UTD has suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine for a year, effective Feb. 6, after a multi-month disciplinary process surrounding a brief disruption to former president Richard Benson’s graduation speech.
The suspension, which is in effect until Feb. 6, 2027, bars SJP from operating as a registered student organization, officially hosting on-campus events or reserving rooms on campus during the suspension period. The institutional support once offered to SJP, like any other student organization, is gone, but individual students are still free to conduct activities independently.
The case, which a spokesperson from SJP described as “years of targeting and repression” culminating in a final blow, raises fundamental questions about what kinds of student speech and actions are safe on campus, and just how much UTD will use its authority to restrict what it disagrees with.
Prosecuting this 28-second disruption like this is characteristic of an authoritarian system
— Marwa Elbially, immigration and civil rights attorney representing SJP
Marwa Elbially, an immigration and civil rights attorney representing SJP, said the disruption to the commencement ceremony — caused by students walking out during Benson’s speech — did not constitute a substantial or material harm under federal or state law.
“The laws governing disruptive activities expressly state that any enforcement actions must be interpreted to avoid infringement upon the rights of free speech,” Elbially said. “Prosecuting this 28-second disruption like this is characteristic of an authoritarian system where interruptions during official addresses are not permitted.”
The disruption and the hearing
The case traces back to May 16 last year, when dozens of students walked out of UTD’s spring commencement ceremony as Benson began his speech. Students chanted slogans including “From Columbia to UTD, we are all SJP” and displayed Palestinian flags. Two student organizers were later arrested and banned from campus. In the following months, UTD opened a disciplinary investigation into SJP as an organization.
According to disciplinary documents obtained by The Retrograde, the university charged the organization with two violations of the Student Code of Conduct: “inciting activities to disrupt” scheduled university events and “violation of general rules and regulations.”
The case started with Student Affairs administrators bringing forward a complaint against SJP and serving as witnesses during the disciplinary hearing. The hearing decision was decided on by a third party, not a member of UTD as is typical in university discipline cases. Leila Henderson-Gary, an attorney at Thompson and Horton, was the sole hearing officer deciding this case’s outcome.
Thompson and Horton specializes in defending institutions of higher learning like UTD. According to documents obtained by The Retrograde, Henderson-Gary has previously served on hearing panels for UTD in which she has ruled in favor of the school.
Henderson-Gary’s statement of findings, dated Feb. 6 this year, concluded SJP was responsible for the disruption based on three evidences: a chant during the walkout including the chant “From Columbia to UTD, we are all SJP”; social media posts from SJP’s Instagram account that the university saw as encouragement of disruptive protest; and the fact that a student listed on SJP’s member roster led some of the chanting during the walkout.
The same Student Affairs leadership team who served as the complainants and witnesses also denied SJP’s appeal of the decision on March 11. Vice President of Student Affairs Gene Fitch wrote in the appeal rejection:
“The speech made during the disruption, SJP’s social media posts calling for disruption of commencement ceremonies, and SJP’s subsequent dissemination via social media of video recordings of these disruptive activities are sufficient to support the conclusion that SJP and/or its members led, incited and/or participated in this disruption of university activities.”
It’s frustrating to see a university conflating actual disruption with speech it doesn’t like, because that muddying of the line makes it harder to go after actual disruption when it does occur.
— Dominic Coletti, student press program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Dominic Coletti, a student press program officer at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said universities have full legal right to punish disruptions, and can have a small group of administrators overseeing the process because of the constraints imposed by university policy and limited resources. However, he said administrators still have to do their due diligence throughout the entire process, which he believed UTD lacked after he reviewed SJP’s disciplinary documents. Coletti said UTD’s approach in this case blurred the lines between legal and illegal action, which undermined not only this case but future disciplinary proceedings on campus.
“The university got exactly one thing right when it came to its First Amendment analysis, which is that disruption is not protected, and the university has a right to punish that.” Coletti said. “But it’s frustrating to see a university conflating actual disruption with speech it doesn’t like, because that muddying of the line makes it harder to go after actual disruption when it does occur.”
