Texas
UT-Austin investigates students amid tensions over Israel-Hamas war
/static.texastribune.org/media/files/87b83acaf77aff25021daa1daa5d8e5a/1208%20TA%20Palestine%20Protest%20JS%2009.jpg?ssl=1 "UT-Austin investigates students amid tensions over Israel-Hamas war")
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The University of Texas at Austin is investigating four current and former students after a tense exchange in which the students demanded administrators reinstate two teaching assistants who were dismissed last year amid on-campus disputes over the ongoing Israel-Hamas war.
Administrators have described the Dec. 8 incident as disruptive and potentially illegal. But the students under investigation say that characterization is overblown. They accuse UT-Austin officials of trying to quell their First Amendment right to protest and say the investigation is an example of how the university is targeting students who express support for Palestinians and Palestinian students.
“This is an attack on the civil liberties of all UT students,” Evan Scope-Crafts, a Ph.D. candidate and one of the students under investigation, told The Texas Tribune. “This is an attack on anybody who’s trying to fight for the rights of oppressed groups in the United States and abroad.”
The four students are Scope-Crafts, Valkyrie Church, Sameeha Rizvi and a student who wishes to remain anonymous. They received letters on Jan. 17 stating the university is investigating them because they “intentionally caused a disruption” inside a school administrator’s office.
The letter, provided to the Tribune by the students’ lawyer, said the students possibly violated university policies related to disruptive conduct, failure to comply with directives from officials and unauthorized entry into university buildings. It also says the university is investigating the students for potentially violating local, state or federal laws, but does not specify which laws.
“It seemed to be a chance, once again, to just censor and stop students from being able to organize effectively, especially where the administration doesn’t want to listen,” said Rizvi, who graduated from UT-Austin in December and is one of the four students under investigation.
UT-Austin did not respond Friday to a request for comment or questions about how administrators say the students’ exchange with Cole transpired.
According to Scope-Crafts and Rizvi, a group of 10 to 15 students entered the office suite for Allan Cole, the dean of the Steve Hicks School of Social Work, and were greeted by the administrative staff. They then entered Cole’s office, which was unlocked, and started reading a letter to him. In the letter, they demanded UT-Austin reinstate the teaching assistants who were dismissed last year and publicly state its support for “protecting freedom of speech for Palestinian and pro-Palestinian students on campus.”
Both students said Cole was on the phone when they entered his office. When the group of students read the letter, they said, Cole walked out of the room, went to another office and locked the door.
Rizvi said they handed the letter to his secretary and headed to a protest happening outside, where dozens of students were also voicing their concern with the school’s decision to remove the teaching assistants. Scope-Crafts said UT police showed up to the protest and started asking him questions about what happened inside the dean’s office. He said he spoke to police briefly before rejoining the protest.
The Dec. 8 protest stemmed from the university’s decision last November to dismiss two teaching assistants after they sent a message to their students sharing mental health resources for students affected by the ongoing Israel-Hamas war. The message also condemned the university for its “silence around the suffering many of our students, staff and faculty are experiencing.” The school removed the teaching assistants from their positions stating that their message was “inappropriate” and “unprompted.”
The teaching assistants’ dismissal occurred amid escalating tensions at college campuses across the country as students have clashed over their support of Israel and Palestine and demanded university leaders take a stand on the fraught and devastating conflict. At UT-Austin, some students called on university leaders to provide more support and protections for Palestinian students on campus. Around that time, Gov. Greg Abbott urged university leaders to protect Jewish students.
“You have a leadership responsibility to ensure that there was no one on your campuses that are advocating for genocide or anti-Semitisim,” he told a crowd at a higher education conference in Austin in December. “It is completely unacceptable in the state of Texas, period.”
Ever since the Oct. 7 Hamas-led attack, some UT-Austin students have expressed their discontent with university leaders’ response to the conflict. Students said they were especially upset that the university did nothing to protect Palestinian students or show support after a group of men who appeared to be unaffiliated with the university interrupted a student meeting of the Palestine Solidarity Committee on Oct. 12 and started intimidating students, calling them “fucking terrorists.”
