Arrest of Student Protesters at UT Austin Made No One Safer | Opinion

I studied at the University of Texas at Austin from 2016 to 2019. I gained both my Bachelor's degrees there, lived in West Campus, and crisscrossed it daily to get to classes in the Moody College of Communication and the College of Liberal Arts. It was a rare day when I didn't have to cross Speedway Mall.

On April 24, the University of Texas at Austin dispersed a pro-Palestinian protest along Speedway Mall using Texas State Troopers in coordination with the University of Texas Police Department (UTPD) and Austin Police Department (APD). Roughly 200 protestors were planning to go from Gregory Gym to the UT Tower and stage a sit-in. That walk takes a third of a mile and, at a decent pace, can be reached in less than five minutes. The protest, by the account of professors, students, and onlookers, was at the time peaceful: not blocking pathways, not engaging in violence, not engaging in any form of civil disobedience. Things became contentious only when police arrived on the scene.

According to eyewitness accounts, the police blocked students on multiple sides, demanding they disperse. Police wielded not only batons and riot masks, but also long rifles, pepper spray, tear gas and rubber bullet guns, and other non-lethal weaponry. Sat atop horses and on motorcycles, forcing students to disperse by shoving them into bushes and arresting them, the police informed students through loudspeakers that arrests would continue until crowds dispersed. Journalists with credentialed press IDs were arrested alongside students. By April 26, all of those arrested had their charges dropped by the Travis County prosecutor, who found "deficiencies" in the arrest affidavits.

Watching these events unfold, I was reminded of Charlottesville, Virginia, where police largely stood by as neo-Nazis with Tiki torches yelled "Jews will not replace us" and assaulted counter-protestors. I was reminded of the Uvalde school shooting, where local police and state troopers stood around for more than an hour as an active shooter murdered two teachers and 19 children. I was reminded of how, in 2017, UTPD had simply asked white supremacists who were not students to leave the UT Austin campus instead of using force—a reaction that could not have been more different from UTPD's treatment of peaceful protestors last week.

Why did police use such force this time? Was it because they disagreed with the pro-Palestinian message? Was their goal to protect Jews? Were the students secretly planning to firebomb buildings and assault who opposed them? None of the above. The entire goal of the police response on April 24 was to ensure Governor Greg Abbott would be seen as tough on protestors and to shore up security for his political base. The University of Texas president is complicit in this political stunt, having requested law enforcement assistance and allowing himself to be used in this way.

The fact that students conducted no violent acts prior to police arriving, the fact that riot police were already on site before the student event began, and the fact that police inexplicably left (turning their backs on allegedly violent protestors) at 7:00PM all indicate this was pre-planned. The university declared the entire event illegal before it even began, despite the complete absence of violence on the part of students. The protest even was in line with previously outlined university guidelines. It is clear that UT didn't bring in the police to protect against violence, but to silence a political viewpoint. Even more damning are tweets by Governor Abbott indicating the police presence was meant to silence and discriminate against students for voicing a political view he disagreed with.

As a graduate, I have found the actions of the University of Texas system abhorrent and beyond the pale of any acceptable conduct by an institution of higher learning. Universities are meant to be a safe space for learning and development; the UT Austin campus cannot be called that as long as its administration remains uncommitted to examining their actions closely and listening to the students, staff, and faculty it placed in harm's way. The actions of UTPD, APD, and the Texas State Troopers were blatantly irresponsible, hypocritical, escalatory, and counterproductive.

The story here is not that law enforcement assaulted students for peacefully demonstrating and exercising their First Amendment right, but that it did so at the behest of and in coordination with both the Texas state government and the UT Austin administration. All so that Governor Abbott could gain attractive headlines from his base and UT officials could take a stance against a political viewpoint they detested.

Alan Cunningham is a doctoral student living in San Antonio, Texas. He is a 2019 graduate of the University of Texas at Austin.

The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.