Last week, The Retrograde and three other student organizations from UTD and UT Austin sued the UT System to stop enforcement of the Campus Protection Act, a new Texas law that took effect Sept. 1.
The Campus Protection Act, known as Senate Bill 2972 before its passage, restricts free speech and expression on college campuses in several new ways. The Retrograde previously reported that the act prohibits “expressive activities” between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., bans erecting tents on campus, prohibits wearing a mask or face covering in any way that makes law enforcement’s jobs harder or makes identification difficult and restricts any activities during the last two weeks of each term that could “substantially disrupt the functioning of the institution.” The law’s language is incredibly vague, leaving it up to individual enforcers — Texas universities — to decide what disruptions are too substantial, what activities count as expressive or what someone’s intentions with a face mask are.
The law’s language is incredibly vague, leaving it up to individual enforcers — Texas universities — to decide what disruptions are too substantial, what activities count as expressive or what someone’s intentions with a face mask are.
Before SB 2972 even reached Gov. Greg Abbott’s desk, college students, educators and free speech advocates across the state were slamming it for blatant unconstitutionality. According to JT Morris, an attorney with the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression overseeing this lawsuit, “the First Amendment doesn’t set when the sun goes down … and Texas can’t just legislate those constitutional protections out of existence.” The lawsuit focuses on two of the most severe restrictions imposed by the act: the nighttime blanket ban on free speech and the last-two-weeks clause that could get an event as small as bringing guest speakers to campus shut down.
The First Amendment doesn’t set when the sun goes down … and Texas can’t just legislate those constitutional protections out of existence.
— JT Morris, FIRE attorney overseeing the lawsuit
UTD has already revised its campus expression policy to fall in line with the new act. So have other schools. Without clarification from these schools about how this act will be enforced, all we know is the letter of the law: that “expressive activities” are banned at night, defined as “any speech or expressive conduct protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution or by Section 8, Article I, Texas Constitution.” This could mean anything from talking politics with your roommate over a late dinner to wearing a campaign shirt to bed to praying during sunrise.
When The Retrograde’s management team heard about SB 2972, we all looked at each other with alarm. As college journalists, everything we write, design and publish counts as expression — and we do nearly all of it at night.
Our management team is comprised of full-time students, many of whom also have day jobs, research gigs or lives to attend to. While we do write and edit stories, conduct interviews and get scoops during daylight hours, most of us save the hard work for after sunset when our schedules clear up. Most stories are written, edited or discussed after 10 p.m.; many staff and management meetings run into the late hours; and our text threads sport timestamps like “3:04 a.m.” when we rush to produce a complete print issue over the course of a single weekend. Some breaking news events themselves happen after 10 p.m., such as when we drove around campus near midnight last semester to report that the nearly 24-hour-long blackout was resolved across all of campus.
Without our late-night struggle sessions behind closed doors, The Retrograde would not publish many, if any, quality articles. We would fail our journalistic mission. And that failure could happen as soon as UTD enforces its new policies that’d make working the presses after dark illegal.
We also weren’t happy to hear about the act’s choke on expressive activities during the last two weeks of each semester. Some of our team’s most impactful reporting to date, such as our coverage of the pro-Palestine encampment and arrests last May, happened during the last two weeks of spring semester. The act would also prevent us from bringing professional journalists, other student media groups or media-focused nonprofits to campus for staff trainings or workshops during those last weeks under the “no guest speakers” rule.
The timing of the change to the education code cannot be ignored either — SB 2972 was introduced after a wave of pro-Palestine student protests spread across U.S. universities last year. And SB 2972 has clear intent to censor this kind of speech. In the words of its primary author Sen. Brandon Creighton, “SB 2972 seeks to provide clear rules for protests on college campuses and to assist institutions in managing members of the public who seek to overtake their campus … Public institutions of higher education shall expand on their existing campus free speech policies in order to: prohibit encampments on campus property, at any time … [and] prohibit protests or demonstrations during the last two weeks of a semester.”
SB 2972 seeks to provide clear rules for protests on college campuses and to assist institutions in managing members of the public who seek to overtake their campus.
— Sen. Brandon Creighton, primary author of SB 2972
The intent of this law is obvious, and it would not only impact student activism but also the student journalists reporting on that activism, as well as completely uninvolved bystanders who happen to enjoy, say, putting on music at night. Its sweeping provisions are antithetical to the idea of the First Amendment itself. We at The Retrograde find it critical to oppose the Campus Protection Act’s enforcement in any way we can to stand up for free and fair campus journalism. Journalism should document the truth, instead of selectively ignoring anything the Texas government or universities don’t want people to read about in the paper.
So together with UTD groups Strings Attached and Fellowship of Christian University Students, UT’s Society of Unconventional Drummers and Austin-based Young Americans for Liberty, who would all be significantly hampered from operating under the letter of this new law, The Retrograde is suing the UT System, along with the presidents of UTD and UT, to make sure it never takes effect. The goal of this lawsuit is for the court to grant an injunction, preventing the law and schools’ revised policies from taking effect.
Late-night music, guest speakers, prayers at night and early in the morning, journalism done with thought and care and people wearing face masks when they’re sniffly are all necessary parts of the college experience for tens of thousands of Texas university students. Our campuses need a complete reversal of the anti-free speech attitude that’s chilled our communities, silenced our student presses and strangled free and fair political expression throughout the state.
The Retrograde is used to fighting for that — just look at the story of our founding. We are more than happy to keep on fighting for our college community’s constitutional rights.
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UTD’s handling of Box-a-Thon is yet another case of campus censorship – The Retrograde
[…] on expressive speech as well as bans on speakers and encampments. The law is so restrictive that The Retrograde is suing the UT System over […]