SJP’s spokesperson, who requested anonymity because of ongoing legal and procedural concerns, told The Retrograde that throughout the entire process, their organization maintained the protest was autonomous and that SJP had not organized or endorsed it. The spokesperson said SJP did not hear a word about any issues with the graduation disruption until Sept. 2, nearly four months later, when it received a notice that it had violated community standards and would be placed in disciplinary proceedings. No public or archived posts are available that depict SJP calling for students to walk out of the commencement ceremony in spring 2025.
Do First Amendment protections apply?
Henderson-Gary’s statement included a finding that has drawn scrutiny from First Amendment advocates. It reads, “The manner in which the commencement day protest activity occurred is not protected by the First Amendment.”
Amanda Nordstrom, strategic campaigns counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, said that the determination raises serious concerns. Political speech, she said, receives significant First Amendment protection, and universities can only punish students for expression that falls into narrow categories of unprotected speech such as true threats or incitement to imminent lawless action.
“This seems like wholly protected activity,” Nordstrom said after reviewing the hearing documents. “The First Amendment does not grant an unbridled right to protest at any time or place. But a university has to prove that what students did met one of the exacting categories of unprotected expression.”
After reviewing the complete set of disciplinary documents SJP provided to The Retrograde, Coletti said the university’s argument is incoherent.
“The university established that a group had done something wrong, but it didn’t really seem to have coalesced around a single unified theory of what that bad thing was,” Coletti said. “At various points, the allegation is that the group incited the disruption. At other points, it was simply that the group had condoned the events. At other points, it seemed like the university wanted to argue that SJP had actually organized the event.”
It’s guilt by association.
— Amanda Nordstrom, strategic campaigns counsel at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression
Nordstrom said the university’s argument that SJP should be held responsible for individual members’ actions because the organization’s Instagram page highlighted the walkout after it happened is dubious. SJP, alongside the Palestinian Youth Movement Dallas and National SJP, posted a video May 16 depicting students walking out of the commencement ceremony. Two days later, SJP called on graduating students to wear keffiyehs and raise the Palestinian flag during their graduation to make Palestine unavoidable. The post encouraging students to protest during graduation did not come until after the commencement ceremony had already concluded.
“The university seems very keen on looking for people associated with the group,” Nordstrom said. “It’s guilt by association — anyone that was at a protest where someone mentioned SJP is absorbed into that group. That’s a trend we’ve been seeing.”
Coletti said that the university’s argument that SJP should be held responsible for the actions of independent members is constitutionally impermissible.
“The prohibition on condoning any kind of disruptive activity or activity that violates university policy is absolutely unacceptable at an institution bound by the First Amendment,” Coletti said. “We have seen countless cases where all the way up to the Supreme Court has held that universities can’t punish a group just because its members happened to be in a place where protests were happening.”
‘Fox guarding the henhouse’
Student Affairs was involved in every part of this case, a concentration of authority that drew criticism from legal experts. The only non-Student Affairs member involved in deciding SJP’s guilt and punishment was Henderson-Gary, who had been hired by Student Affairs.
Student Affairs outsourcing disciplinary hearings to third parties is a recent practice. It was first announced in a meeting of the now-defunct Academic Senate in which the Dean of Students Amanda Smith told computer science professor and former senate speaker Ravi Prakash that the change had never been communicated to the Academic Senate before because she felt previous versions of the senate were “uncivil.”
Nordstrom said it was akin to a “fox guarding the henhouse,” meaning that the so-called guard of students, in this case Student Affairs, is actually a threat to the very thing they are meant to protect, the students.
Smith was pretty much the complainant, witness and overseer.
— Aram, Red Rose Collective representative
Aram — a representative of the left-wing student organization Red Rose Collective who requested partial anonymity — called the arrangement “extremely corrupt.”
“Smith was pretty much the complainant, witness and overseer,” Aram said. “You would think Student Affairs is there to help students, and then that’s just effectively being used as a tool of repression. ‘I am complaining because I don’t like you. I am testifying that this thing happened because I don’t like you, and I’m deciding based on it.’ Instead they just function as judge, jury and executioner.”
Farhan Iqbal, a computer science senior and Student Government webmaster, said he was similarly concerned.
