Since October 7, Islamophobia and violence against Palestinians nationwide have risen sharply. On October 14, beloved 6-year-old Palestinian-American Wadea Al-Fayoume was fatally stabbed by his own landlord in Chicago. On October 28, a pediatrician in Conroe, Texas, Dr. Talat Jehan Khan, was murdered on a picnic bench near her own apartment complex. On November 26, three Palestinian-American undergraduate students, Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdalhamid, and Tahseen Ali Ahmad were shot in Vermont, racially profiled for wearing keffiyehs and speaking Arabic. Hisham is permanently paralyzed from the chest down.
We are similarly alarmed as students at the University of Texas at Austin (UT) by the increased hostilities against students on and near our campus. On October 12, three men claiming Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) affiliation, with no connection to UT, interrupted a student teach-in about Palestine in an academic building on campus after school hours. Calling students both in attendance and in the general vicinity unaffiliated with the teach-in “terrorists,” the men boasted that they would be “killing Arabs in Israel next week.” Nueces Mosque, situated near and frequented by UT students, also received threats of violence in the past two months.
Despite these violent incidents against Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim Americans in our community and across the country, the UT administration remains chillingly silent at best, and hostile towards pro-Palestinian students at worst. 53 student organizations and thousands of UT students signed a petition calling for UT to protect and acknowledge Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab students, as UT has protected Jewish students in response to antisemitism. The petition was hand-delivered to President Jay Hartzell and Provost Sharon Wood’s offices when over a thousand UT students walked out of classes on November 9. To date, Hartzell’s two public communications only contain acknowledgments of rising antisemitism and an outsized focus on Hamas, with no mention of Palestinian students’ safety nor the escalating genocide of Palestinians.
Since the student body walk-out, UT administration has become increasingly hostile towards pro-Palestinian students. On November 22, UT Dean of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work removed graduate students Parham Daghighi and Callie Kennedy from their positions as teaching assistants (TAs) after they sent a message to their students in a class about mental health, acknowledging the mental health implications of the genocide in Gaza for Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students. The message focused on providing mental health resources in light of UT Austin’s failure to meaningfully acknowledge or support the needs of this student community. The message had been collaboratively edited and reviewed by the TAs’ supervising professor prior to being sent to students. The “notice of reassignment” Steve Hicks School of Social Work Dean Allan Cole issued Daghighi and Kennedy claimed that the message sent was unrelated to the course and delivered without approval from their supervising professor. Both justifications are untrue and indicate suspected retaliatory dismissal. In clear violation of UT’s Handbook of Operating Procedures, neither TA was given prior notice of disciplinary action against them, nor informed of their grievance rights, nor the possibility of contesting the dismissal. Cole’s letter stated that the students would not be reappointed as TAs in the Spring semester.
Frustrated by the School of Social Work’s lack of accountability, students delivered the following letter and demands to Dean Cole in his office. Students entered the administrative offices during regular work hours and calmly read the statement out loud as the Dean shut himself into his room. Students left the letter with the secretary in the office before peacefully leaving to rally outside of the building. Dean Cole never responded directly to the letter. Instead, the University issued veiled threats through its official Twitter page, insinuating that pro-Palestinian students had “violated University rules,” labeling the students’ actions as a “coordinated misinformation campaign.”
Free speech double standard
The TA’s dismissal and subsequent messaging highlight double standards for free speech on UT campus. While the administration dismissed these graduate students from their roles for sharing mental health resources, History professor Aaron O’Connell contributed to major media outlets legitimizing the idea that mass civilian casualties in Gaza could be justifiable as collateral damage. Business lecturer and IDF veteran Mark Tsechansky harassed and recorded UT pro-Palestinian students without their consent, stating he would send the recordings to his “friends in Israel,” a clear threat to students’ privacy and security. A professor in the school of social work permitted a student presentation that referred to residents of Sheikh Jarrah, a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem, as “squatters”, with no accountability towards students that later expressed hurt and discomfort with the clear political bias of the presentation. Administration’s tacit permission for vitriol against and active censorship of pro-Palestinian students has a long history on campus – in February of 2022, UT’s Dean of Students interfered with student legislative processes and deemed a resolution in support of Palestinian students’ rights on campus a “non-university related matter”. Both O’Connell and Tsechansky, salaried UT instructors, the Dean of Students, and countless professors contribute to the atmosphere of violence against pro-Palestinian, Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim students with impunity, while graduate students attempting to share resources for student safety are punished by the University.
Do these bold expressions in support of indiscriminate bombing in Palestine and public threats against students not rise to violations of University rules?
As UT students, we question why harassment from IDF veterans and professors remains unaddressed by the University while accepted and non-violent forms of free speech, such as delivering demand letters and sharing mental health resources, are met with public administrative condemnation and threat of disciplinary charges.
UT sent a clear and unequivocal message in the aftermath of their much-celebrated ‘Free Speech Week‘: Free speech is reserved for those in positions protected by the University, and it does not include anyone who recognizes or acknowledges the atrocities carried out by the state of Israel. UT has made it clear that their Palestinian students are not worth protecting. The University’s two-month silence regarding Palestinian, Arab, and Muslim student safety, as well as its condemnation of pro-Palestinian student demonstrations, clearly demonstrates UT’s stance, despite proclamations of neutrality.
We vehemently oppose our university’s attempts to silence pro-Palestinian voices and its funding of Israeli settlements and weapons manufacturing. We call on students to continue fighting for a permanent ceasefire and demand our university’s divestment from systems of apartheid and genocide, despite the pattern of university attempts to quell demands for a free Palestine.
The authors are part of the UT Austin Students for Palestine in coalition with the Palestine Solidarity Committee. The UT Austin Students for Palestine comprises several student organizations at UT dedicated to advocating for the safety of pro-Palestine students and the liberation of Palestine. Parham Daghighi and Callie Kennedy also contributed to this Op-Ed to include personal accounts and provide context on the current higher education environment.
And there are outcries about the hurt feelings of Jewish students. Awwwww.