Students who were shaken by that event called on the university to condemn the harassment, but administrators stayed silent. The following day, President Jay Hartzell sent a message to the UT-Austin community announcing increased security for Jewish groups on campus, a move that left Palestinian students and their supporters feeling ignored.
The teaching assistants, Callie Kennedy and Parham Daghighi, were dismissed from their positions with pay shortly after, following a grievance filed with Cole about their Nov. 16 message. Cole said they would not be reinstated as teaching assistants the following semester.
Kennedy and Daghighi were later offered research assistant positions for the spring semester, but told the Tribune their dismissal still amounted to punishment. Students who joined the protest on Dec. 8 said the university’s decision to remove the teaching assistants was an “outsized reaction” and accused the university of suppressing academic freedom, a longstanding principle on college campuses that protects faculty’s speech and research from outside political interference.
Days after the students approached Cole in his office, UT-Austin said on social media the university was investigating multiple incidents they believed to be unacceptable.
“Protestors crossed the line of acceptable behavior and violated University rules multiple times this week,” the university posted on the social media platform X. “We will not tolerate disruptions to the teaching and research activities of our students, faculty and staff; our campus; or events. We are investigating and will punish those found to violate our rules, policies or the law.”
The post does not specifically mention the Dec. 8 incident, but links to an Austin American-Statesman article about the protest and said the “actions taken toward a University leader on Friday stem from intentionally false narratives and a coordinated disinformation campaign. We will protect speech, but we will not tolerate harassment, disruption, and dishonesty.”
Two days before the protest outside the school of social work, students also briefly interrupted a university-sponsored event with writer Bari Weiss, one of the founders of the recently created University of Austin, who was invited to campus to discuss the events in Israel and Gaza.
Scope-Crafts and Rizvi said they did not hear from the university again regarding the incident at Cole’s office until the first week of the spring semester when they received a letter from Katie McGee, executive director of the university’s Student Conduct and Academic Integrity department. McGee alerted them they were under investigation and that the university had scheduled a meeting with the students on Jan. 22. There, the office would share information they received related to the incident and allow them to respond.
According to UT-Austin’s student disciplinary procedures, the school is now expected to provide a ruling in the matter, called an administrative disposition. That document typically includes the university’s investigative findings, any sanctions and options for a resolution. Students can appeal the ruling in a hearing.
According to Scope-Crafts, Rizvi and their lawyer, George Lobb, who attended the meeting, university administrators would not exclude suspending or expelling the students as possible disciplinary measures. Scope-Crafts said the administrators “failed to engage in any meaningful way regarding the facts of the case.”
“They basically wanted us to admit that our conduct was disruptive, violated university policy, and so on, and apologize for it,” Scope-Crafts said.
“We don’t think we’ve done anything wrong,” he added. “We delivered a letter. That was it. And we were fighting or continuing to fight for what we believe is right.”
The students said they are still waiting for the university to rule on the case.
Scope-Crafts said UT-Austin and colleges across the country have a long history of civil disobedience and peaceful protests, many of which could be considered far more disruptive than the Dec. 8 incident.
“For us to be facing charges including disruptive conduct, unauthorized entry, failure to comply, and unspecified violations of local law for simply reading a letter … It’s honestly an astonishing act of hypocrisy by the university,” he said.
The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
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Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, D-Ky., on Sunday said the Texas Senate race is “in play” for Democrats after state Attorney General Ken Paxton beat incumbent John Cornyn in last week’s Senate Republican primary.
“Texas is in play. Democrats have never run against a candidate like Ken Paxton that is so corrupt that his own party impeached him,” Beshear told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” adding, “This is someone who does not have the character … to serve as AG or even as dog catcher.”
The Kentucky governor referred to the GOP-controlled Texas state House’s impeachment of Paxton in 2023 on bribery and corruption charges before the state Senate acquitted him. The state Senate trial also touched on allegations that Paxton engaged in an extramarital affair while serving as attorney general.
