AUSTIN, Texas — A University of Texas at Austin student who was arrested during pro-Palestine protests on campus in April claims the university is withholding her transcripts and and diploma unfairly.
She spoke exclusively with KVUE about how it could affect her academic future.
"Right before I'd gotten arrested, DPS, like, threw their bike at me. And actually, I have two scars on my thighs because the bike gears got stuck in my legs," Anne-Marie Jardine said.
Jardine said she was arrested at around 3:15 p.m. on April 24.
"That man ... was grabbing me, like, twisting me, throwing me into the ground and then grabbing me by my hair and just pulling me through the lawn. You saw for like, two yards by my hair," Jardine said.
The Travis County Attorney's Office dropped the charges against her and all the other protest-related cases from that day.
Jardine said the arrest itself was traumatizing, but it's what's happening now that's angering her.
"I was going to order my transcript because I have to send it to NYU for like, my spot to be held," Jardine said. "And I was like, 'I need to get this now before they try to do anything.' And it said I had a hold. So I was like, 'Now what?'"
Jardine said the university put a hold on her transcripts and diploma due to a "compliance" issue but said officials won't tell her what it's for or how to resolve it, only telling her to call the Office of the Dean of Students.
"I called a bunch of people. Nobody answered me. Like, I kid you not, someone would answer, I would start talking, they'd hang up," Jardine said.
So Jardine went to the office in person. But she said that's where things got confusing.
"The student who was like, working, I guess, was like, 'Oh, I see you have a $0 hold,'" Jardine said. "I was like, 'What does that mean? How can I have like a $0 financial hold? It's $0.'"
Jardine claims her compliance hold was changed to a financial hold with no balance.
KVUE reached out to UT Austin officials multiple times on Tuesday and Wednesday. A spokesperson declined to provide a written statement but told KVUE over the phone that compliances or behavioral-type holds show up in the system as $0 financial holds. They couldn't reveal how those holds typically get resolved.
Jardine said UT gave her a 24-hour window to get copies of her transcripts to send to NYU, but the status of her diploma is still up in the air.
"I don't even have the PDF version, which they said they were going to send. So I guess they aren't," Jardine said.
Jardine said she is ready to move onto grad school and has hired attorneys to help her hold the university's police and officials accountable.