On Feb. 6, UTD suspended its chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine for a year because of 28 seconds of political expression at the spring 2025 commencement ceremony. This decision is a clear violation of students’ First Amendment rights to free speech, and it empowers campus administrators to force groups whose political speech it dislikes off campus for minor displays of resistance.
At the spring 2025 commencement ceremony, during then-president Richard Benson’s speech, students stood up and chanted, among other phrases, “From Columbia to UTD, we are all SJP.” For the rest of the protest, Student Union staff played music over loudspeakers to drown out the sound of the students. Fifty-eight seconds later, Benson would resume speaking. This violation, cutting into less than a minute of speaking time in total, would result in a 525,600-minute suspension.
The chapter was subsequently charged with violations of UTD’s free speech policy UTDSP5003, specifically “Inciting Activities to Disrupt” and “Violation of General Rules and Regulations.” It appealed the decision on account of the protest being autonomous and protected under the First Amendment. On March 11, 2026, their appeal was denied by Vice President of Student Affairs Gene Fitch. Since then, the group has continued to organize off of campus and renamed itself “SJP Dallas.”
The treatment of SJP UTD is just the most recent example of why our campus’ free speech is rated in the bottom 20 of all U.S. universities and the worst in Texas by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. The procedural documents obtained and published by The Retrograde show just how the university tied together the brief actions of a few individuals vaguely associated with SJP UTD to ensure that they would no longer have a presence on campus. It is not often that students get the chance to observe just how Student Affairs ties the noose around the neck of student activists by serving as their complainant, witness, judge, jury and executioner.
Rigging the process
At no time prior to or during the ceremony did SJP UTD endorse the walkout. The students that walked out of their own commencement were not the ones arrested during an SJP protest or put on trial for nearly a year. Those students had already graduated.
One of UTD’s largest student organizations has been subjected to a year-long disciplinary process and now a year-long punishment because a few protesters happened to show up on SJP UTD’s member roster and the club shared a video of individuals walking out, which, notably, was posted only after the ceremony, highlighting a lack of prior incitement.
At no point did SJP UTD post that students should participate in this event. In fact, SJP UTD’s officers have consistently called it an “autonomous protest.” Regardless, the entire organization was deemed to have violated the Student Code of Conduct based on the “preponderance of evidence.” As is customary, UTD declined to comment on the situation or how such a clearly unconstitutional act could have been taken. The answer, however, is clear: UTD’s adjudication process is rigged against students.
Current policy exists to funnel almost all issues through the Office of Student Affairs, specifically its subunit in the Office of Community Standards and Conduct under the direction of Dean of Students Amanda Smith. This single administrator is given complete authority over choosing whether a panel of students, faculty and staff or a third party of her choosing hears a given case.
Fitch, as vice president of Student Affairs, is the sole arbiter of appeals. There are no provisions for cases in which there is a clear conflict of interest for Fitch. Cases like this, where SJP protesters have called out Fitch and Smith directly in the past, cannot be judged fairly by those same people. It is essentially equivalent to a judge getting heckled on the street and construing a reason to put the heckler behind bars. And these Student Affairs administrators have shown before they have no issues with retroactively changing university policy to punish student expression.
Even if SJP could be directly blamed for the graduation-day protests and even if the disruption had warranted such an oversized punishment, the unfair nature of the adjudication process alone warrants outcry. Fitch, Smith and their high-ranking Student Affairs subordinates together work to serve as the final judges of acceptable campus discourse. And they are anything but neutral.
It should be no wonder that SJP UTD was suspended so irrationally and with such a disproportionate punishment. UTD has made a system that is designed to squeeze out neutrality and student expression when it sees fit, leaving only an ever-escalating punishment ladder that ensures that any student organization can be punished as an accessory to any disruption on campus.
Fool us twice
Other organizations have been involved in similar incidents, but none have faced the same scorn as SJP UTD. When UTD needs to punish, it scales based on viewpoint.
On March 31, 2025, right-wing political influencer Alex Stein came to the UTD campus to disrupt a Trans Day of Visibility demonstration. UTD’s Turning Point USA members accompanied, filmed and participated in disrupting campus life, even threatening to call ICE on Vice President and then Chief of Staff Rafael Martín.
Because the Trans Day of Visibility demonstration was given official university approval, it was a sanctioned university event like commencement. Yet, the outcomes of each disruption were dramatically different.
When individuals using TPUSA tag lines and affiliation disrupt a campus event, nothing is done to the student organization whose members ostensibly facilitated the disruption even if the organization itself claims no involvement, just like SJP UTD. However, when individuals even marginally affiliated with SJP mention its tag lines and disrupt a campus event, administration suspends the club those disrupters have already graduated from until almost two years after the original incident.
A similar parallel exists in the handling of Kappa Sigma’s Box-a-thon. Since 2007, the fraternity has constructed a large cardboard encampment in the Plinth to raise funds for homeless veterans. On Sept. 24, 2025, the Office of Student Affairs told Kappa Sigma to tear down their fundraiser since it was an encampment under SB 2972. Smith allowed the structure temporary permission to remain after fraternity members filled out a General Exhibit and A-Frame Exhibit Request form. Notably, the form makes no reference to SB 2972 or encampments. A student encampment like the Box-a-thon gets submitted for review as a general exhibit, and if the Dean of Students agrees with it then it gets an exemption to the law and university policy.