Last year, his wife, who is also a state senator, announced that she had filed for divorce from the attorney general “on biblical grounds” and “in light of recent discoveries.”
Paxton did not testify at his impeachment trial, but he denied any wrongdoing and characterized the misconduct and corruption allegations as false and politically motivated. After his wife announced their divorce, Paxton wrote in a post on X that the two “decided to start a new chapter in our lives” after “countless political attacks.”
Beshear on Sunday said that if elected, Paxton is a person who “would use his office to enrich himself, that would be a rubber stamp for the president, and would do nothing for the people of Texas. He has shown that as AG.”
Beshear pointed to Paxton’s opponent, Texas state Sen. James Talarico, who won the Democratic primary in the state earlier this year as a better candidate for Senate.
Talarico “is spreading his message about being there for American families, about putting them ahead of the politics, about bringing down prices, expanding access to health care, making sure they feel safe in their community,” the Kentucky governor said. “Those things that make life just a little bit better and a little bit easier as the Trump administration is making things so much harder.”
Beshear accused Paxton of attacking Talarico early in the race because he “knows he has nothing to offer.”
“And so what does he do? He simply attacks his opponent over and over,” Beshear added.
Earlier on “Meet the Press,” former Vice President Mike Pence was asked if he supported Paxton and responded indirectly, saying, “If I was voting in Texas, I could never vote for the Democrat nominee.”
Pence added that he was confident the GOP could keep control of the Senate after November’s elections.
“I think in many respects Republicans have lost our way, but Democrats have lost their mind, and I think the reason why we’re going to hold the Senate.”
In Beshear’s interview, the governor also discussed remarks former first lady Jill Biden made last week about concerns she had about former President Joe Biden’s poor debate performance against Trump two years ago.
“I think it’s fair to look back now, given that Joe Biden did drop out, and say he shouldn’t have run for re-election in the first place,” Beshear said. “You can both compliment him for things he did that helped your state and your people, but also be able to look back and know that was a decision that should have been made differently.”
Also in his interview, Beshear was asked if he himself was considering running for president in 2028.
“I haven’t ruled it out,” he said. “But I haven’t sat down and had that conversation with my family. I’m trying to fire up Democrats to be a voice of reason in the chaos. It is so important that we win right now.”
The Texas A&M Aggies started the season with varying expectations. After a disappointing season last year, this year was a critical chance for the Aggies to once again have another shot at putting it all together.
Earning a top-16 seed and hosting a regional, the Aggies stormed a comeback to take their opening game, leading to their winners bracket matchup against the Texas State Bobcats, who took down the higher-seeded USC Trojans.
Looking to be 2-0 after their second game, head coach Michael Ealrey’s squad found themselves in a close game with the Bobcats. A five-run sixth inning would change the tune of the game, and instead of being a nail-biter, it quickly turned into a blowout.
How One Error Changed Everything
The Aggies were in a close game against the Bobcats, which is a scary place to be against a team that can hit the ball as well as they do. In the fifth inning, Chris Hacopian would get an RBI to give his team a two-run cushion, and he would prove to be the catalyst once again an inning later.
With the bases loaded and two outs in the inning, Hacopian would hit a ground ball to Justin Vossos, the Bobcats’ shortstop. It looked like a routine play, one that would get his team out of the jam, but he would bobble the grounder. Hacopian, to his credit, shot out of a cannon out of the batter’s box and would beat out the play, extending the inning and scoring Terrence Kiel II.
With a three-run lead, the Aggies smelled blood in the water, and they took advantage of the mistake. The next batter, Nico Partida, would be hit by a pitch to score another. Jake Duer would follow that up with a two-RBI single, and Ben Royo would get an infield single of his own to cap off the five-run inning.
From that point on, the Aggies never looked back and would end up winning the game, 17-2, completely breaking the game wide open and dominating their way to a 2-0 start.
What This Means Now For the Undefeated Aggies
The Aggies are the only perfect team in their regional, and have advanced to the regional final for the first time in two years. Because of that, Earley and his squad get the massive advantage of only being tasked with playing one game on Sunday night.