“You’re letting the prosecutor pick the jury,” Iqbal said. “It’s an insane idea to let the people who are filing the claim pick the people who are going to be the ones who assess the claim, and then be the ones to oversee the appeal. It is almost entirely within the realm of Student Affairs to control the entire process.”
A pattern of repression
Jonathan Pinckney, a political science professor at UTD and expert in nonviolent protests, said that repression is a common response to various kinds of protest movements across the world. Pinckney said disruption being met with aggression from authority figures was so well-established that scholars in his field feel comfortable calling it “the law of coercive responsiveness.” He said the core theory is that the more opposition an institution or government faces, the more extreme its crackdown on dissenters will be.
“When contention from below actively disrupts, there will be some form of coercive response from people in power,” Pinckney said.
The SJP spokesperson said the suspension is only the latest in a series of administrative actions targeting pro-Palestine speech at UTD.
“It’s no secret that UTD has been trying to repress the student movement for Palestine for years now,” the spokesperson said, citing the May 1, 2024 encampment that led to 21 arrests, the removal of the Spirit Rocks in 2023 and prohibitions on the use of chalk on campus.
The disciplinary process itself raised concerns for some student observers. Neuroscience senior and Student Government President Giana Abraham said that the fact that the same administrators who filed the complaint also served as witnesses and the appeal’s decision-makers creates an appearance of unfairness.
“With Student Affairs executives in every part of this process, I think action is absolutely warranted,” Abraham said. “I don’t think that just because this wrong has been committed, we should just let it stay that way. I think administrators should strive to set up meetings with these students to get to the bottom of what this is and how it can be resolved.”
Across the U.S. we have seen far too many attacks on free speech. When UTD could be leading the pack on protecting student voices, it instead chooses to lead in suspending them.
— Hassan Alfarhan, political science junior
Political science junior Hassan Alfarhan said he was troubled by the suspension’s implications for free expression on campus.
“I’m against any sort of censorship, especially of student organizations, especially on a public campus like ours,” Alfarhan said. “Across the U.S. we have seen far too many attacks on free speech. When UTD could be leading the pack on protecting student voices, it instead chooses to lead in suspending them.”
Neuroscience junior and SG Vice President David Baker called the suspension a “very gross overstep” that set “an incredibly bad precedent.” Baker was particularly critical of the university’s reasoning that brief protests merit year-long suspensions.
“You shouldn’t punish groups, people or student organizations for the actions of members that act independently from that organization,” Baker said. “Claiming that they were organizing a protest — something that is well within their constitutional rights — somehow allows the school to suspend them for an entire year? It’s ridiculous.”
A university in transition
The investigation started at a moment of transition for UTD’s leadership. Benson, who was the target of the May 2025 commencement walkout, announced his resignation shortly before the protest and stepped down at the end of the summer semester. Incoming president Prabhas Moghe took office in August that year.
The disciplinary proceedings that led to SJP’s suspension did not begin until Moghe had been in office for a full month. The final decision was affirmed by Fitch, who has served as Student Affairs VP since 2015.
The Retrograde submitted multiple requests for comment to UTD’s media relations office regarding the suspension, the disciplinary process and the university’s interpretation of First Amendment protections for student protest. As of publication, UTD did not respond.
This repression is just a sign of success.
— SJP spokesperson
The SJP spokesperson said the organization had done everything it could to fight the suspension, and the group was now focused on off-campus organizing and building community support.
“This repression is just a sign of success,” the spokesperson said. “It’s a sign that what we’re doing is working, and it’s going to keep working.”
‘They’re all morally bankrupt people. Nobody should trust them.’
A longtime UTD faculty member, speaking anonymously because of fear of retaliation, said the suspension is part of what they described as a broader pattern of administrative overreach.
“Students feel that they are being singled out and discriminated against and being victimized,” the faculty member said. “They have very strong reasons to feel so.”
The faculty member pointed to the university’s handling of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and programs in the aftermath of Texas’ DEI ban as evidence of opportunism from administrators.
“When Benson became president with great fanfare, he said we are going to create an office of diversity and inclusion; we are going to bring in a vice president of DEI,” the faculty member said. “At the time the university leadership all clapped and patted themselves on the back. And then the moment Benson’s masters in Austin told him it was not acceptable, with the same speed, he abolished that position and fired all those people. Now, you can’t even talk about DEI on campus without fearing reprisal. They’re all morally bankrupt people. Nobody should trust them.”
