UT-Austin students hold pro-Palestinian protest; at least 50 arrested

Editor's note:See the latest updates from Thursday's planned protest at the UT campus.

More than 50 people were arrested at a peaceful, pro-Palestinian protest Wednesday at the University of Texas hosted by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a registered student group and a chapter of the national Students for Justice in Palestine, which held the rally to call for an end to the Israel-Hamas war.

The Palestine Solidarity Committee planned the protest in solidarity with students across the U.S. who have been demanding their universities to divest from Israeli businesses and for the federal government to stop backing Israel's military as more than 30,000 people have died in Gaza amid the ongoing Mideast conflict.

About 54 people were being held at the Travis County Jail in relation to the protest, according to George Lobb, an attorney with the Austin Lawyers Guild who was assisting people who had been arrested. Twenty had been booked into the jail shortly after 8 p.m., Travis County sheriff's office spokesperson Kristen Dark said.

The protest had quieted shortly after 6 p.m., more than six hours after it began. Police pushed the protesters away from the UT campus toward Guadalupe Street, but a crowd of protesters returned to the campus's South Lawn and remained there as of 7:45 p.m.

The Texas Department of Public Safety said in a post on X, formerly Twitter, that 34 people had been arrested in the protest as of 9 p.m.

UT professor says she expects Thursday rally to take pro-Palestine stance

Pavithra Vasudevan, a professor at UT, told the American-Statesman that students had planned an “educational” event about Palestine for the afternoon and had asked faculty members, including Vasudevan, to lead workshops. Vasudevan was present when police began arresting protesters.

“The president and university administration chose to militarize our campus in response … to students gathering to express themselves,” Vasudevan said.

Vasudevan said that faculty members had planned a rally Thursday around staff and program cuts under a state law banning diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at public universities, but she now expected it to be focused on Wednesday’s events.

She told the Statesman that she was “motivated by students’ courage” in a university atmosphere that she described as “repressive.” She said that faculty members had been prohibited from discussing the Israel-Hamas conflict with students, but she felt that it was imperative to speak out.

“We cannot continue with business as usual,” Vasudevan said.

Travis County attorney urges protesters to leave UT campus Wednesday evening

Travis County Attorney Delia Garza issued a statement around 7 p.m. Wednesday asking the crowd to disperse "for the safety of all."

Garza said the protest and "the overwhelming police response to what appears to have been a peaceful demonstration should be concerning to all who believe in our constitution."

"We are working with defense attorneys of those arrested as we continue to investigate each case and determine if charges are necessary," Garza said in the statement. "We ask that anyone released not return to campus."

Timeline of the protest

As students walked out of class at 11:40 a.m. Wednesday to begin protesting, state and university police descended on horses, bikes, motorcycles, cars and on foot to meet the rallygoers. Around 5:20 p.m., the university issued a dispersal order asking everyone to leave the campus South Mall area "immediately."

"UT Austin does not tolerate disruptions of campus activities or operations like we have seen at other campuses," the UT Division of Student Affairs said in a statement before the protest. "This is an important time in our semester with students finishing classes and studying for finals and we will act first and foremost to allow those critical functions to proceed without interruption."

Dozens of DPS troopers in riot gear marched down the Speedway Mall once protesters began marching late Wednesday morning. UT police were also on hand. After about 45 minutes of the crowd marching south on the mall from the Gregory Gym area, police ordered the protesters to disperse or "be arrested as per the penal code."

The DPS in a statement late Wednesday afternoon said the university and Gov. Greg Abbott had requested its assistance in preventing any "unlawful assembly and to support UT police in maintaining the peace by arresting anyone engaging in any sort of criminal activity, including criminal trespass."

Protesters began to disperse after an event organizer repeated the officers' order to leave the area. But students soon walked back, chanting and regathering on the Speedway Mall, which resulted in multiple arrests. Statesman reporters on the ground witnessed at least 30.

By 2 p.m., as police began dispersing protesters from the Speedway Mall area, the students moved toward the UT Tower and to the South Lawn where they began setting up tents for an encampment, which the Palestine Solidarity Committee had said was its intention. Police took the tents down almost immediately.

Police, first led by UT officers and later joined by DPS troopers and Austin police officers, confronted the crowd, each time seemingly indiscriminately arresting protesters at the front of the pack. Police then pushed protesters back, knocking down a large, pop-up tent station that had water and food for protesters. Law enforcement then created a large circle on the South Lawn and pushed protesters to the sides.

Just after 4 p.m., mounted officers and a line of troopers with riot shields and batons began a push to get protesters off the South Lawn. Multiple arrests were made during this push, including of a photographer with local TV news outlet FOX 7 Austin.

