The University of Texas at Austin placed its Palestine Solidarity Committee (PSC) chapter on an interim suspension on Friday, citing its involvement in an anti-Israel protest that rocked the campus and led to over 50 arrests earlier this week.
The PSC announced on Instagram that it had been suspended, calling the disciplinary action “an attack on free speech to distract from and enable Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people!” The pro-Palestinian student organization specifically criticized UT Austin president Jay Hartzell and Republican governor Greg Abbott for authorizing local police and state troopers to quell the protest.
The group organized Wednesday’s demonstration, which was immediately met with a forceful police response. Officers arrested 57 people for criminal trespassing, though all charges were dismissed due to insufficient evidence. Twenty-six of the 55 individuals initially believed to have been arrested were not affiliated with the university, Hartzell noted in an email to the campus community on Thursday.
In the statement, the president defended his use of police force. “The University’s decision to not allow yesterday’s event to go as planned was made because we had credible indications that the event’s organizers, whether national or local, were trying to follow the pattern we see elsewhere, using the apparatus of free speech and expression to severely disrupt a campus for a long period,” he wrote.
The day before its suspension, the PSC called for the resignation of Hartzell and vowed to continue protesting on campus against the Israel–Hamas war.
The university did not specify the length of the suspension. The Office of the Dean of Students, which warned that the group would face disciplinary action if it proceeded with Wednesday’s protest, did not respond to a request for comment.
However, a university spokesman did provide a statement regarding the arrests for criminal trespass.
“No student’s access to campus for any purpose has changed based on any events this week. Any news reports suggesting otherwise are incorrect,” said Brian Davis, who works in crisis communications at UT Austin.
“For the last two days, The University of Texas provided an abbreviated list of rules related to conduct during protests, including typical consequences as a result of being arrested for criminal trespassing. This notice was provided as a courtesy to all protesters — students and non-University affiliated persons — to help them understand potential consequences for decisions to violate University rules.”
On Monday, Harvard University suspended its PSC chapter for the remainder of the spring semester due to its failure to register a protest and use campus space responsibly. The pro-Palestinian student group will face permanent expulsion if it continues to operate. The Harvard suspension led to the start of a tent encampment on Wednesday.
Pro-Palestinian protests and encampments have broken out on several elite campuses across the country in the past week, with many demonstrations leading to mass arrests. Apart from UT Austin, higher-education institutions that saw arrests of protesters include Columbia University, Yale University, New York University, and Princeton University.