Yesterday was clearly a rough, divisive day for our campus. As the push to disrupt top universities spreads across the country, many campuses such as ours are facing similarly difficult challenges. We are all wrestling with how to juggle broad, important goals, including student safety, continuity and excellence in teaching and research, and the right to express one’s views and call for change. I imagine that virtually all of us support each of those goals, even though we might disagree to some extent about how to weigh them in a particular situation. 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. Consistent with this broader movement that is impacting so many, problematic aspects of the planned protest were modeled after a national organization’s protest playbook. And notably, 26 of the 55 individuals arrested yesterday had no UT affiliation.
Against this backdrop, I am reminded today that we have much to be thankful for. I’m thankful we live in a country where free expression is a fiercely protected Constitutional right. I’m grateful that our campus has seen 13 pro-Palestinian events take place during the past several months largely without incident — plus another one today. I am grateful that everyone is safe after yesterday, we continue to hold in-person classes, and that today’s events followed our long-standing campus standards for allowed demonstrations. And I’m grateful to work in a place where people with different points of view come together to try to solve hard problems. Some days, those problems seem especially daunting, but changing the world for the better isn’t easy.
Thank you for showing your fellow Longhorns grace and empathy, and for remembering that we’re all trying to support and educate an incredibly talented group of students. I encourage us all to continue to communicate and work together, and to help our students finish this school year in positive, safe and celebratory ways.