With the Bobcats now heading to the losers’ bracket, they will get a rematch against the Trojans at 3 p.m. CT, with the loser eliminated from postseason play and the winner facing the Aggies at approximately 8 p.m. CT.
Since the Aggies are the only undefeated team left in the bracket, they will get a minimum of two chances to punch their ticket to the super regionals.
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Live Updates – Tennessee Lady Vols vs. Texas Tech Softball (WCWS)
Current Score: Tied 0-0
***Note: If you want the latest updates make sure to refresh the story***
First Inning:
Top: Karlyn Pickens strikes the first batter out. Texas Tech hits a single that went off the glove of Pickens. Jackie Lis comes to the plate. She advances the runner, but she grounds out to short. Pickens gets a massive strikeout to end the inning. Great job by the Lady Vols ace.
Bottom: Tennessee will now come to the plate. Kaitlyn Terry is the pitcher for the Red Raiders. Sophia Knight will start it off. Knight hits an infield single thanks to her speed. Here comes game one’s MVP, Elsa Morrison. Morrison strikes out. Ella Dodge hits a grounder to second, which gets the runner out, but she is safe at first. Emma Clarke hits a line out to Williams at second base to end the inning, as she had to make a vertical effort to bring that one down.
Second Inning:
Top: Here comes former Lady Vol Taylor Pannell. She pops out. Pickens will face the Red Raiders’ pitcher, who also hits. Pickens gets the Lady Vols off the field.
Bottom: Leach lines out to begin the inning. Makenzie Butt pops out to right field, which will be out No. 2. Gabby Leach is out to end the inning for the Lady Vols.
Third Inning:
Top: Quiroga lines out to begin the inning, and Pickens continues to move strongly. Halleman grounded out to second for out No. 2. Williams grounded out to third, which will get the Lady Vols off the field.
Bottom: Bella Faw singles to get on base. Holley grounds out, but Faw advances to second. Knight is struck by a pitch, and there are now two on base for the Lady Vols with only one out this inning. This gives Tennessee two on with a runner in scoring position. Here comes the Red Raiders’ ace, Nija Canady. Morrison fouls out. A wild pitch advances both runners. One at third and one at second now with two outs. Dodge is hit by a pitch, and bases are now loaded for the Lady Vols. Canady forced a full count for Clarke with bases loaded, and Clarke collided with Lis around first base, and the bases were left loaded. Texas Tech escapes.
Fourth Inning:
Top: Pickens forces a groundout. Lis grounds out, and the Lady Vols have put two away quickly. Pickens retires her 11th straight batter after forcing a groundout to second base.
Bottom: Leach reaches to begin the inning. It was via an error. She will be taken out of the game for a pinch runner. Saviya Morgan is on base. Makenzie Butt is up to bat. Canady strikes Butt out. Morgan gets picked off at second base. Gabby Leach hits a single to center field.
Pre Game Information
The Tennessee Lady Vols are set for their next matchup in the softball realm, as this is the second game they will play in the Women’s College World Series. In their first game, they were victorious against the Texas Longhorns, as they defeated the Longhorns by a score of 6-3 in a game in which they were viewed as the underdogs. Now they will have to play another great team with the hopes of continuing to hold on to their advantage of having no losses in a two-loss tournament. After today, only two of the eight teams that advanced and two of the six teams that remain will be able to say that.
The Lady Vols are up first out of the two games today, and they will be playing against the Texas Tech Red Raiders. The Red Raiders are entering this game with no losses after defeating the Mississippi State Bulldogs in their game. The Bulldogs entered the event as the biggest underdog, but the Red Raiders can compete with any of the teams at the event. They had to defeat a Florida Gators team that won a series against the Lady Vols to get to the Women’s College World Series.
This game will be one of the more anticipated games in the whole tournament, as this may not even be the only time that these two match up throughout the World Series. Regardless, the Tennessee Lady Vols will look for another big moment in the biggest game of their season thus far.
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