This story has been updated to include a statement from UT Austin.
A report released this week by a UT Austin committee found that university leaders violated their own institutional rules when calling police to respond to pro-Palestinian protests in April.
The seven-member committee also found that the university’s claims that protesters violated rules, including the unauthorized use of amplified sound on the South Lawn, “lack[ed] adequate foundation.” The university and its police department have used these alleged violations to justify arrests and student discipline.
The purpose of the Committee of Counsel on Academic Freedom and Responsibility is to provide advice to university administration and look into potential policy violations. The committee includes professors of history, law and education.
“The report is essentially an account of what the rules actually say and whether they were faithfully administered in response to the protests in April,” James Galbraith, a professor of government and chair of the committee, told KUT. “And the answer, as you can see, is that in important respects they weren’t.”
The committee said the university failed to follow its own rules in response to the protests, specifically rules enshrining the right to free speech. The report states the university did not make enough of an effort to find a “cooperative resolution” before calling police to respond to demonstrations.
Galbraith said the report was sent to UT Austin President Jay Hartzell on July 15 and that the committee has not received a reply.
UT Austin spokesperson Mike Rosen refuted the committee's findings.
"The University’s actions complied with our policies and the law," he said in an emailed statement Thursday morning. "UT Austin will continue to support the Constitutional rights to free speech of all individuals on our campus and will also enforce our rules, while providing due process and holding students, faculty, staff and visitors accountable."
On April 24 and 29, dozens of people gathered on the UT Austin campus to protest Israel’s war in Gaza. Before the first protest, administrators told the Palestine Solidarity Committee, the student-led group organizing it, they were not authorized to hold the demonstration and could face consequences if they did.
What had initially been marketed on social media by organizers as a class walkout with guest speakers and teach-ins turned violent when police arrived. More than 130 people were arrested over two days.
Many of the protesters were initially charged with criminal trespass. Those charges have since been dropped by Travis County Attorney Delia Garza. Several protesters, including at least two students, face additional criminal charges, including resisting arrest.
According to the committee's report, Hartzell held a listening session with faculty after the second protest. The report states he said the decision to call in police was his and he wouldn't have done anything differently.
The university said protesters violated nearly a dozen institutional rules, including the use of unauthorized amplified sound, using masks to conceal their identities and attempting to set up an encampment.
The university has cited additional rule violations, including disrupting learning, in disciplining students. Earlier this month, the university informed at least three students arrested during the protests that they had been put on probation. A fourth student has been suspended for two years.
In their report, members of the committee dissect each rule, ultimately deciding that protesters did not violate them. “We’re not excusing actual violations of the rules by anybody if they occurred, but we’re also pointing out that they need to be observed by the administration as well,” Galbraith told KUT.
With regards to amplified noise, faculty wrote that according to their own observations and media reports protesters raised their voices but did not use “electric, electronic, mechanical, or motor-powered means” to increase the volume of sound.
The committee also disputed the university’s assertion that the protests violated rules barring behavior that disrupts teaching and learning. Faculty members concede that calling for students to walk out of class is “marginally disruptive.” But since organizers planned a teach-in and study break that “[s]uch an event, in that place, cannot have interfered with any University function and cannot be considered disruptive.”
University rules state that in cases of “marginal” disruption, “administrators and law enforcement officials should clearly state what they consider disruptive and seek voluntary compliance before stopping the event or resorting to disciplinary charges or arrest.” Galbraith and his colleagues write that the university did not make enough of an effort to get protesters to comply with their demands before having police arrest them.
“[T]he University’s claim of violations of the Institutional Rules by protest organizers and almost all individual protestors appear to rest on exaggerated or mistaken accounts of what happened, and are, in important instances, not supported by the language of the Rules,” the report reads.
The committee provided several recommendations for university administration, including that the university drop disciplinary action against the students.