Mounted police eventually pushed protesters to Guadalupe and 22nd streets by about 6 p.m., and the officers then went south on Guadalupe, leaving the protest.

Protesters then made their way back to the South Lawn and resumed chanting as of 6:40 p.m. Police were no longer confronting protesters at that time, but the Tower remained barricaded.

In an Instagram post around 6 p.m., the Palestine Solidarity Committee claimed that at least 50 protesters had been arrested and urged people to call and show up at the Travis County Jail to demand the protesters' release.

Mere Villanueva, a third-year UT student, said her back was injured when she was pushed into a pole as police moved protesters off the South Lawn. “We’re here to lift up Palestinian voices,” she said. “Without protests, there’s no freedom.”

UT takes stand against pro-Palestinian protest

The protest, according to an Instagram post, intended to "reclaim" the lawn in front of the Tower.

Officials with the Dean of Students Office on Tuesday sent the Palestine Solidarity Committee a letter saying its protest was not authorized on campus. In the letter, Aaron Voyles, executive director for student involvement, and Melissa Jones-Wommack, acting executive director of Student Conduct and Academic Integrity, said that though UT supports free speech, its first priority is to "protect our educational mission."

"Simply put, the University of Texas at Austin will not allow this campus to be 'taken' and protestors to derail our mission in ways that groups affiliated with your national organization have accomplished elsewhere," the letter said.

At Columbia University in New York on April 18, 100 pro-Palestinian students who set up encampments to demand their university to divest from Israel were arrested. On Monday night, 44 students and four others at Yale University were arrested for a similar encampment Monday night after the university gave warnings and determined the protests were unsafe and disruptive, the president said. Students protesting at New York University have also been arrested. Protests have broken out at several other universities across the country this week.

Anachí Ponce, a UT student who attended the protest, said as students first dispersed that the police presence at the protest was unnecessary.

"The university would rather enforce and put money into policing our communities and policing their own students than they would to supporting them," Ponce said. "These are students who are protesting a genocide and the lack of action from UT administration for the way that they haven't been super helpful against hate crimes against Muslim students on campus."

The protests across university campuses have called for their institutions to divest from Israeli businesses and weapons manufacturers — a demand the Palestine Solidarity Committee also listed in its November walkout that had more than 1,000 students participating. UT's investments are controlled by UTIMCO, which manages the investments for both Texas A&M and University of Texas systems.

Gov. Greg Abbott on March 27 issued an executive order calling for universities to curb antisemitism by revising their free speech policies — specifically mentioning the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Student Justice for Palestine as groups to enforce the policies against, including up to expulsion.

The protests come as the Jewish community celebrates Passover, something UT's Texas Hillel, a hub for Jewish student life on campus, noted in its statement offering safety resources ahead of the protest.

"The timing of this protest is not lost on us — making use of a Jewish holiday and observance to promote a hateful agenda — and we quickly contacted our university and security partners to begin coordinating a response plan to keep our campus and our students safe," Hillel's statement said.

"The university has assured us there will be no tolerance for disruption or behaviors misaligned to University policy and the governor's executive order," it added.

Students chanted "Free Palestine" and against the occupation of Gaza and against police who were present at the rally. They also chanted against UT President Jay Hartzell and Abbott, who they say are complicit in the violence in Gaza.

At UT, students have held peaceful protests in support of Israel and Palestinians without incident. But this semester, students have been punished for pro-Palestinian activism that the university said was extreme and inappropriate, including four students who entered a dean's office to advocate for two teaching assistants who were removed from their positions after sending a pro-Palestinian message to their class's messaging page. The teaching assistant's grievances against the school, alleging that their academic freedom was violated by their job reassignments, were denied by Hartzell in March.

State Sen. Paul Bettencourt, R-Houston, posted on X prior to the protest warning students that police will take any act of violence seriously, saying, "An Aggie Senator's advice to these students is simply while the right of freedom of speech is a Constitutional guarantee in the United States, reclaiming something you don't own is not!"

'This is wrong'

Austin City Council Member Zohaib “Zo” Qadri, who represents the part of Austin where UT is located, told the Statesman in an interview Wednesday that it was shocking and hard to watch “the physical violence being used on students.”

“The fact that now we have DPS troopers on our flagship university on the ground hurting people and taking away their voices — I think we should all be able to say this is wrong,” Qadri told the Statesman. 

In a statement released Wednesday afternoon, Qadri said, “We need answers as to why such a flagrant and wasteful show of force by DPS was authorized, and if any peaceful protestors had their 1st Amendment Rights violated.” 

Statesman City Hall reporter Ella McCarthy contributed to this report.