AUSTIN, Texas — The ACLU of Texas is calling on the University of Texas at Austin (UT) to protect students’ rights in any disciplinary proceedings for their actions during the protests in April. The organization sent a letter addressed to UT President Jay Hartzell on Tuesday.
Since the two pro-Palestine protests on April 24 and 29, several UT students have faced disciplinary action for their involvement.
In its letter to the university, the ACLU of Texas claimed that UT has been asking students who were arrested to provide written responses about their involvement in the protest. The ACLU claims that is a violation of students’ rights.
“Students have the right to free speech, that’s not something that they give up when they enroll in a public university,” Savannah Kumar, a staff attorney for the ACLU of Texas, said. “They have the right to engage in protest and to express their free speech rights, and these rights cannot be chilled by putting students through proceedings or by punishing them.”
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The ACLU also claims providing written responses could interfere and put some students who have pending criminal charges in a vulnerable position.
“It really puts students in an impossible situation to either exercise their right to remain silent, and then you have the university presume wrongdoing, and be punished despite the specifics of what happened; or to answer those questions, trying to defend themselves, and then have that information potentially used against them later on,” Kumar said.
At the end of the letter, the ACLU of Texas made three recommendations of the university. The first was that UT should review the ACLU’s Know Your Rights information guide the organization attached to the letter and make sure that university policies are applied fairly to all students.
The second recommendation was to make sure that all disciplinary actions are based on individualized facts of each student and not just the actions of the group.
In its letter, the ACLU wrote, “University policy does not give the university the legal authority to commence punitive investigations against specific individuals without individualized evidence for those specific individuals.” Plainly meaning that these students shouldn’t be punished for the actions of the group.
Before disciplinary actions or even an investigation occurs, the ACLU of Texas is recommending that the university has individualized evidence against a specific student.
Its final recommendation explicitly advised students about their right to remain silent, especially while some criminal cases may still be pending.
“Another issue … was the right to remain silent and how important it is for students to know that, for the university to educate them about that as well, before pressuring them through engaging them in an investigatory process to answer questions that could implicate open criminal cases, or those that are not open,” Kumar said.
If students decline to give a written response because they want to speak with an attorney first, the ACLU of Texas is asking that UT give them an extension on time to respond.
Since the ACLU of Texas sent the letter on Tuesday, it has not yet received any response from the university. KVUE also reached out on Thursday for a comment from UT, but we also did not hear anything back.