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.
@alexwild You know, they completely f*cked this up. If you wanted to play this to maximum effect for propaganda purposes, they would have allowed the students to set up the tents on the lawn (breaking policy). Then they would have moved in.
But to attack the students BEFORE the march even began. Ridiculous. Everyone could see through Hartzell's bullsh*t after that.
They handed the the students a huge win. Images of their overreaction went worldwide.
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.
Street medics are carrying people out of the circle as they drop from dehydration. They are being iced down as an ambulance called. Dehydration becoming a serious issue here. #Palestine#Texas#UTAustin#Austin
Activists are linking arms and have tables in the way to protect those putting up tents at the South Lawn of #UTAustin. Police are here but outnumbered.
Tensions high. Protesters are facing off with APD and troopers a chanting "off our campus!" Some victims of police violence were brought to a nearby church for medical care. #Austin#Palestine#UTAustin
About 50 #Texas DPS State Troopers were sent out in response to a peaceful attempt to march and occupy a Plaza at UT #Austin today. Reportedly three arrests according to those on scene.
Per #Austin Chronicle reporter Austin Sanders, the DIstrict Attorney has been dropping all charges against the dozens of protesters arrested yesterday on the #UTAustin campus as their cases come before her.
National Lawyers Guild members and other legal volunteers have been working all day to secure the release of the arrestees from UT #Austin today. Over 50 arrests total. The first two just got released from Travis County Jail.
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.
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.
"I’m having a nightmare, can you please wake me up? I’m dreaming that they fooled the Jewish people to do the bidding of western imperialism. To feed their tech, their #fascism, their bank accounts, their global death squads for the expansion of empire."
An activist I interviewed today, a #UTAustin alum, shared this powerful piece with me:
“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 ...”
There will be first amendment lawsuits if students are expelled from public universities because they failed to show sufficient loyalty to a small foreign country on the other side of the planet.
Fuck Greg Abbott, Fuck Israel, and Fuck anyone who tries to hurt my students for daring to stand against an ongoing genocide.
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.
The only thing that has caught my attention about these University protest is the following. This is america, these students protesting either their families are loaded, or the have accepted a debt that will haunt them for the rest of their lives, or they are extremely talented.
Education in America is NOT cheap, and it’s very unusual to see these confortable people “protesting”.
At the April 29 protest at #UTAustin, I witnessed the police wheeling a zip-tied arrestee in a office chair. The police apparently smacked his head while dragging him out of the encampment:
Yesterday, UT Austin brought in Texas DPS cops in riot gear from 3 hours away to harass and arrest students peacefully protesting on their own campus. Just for reference, 6 months ago UT posted a video on YouTube explaining why anyone is allowed to come protest peacefully on campus. The video has since been unlisted and had its comments disabled.