The educational leadership, the university leadership, is not to be trusted on anything.
— Faculty
The faculty member said students and faculty who feel protected by UTD currently shouldn’t expect that protection to last forever.
“The educational leadership, the university leadership, is not to be trusted on anything,” they said. “They will just protect themselves. They’ll not protect anybody. The moment they can, they will get rid of you if it means they can move up in the world.”
The public’s reaction
Within hours of SJP’s March 25 suspension announcement, the Instagram post had garnered over 3,000 likes and more than 70 comments — the overwhelming majority of which expressed outrage at the university’s decision.
“Shame on UTD” appeared more than a dozen times. Alumni weighed in alongside current students. “I got my degree at UTD and this is such a slap in the face,” one comment read. “Ashamed beyond words,” another read.
Student organizations from across the country offered solidarity in the comments as well. SJP chapters at Chapman University, the University of Oklahoma, the University of Pittsburgh, University of Maryland, University of North Texas and the University of California all posted messages of support. UT Austin’s Palestine Solidarity Committee wrote: “Repression only makes us stronger. We will not rest until Palestine is free from the river to the sea.”
The University of Maryland SJP, which successfully sued its own university for $100,000 in 2024 after their administrators attempted to cancel a vigil, offered solidarity and a warning.
“In the [D.C., Maryland and Virginia area], where the encampments were held, chapters have been suspended or banned for a ridiculous number of years,” the SJP UMD spokesperson said. “The use of repression through suspension is a way for institutions to stifle our activism, but students will continue organizing because students will continue to stand against genocide.”
This happens when the public views the suppressive action as unreasonable or unjustified.
— Jonathan Pinckney, political science professor
The University of North Texas SJP, which has historically worked alongside SJP on regional actions including a protest of the Jewish National Fund conference in Dallas, expressed concern that UNT might follow UTD’s lead.
“When we heard about the suspension, we had definitely a sense of fear of replication at our campus,” SJP UNT’s media and outreach chair Nadine, who requested partial anonymity, said. “However, we wanted to make sure we were providing the support necessary for UTD. We firmly believe that SJP UTD will not be stopping their efforts.”
Pinckney described the mass public support for SJP as a prime example of the “backfire effect.”
“These comments and the thousands of likes and views show an attempt to suppress a movement’s activities which ended up accomplishing exactly the opposite,” Pinckney said. “This happens when the public views the suppressive action as unreasonable or unjustified.”
What comes next
SJP has said it will continue its “Cut Ties With Occupation” campaign, demanding that UTD “end all avenues of its support for weapons companies” and “reject all future partnerships and recruitment schemes with companies complicit in the occupation of Palestine.”
“UTD has attempted to repress students so many times,” the SJP spokesperson said. “They’ve attempted to oppress us at the encampment, at our protests. And time and time again, it hasn’t worked and we’ve continued to persevere. UTD students are resilient.”
According to a formal notice sent to SJP March 24, a one-year suspension means the organization is “not recognized as a registered student organization in good standing.” The group is prohibited from:
- Reserving campus space for meetings, protests or events
- Accessing resources from the Student Organization Center
- Sponsoring guest speakers or public performances
- Receiving university funding or administrative support
The notice warns that any conduct violating these restrictions “may result in further disciplinary action, such as permanent removal of the organization’s official registration.”
The real effect of the suspension was made clear during SJP’s March 30 press conference. The conference organizers said SJP is now renamed SJP Dallas and will continue working in the region independent of UTD’s campus.
“Our role in the liberation of Palestine has never depended on recognition from a university that is complicit in genocide and occupation, and it never will,” SJP Dallas wrote in its first public statement after the rebrand. “The only thing we need from UTD is the cutting of all ties to companies that facilitate the zionist entity’s occupation of Palestine.”
One Comment
Kudos to the authors of this article. This is what good student journalism looks like: thorough in its treatment of various facets of the issue, well researched, balanced as in reflecting various viewpoints (and reporting who refused to offer comments), and well written. By providing all supporting documents for download you are also making it possible for everybody to make an informed opinion.