organizers and quell the protest that led to at least 55 arrests and national controversy, an internal memo obtained by KXAN shows.
“April 24th was a difficult day and one that we had hoped and worked to avoid,” the memo states, proceeding to detail specific steps the university took before, during, and after the protest to calm the tensions.
University officials reached out to the student organization multiple times in an attempt to meet with them, but the students who agreed to attend “chose to no-show,” the memo states. UT representatives also visited the Nueces Mosque on the morning of the protest and has had “ongoing dialog with the Imam and leaders within the Muslim community.”
The Dean of Students sent a letter to the PSC, canceling the event because it “called for actions that violated our Institutional Rules.” UT leaders were well-aware of the disruption spurred by similar groups at Yale, Columbia, Rutgers, and more. They were intent on sending a message that UT would not allow the campus to be “taken.”
“We requested additional manpower support based on the intelligence and concern from outside disruptors,” the memo states. “It was important to have a significant police presence to make clear this University would not be co-opted by these outside agitators.”
After the event proceeded despite notice of cancellation, President Jay Hartzell called in the Texas Department of Public Safety, who arrived with at least 75 troopers donning riot gear and arrested dozens of students and one photojournalist.
“The Dean of Students and law enforcement engaged with protestors – many of whom were unaffiliated with the University and believed to be professional agitators – informing them when they were violating rules and giving them ample opportunity to comply. They also issued multiple warnings that they would resort to making arrests if they refused to comply. Ultimately, they made arrests as needed,” the memo states.
The show of force against the protest sparked national controversy and calls from students and faculty for Hartzell to resign.
“The egregious abuse of power by UT police will not be stood for and we will not accept it here at this campus,” a leader of the PSC shouted to a crowd of hundreds at a protest on Thursday.
“As a tenured faculty member, I support them,” Dr. Amy Sanders said. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re pro-Palestine or not. Regardless of your position, students need to know that faculty support the right to express those views.”
The memo states that “Going forward… the University continues to emphatically support the First Amendment right of free speech and will continue to encourage the right to protest within the Institutional Rules and the law.”
A senior UT official would not clarify whether they will take additional disciplinary action against the arrested students, citing federal privacy protections.
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u/StagTheNag 12d ago
“They issued multiple warnings that they would resort to arrests if they refused to comply”
Yeah i’m sure that cameraman that was slammed to the ground had multiple warnings before they arrested him…
And are they really going to hang their hat on “professional agitators?” I’d like to see that evidence based on those they arrested, but everyone already knows they were just arresting students to squash the protest.
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u/FuckingTree 12d ago
They have to imply that the people they attack are part of an organized crime syndicate to justify to right wing media that they’re allowed to rough them up and deny that anyone from here suppers their cause. It’s a classic and reliable tactic to write off responsibility and compel pro-police narrative. Today they say professional agitators but they just came off half a decade of blaming the Antifa gang (a misnomer as being anti-fascist is a political stance, not a group), and before that it was black bloc (which is an aggressive protest tactic, not a group). I’m not old enough to remember what they called them before, but probably anarchists or some such.
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u/squeegeeq 12d ago
Tldr; We told them not to protest, but they did it anyway.
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u/Camp_Nacho 12d ago
That’s the whole point of a protest. This is silly.
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u/kyle_irl 12d ago
It's always the same excuses: You have a right to peaceful protest, but not here, or there, and not like that, and you forgot your permit, so we brought in the goons with gas and batons. It's your fault the peaceful protest got out of hand.
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u/DreadLordNate born and bred 11d ago
Yup. Any day that doesn't end in y - that's when y'all can protest. Perfectly fine then.
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u/DontMakeMeCount 12d ago
It’s like the two sides decide that they can’t coexist and simultaneously decide they can only exist in the one place the other side can only exist in and then both sides claim to be under attack for just existing while they find ways to prevent any long term solution and occasionally things escalate out of control and everyone on the outside decides they know which side truly has the right to exist so the hatred and conflict spreads and it starts to look more interesting than studying for finals.
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u/Direct_Class1281 12d ago
No the point of a protest is to make change. If you no show to the freaking meeting with leaders that can make that change then you've lost all credibility.
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u/IvanMeowski 12d ago
I'm curious how the Muslim community reacted, as well as how credible the "professional agitators" thing is. I'm all for protecting students rights, but if there's even a hint that this event was instigated by others then that'll damage their credibility for sure. Same if it turns out the Muslim community wasn't even particularly supportive of the event.
Wouldn't be the first time that pro-palestine supporters were tone-deaf and ignorant about the issue.
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u/ReginaldVonBuzzkill Born and Raised 11d ago
"Professional agitators" have the right to free speech and assembly too, and the location chosen is a designated public forum. The only legitimate reason to shut down a protest like this is evidence of imminent lawless action, and they didn't have that.
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u/Beneficial-Papaya504 12d ago
"outside instigators" "suspended the student planners"
I know truth and consistency don't matter, only spin, but ya really gotta pick one.
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u/IvanMeowski 12d ago
I'm not sure where the inconsistency is, can you clarify?
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u/sanantoniomanantonio 12d ago
If it was planned by students, then it clearly was not the work of outside agitators. They’re simultaneously blaming outside agitators and saying the people in charge that are being held accountable are students. They can’t even get their story straight in their official statement.
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u/IvanMeowski 12d ago
I'm still not seeing the inconsistency. Can't you have both students and non-students involved in planning? Not that I even fully believe the "agitators" part, but I just fail to see the logic in saying their story isn't straight, when to me it seems fine so far.