When a known fundraiser for an on-campus fraternity violated encampment policy, it was hand-held through a special exemption process all while it was simultaneously being investigated for hazing and sexual harassment. When SJP UTD held an encampment prior to SB 2972’s enactment and any encampment policy existing at UTD, it was granted no such kindness. Instead, over 60 riot police from five different agencies carrying grenade launchers and rifles arrested 21 individuals.
Though an injunction has been issued against the enforcement of SB 2972 in the UT system as of October 2024, because of a lawsuit in which The Retrograde is a plaintiff, the double standard remains.
It is unacceptable for this viewpoint discrimination to continue on campus anytime an expressive event occurs. The selective usage of a portion of policy concerning “violation of general rules” turns these unfair decisions into dangerous precedents. When future incidents regarding student expression occur, administrators will look to this as a template for handling these events. They will look at the disproportionate punishment they’ve successfully levied against speech they disagree with and know they can get away with it again.
This one single rule simply declares that “a student is subject to discipline for prohibited conduct that occurs on or off campus.” This statement’s vagueness means that expressing support after the fact through a social media post, as SJP did, is enough to constitute a policy violation. The vagueness of this statement means that being affiliated with protesters Student Affairs considers taboo is a death sentence for your organization. Threatening to violently deport people isn’t.
Suspend your disbelief
Crazily enough, UTD doesn’t have to violate our constitutional rights. We still believe in the university’s ability to change. It is the hope of progress that makes action worthwhile.
First, UTD needs to wholly reorient its view on free speech. If The Retrograde is any example, when administrators censor, it usually brings more attention to the speech they dislike. SJP UTD’s suspension has put the university back in the news cycle, not-so-coincidentally around the same time as its worst-performing Comet Giving Days in recent memory. The university, for the first time in recent history, did not cross the million-dollar donation mark.
Students do not want to enroll in a college that will tell them “the policy supersedes your First Amendment” when they use chalk at the Plinth. They want to celebrate our community in shared forums like the Spirit Rocks, which have been memorialized in art exhibits and merchandise – that is, until they were removed overnight without announcement.
Second, if UTD won’t stand on the side of free speech, we need to make it unaffordable to do so. The Retrograde’s investigation of 124 pages’ worth of public records related to the Spirit Rocks’ removal showed that administrators acted because of outside pressure from donors and local pro-Israel advocacy groups. Benson stepped down after pressure from media attention. When the costs outweigh the benefits, school leaders crack. In response, we should make it clear that double standards will come with a sharp price tag.
If the school sends you an email asking for donations, reply back explaining that you don’t believe they deserve your money while they continue to censor students. Make noise by talking to professors and alumni, posting online, reaching out to local news outlets and advocacy groups to keep the story fresh or submitting letters to the editor. Circulate petitions, raise funds for causes like restoring the rocks or funding SJP’s legal defense and investigate UTD’s decisions so the university knows its every move is being scrutinized. In every way possible, ensure administrators cannot brush this off as yet another bad week in the media.
Stay informed and document abuses before your eyes. The Retrograde is always happy to report hypocrisy on campus when others don’t want to. Never underestimate the power of student observations, student voices and the results of 30,000 graduates and undergraduates putting the work in all together, even if you don’t feel “adult enough” compared to the suit-wearing bureaucrats that puppet your tuition dollars. They are not as untouchable or as free of making mistakes as you think.
Attend Student Government events to let them know how best to represent you. Consider running for senate in the fall or for appointment. Besides that, let affected groups know you support them, even if you don’t align with their viewpoints. Being kicked out of your own campus hurts. Words of affirmation do, in fact, help. And most importantly, don’t stop advocating for what you believe in.
The worst thing is that so much of this doesn’t even come from campus administrators being personally evil, but instead from higher political powers down in Austin. The UT System Board of Regents have repeatedly imposed nonsense decrees on our school because culture wars in academia keep them in power. When opposition parties gain votes, it scares those in power and forces them to consider alternative viewpoints. While it sounds trite, you should be using your vote in every single election, not just the state or federal ones.
Living in ‘A New Era’
To the leaders of SJP UTD, we recognize your struggle. As a group that has felt the wrath of administration, especially when they fired our whole staff following our May 1, 2024, encampment coverage, we understand this pain. In this time of hardship, it is continuing to work with hope and determination that will accomplish the most good. The university already used the nuclear option by suspending you, so don’t stop now. If Student Affairs is upset with you, then you must be doing something right.
For a brief few months between the end of the Benson presidency and the start of Prabhas Moghe’s term, our campus advertising said that “The Future Demands Different.” That slogan has since been replaced with “A New Era.” Our campus can change in less than a minute; it is up to us whether that change heeds student voices or crushes them. It is up to us to meet the future’s demand for something different.