On the #UTAustin campus, activists hold up names of students and educators killed in Gaza, along with facts about the damage war has done to education.
Jay Hartzell, President of the University of Texas at Austin, yesterday broke the single most important compact that academics have with each other and their institutions: do not intentionally hurt students.
The TX governor, for his own political purposes, sent state troopers to campus before a student protest even began. Hartzell both let these outside law enforcement agencies in, and provided cover for the violence they inflicted on dozens of peaceful, unarmed UT students.
WEEK 30: That line of black SUVs you can see in the middle there are State Troopers on their way from Houston to the UT Austin campus.
via Ryan Chandler of KXAN News on the dark side.
“When members of the public are engaged in a peaceful #protest in a public space—assuming they are not obstructing traffic, or disrupting campus activities—there is very little legal basis for law enforcement to demand they leave.”
New today: A UT professor and expert on freedom of expression weighs in on the controversial arrests of 57 individuals, including a journalist, at a campus demonstration yesterday. An interview from Reporting Fellow Francesca D'Annunzio ... https://www.texasobserver.org/texas-dps-palestine-first-amendment/
During the freeze this week, a pipe burst in the ethanol storage facility used by the UT fish, reptile, and insect collections. The specimens are fine, as it's just metal shelving and sealed jars, but the building itself is damaged in a way that might shut down regular research activities for a few weeks to months.
Fantastic photo from UT Austin. I was not able to find the original photographer to give credit, despite them deserving it.
Pretty crazy time to be on a college campus right now, Umich's "liberation zone" on the diag has grown in size, as has the police presence. The movement will not be stopped.
Public universities in Texas being unable to attract global talent once Republicans make tenure illegal is not a theoretical problem. It's already started.
“What I saw was students linking arms, hugging each other while being brutalized by the police. I think the only violence we saw that day was from the police.”
There's hardly anyone on here from my university, so searching for #UTAustin just returns a ton of insects as if what UT does is just 100% bugs all the time.
“If you’re calling for the arrest of protesters who are simply engaging in First Amendment activities on public space, then you’re exposing yourself as a partisan ...”
The statement from #UTexas#UTAustin board of the #TexasExes regarding their support of #Hartzell sounds pretty BS to me, but this is the establishment talking. Big money at alumni groups talks loudly.
I interviewed two anti-Zionist Jews about their perspective on the protests for #Palestine, one a current grad student at #UTAustin, and the other an alumni. Both were present at the big protest at April 29, and one was arrested—but only one would have been classified as an "outsider," even though they both have deep ties to the school.
I've got their story coming out later this week at Decelerate.news.