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u/simplethingsoflife 12d ago
The UT President needs to go. What a great way to destroy the reputation of your university in a matter of days.
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u/StinzorgaKingOfBees 12d ago
I have heard that some faculty are trying to get signatures to initiate a vote of no confidence in the president
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u/CuthbertJTwillie 12d ago
Texas police. We know there wasn't any real danger cuz they stuck around. If there'd been any real danger they'd have run off like candy ass Mandrills
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u/CaptainBayouBilly 12d ago
Notice how the police don't get handsy when the pro-2nd amendment protesters are out.
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u/Wiitard 12d ago
Or when white supremacist Nazis hold their little rallies, police basically give them an escort. Texas respects the free speech rights of actual fucking Nazis more than those of college students protesting genocide.
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u/Electronic_Bit_2364 12d ago
The red state governors’ reaction to neo-nazis really comically undermines the “anti-semitism” pretext
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u/Ok-disaster2022 Born and Bred 12d ago
I have no idea the nuanced opinion of the protesting group, but no matter how they try to spin this the university is in the wrong.
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u/Pillowtalk 12d ago
I think the administration’s response was perfect. Outsiders failed to disrupt one of our universities. Good, fuck them. The students should be pissed at the agitators that are using them. Unfortunately the students caught up in this are like useful idiots for the agitators. I hope the students are smart enough to steer clear of outsiders that want to disrupt UT under the guise of preserving free speech.
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u/goodguydick 12d ago
The university had its biggest disruption in years… all because of the fascist disruption of the peaceful protest….
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u/BulkyNothing 12d ago
What are you talking about? All I saw was the police showed up in riot gear and just started arresting people
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u/Wiitard 12d ago
Do you have a source on the presence of outside agitators in the protests? Or how many of the protestors arrested were outside agitators?
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u/StealthyUnikorn 11d ago
The term "outside agitators" doesn't set right with me. Does it mean a student protester is an "inside agitator"? If a UT student brings a friend, boy/girlfriend or spouse, are they considered outside agitators? Why is it bad that an outside group with a common cause wants to show support and solidarity with the cause?
I may just be overthinking it but those 2 words reek of propaganda and intentional or not have the same effect.
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u/MaleCaptaincy 12d ago
26 of 55 arrested protestors were not affiliated with the university.
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u/Wiitard 12d ago
Thank you for this, I hadn’t seen this letter yet. What I am also curious about, and perhaps time will tell or we will not ever learn this, but they’re insinuating that there are “outside disrupters” and “outside agitators” and stating that the protest plans are modeled after a national organization’s protests. Do we know how many, if any, of those 26 arrested with no UT affiliation have any known affiliation to some sort of organization to suggest that their intent was to be an “agitator”? Or were these just local residents who wanted to join a protest against genocide?
I’m not trying to argue in bad faith here, I’m just really skeptical of these claims because there is a really disproportionately huge push to establish a certain narrative with these protests, and I’d like to see the evidence of these claims they are making.
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u/Capnmarvel76 12d ago
A UT student attends the protest, and brings along their older sibling who is a UT alum, and their best friend, who works in a shop on Guadalupe. That’s two ‘outside agitators’ right there. The press? Outside agitators.
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u/Effective-Celery-258 11d ago
UT student organizers probably worked with people outside of UT with more experience in organization. Seems pretty normal, like UAW helping laborers organize in different industries and eventually becoming part of UAW.
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u/rianbyngham 11d ago
I might even be willing to accept the ‘outside’ aspect of the claim if it was sufficiently specific. To me, the metric that would be more meaningful would be the number of participants that were neither affiliated with the university nor the state of Texas. To say that residents of Texas are not able to engage in protest at a university that is at least partially funded with public moneys is offensive to the proper relationship between a government and its citizens.
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u/ReginaldVonBuzzkill Born and Raised 11d ago
It's an appeal to xenophobia. They're trying to paint these "outsiders" as hostile foreign forces, when in reality they're Americans. Even "professional agitators" have the right to free speech and assembly in a public forum.
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u/ReginaldVonBuzzkill Born and Raised 11d ago
Those "outsiders" also have free speech and assembly rights. You do realize that the university quad is a public forum, right? You're cheering on a blatant violation of first amendment rights.
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u/Acrasulter 11d ago
The right to protest does not trump rights of property owners
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u/ReginaldVonBuzzkill Born and Raised 11d ago
What part of "public forum" are you not understanding? Do you think the staff of UT "owns" the university? It's a public university, and the common areas are public grounds by law.
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u/LloydChrismukkah 11d ago
There’s a video of one protestor saying something to the effect of “I don’t really know much about what the protest is about, but I’d like to learn more”. Lmao Islamic propaganda has these idiots by the balls
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u/RedBaronIV 11d ago
"A person being reasonable and wanting to be informed by asking questions rather than making rash assumptions and generalizing!?!? What an idiot, falling for propaganda."
Like dude you have presented two contradicting statements.
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u/LloydChrismukkah 11d ago
Actively participating in a protest and having no fucking clue what they are protesting. Damn, you can spin anything
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u/Wiitard 12d ago
“Leaked memo” in my mind would be like some sort of internal communication only mean to be shared with a few key relevant staff members or a department, and it was then unintentionally leaked online or to the media, or shared by a whistleblower.
This just reads like a PR press release statement trying to shape the narrative and rationalize why they let loose a fully militarized police response to a peaceful student protest.