UT faculty council committee says the school should be ‘patient’ with Pro-Palestine encampments
A University of Texas faculty committee recently released a report that urged leadership to "use patience" in dealing with disruptive anti-Israel protesters in April.
A University of Texas faculty committee recently released a report that urged leadership to “use patience” in dealing with disruptive anti-Israel protesters in April.
The report, authored by the University of Texas at Austin Faculty Council committee on academic freedom, stated that the school’s administration violated policies by not allowing the public to gather and express their opinions.
A spokesperson for the university disagreed with that assessment, telling Texas Scorecard that “The university’s actions complied with our policies and the law.”
The faculty council committee claimed that the university’s administration didn’t make an effort to “seek a cooperative solution ‘before stopping the event or resorting to disciplinary charges or arrest.”
[RELATED: UT Austin offers probation to some students arrested at Hamas-endorsed protest]
The University of Texas at Austin said the protesters were “explicitly seeking to disrupt university operations nationwide and create campus encampments,” adding that administrators reached out to the student group organizing the protest, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, but never got a response.
Over 100 people were arrested on April 24 and April 29, when the protests took place.
The university added that “deliberately provoked officers, stated their intent not to comply, and physically and verbally harassed our staff. Officers were headbutted, spit on, and verbally assaulted by protesters. Some protesters attempted to startle a DPS horse, and others threw horse excrement at officers. Police car tires were slashed.”
The Faculty Council committee, however, urged the university to “use patience” in future protests, and “provide clear and feasible directives on where students should go, to give ample warnings and time for movement, and at most to issue citations rather than make arrests.”
The Committee of Counsel on Academic Freedom and Responsibility is made up of seven tenured faculty members, who are chosen by the general faculty.
Several faculty members were concerned before the demonstrations even began.
President Jay Hartzell and Provost Sharon Wood were worried they would turn violent. In an email to the Dean’s Council, Wood explained that the Pro-Palestine event was part of a campaign called “The Popular University of Gaza”. The goal of this campaign is to disrupt campuses all over the country through encampments.
“As we have seen over the past few days, these illegal encampments have done just that,” Wood wrote, according to Texas Scorecard. “[The protests] have resulted in significant changes to classes, hundreds of arrests, intimidation, and calls for violence against Jewish students.”
A University of Texas at Austin spokesperson insisted the school would continue to support students’ Constitutional rights, while still enforcing the school’s rules.
All charges against the protesters have been dropped, due to “insufficient cause to proceed.”
Campus Reform reached out to the University of Texas at Austin for comment.
