The sixth student media war — a committee against its students

I regret my time on the ad-hoc committee which eventually made the Committee on Student Media possible. I wasted hours of my time across three months meeting with university leadership and Student Affairs to draft a document we had all thought would protect the students of Student Media and ensure nothing like the mass firing of Mercury staff that birthed The Retrograde ever happened again  — or so I believed.  

In just one year, the committee I worked to write into existence under UTDPP1124 became a monster beyond my wildest imagination. I had, perhaps naively, hoped that by working with those that fired me, we could build something new, something better. I will now tell you why that was a fucking stupid notion.  

Canto I — The ad-hoc and false promises 

I was fired and then they asked me to create my replacement. 

In the aftermath of The Mercury’s mass firing in fall 2024, university leadership needed a solution. Students wanted the system to change and administrators needed something that looked like reform while ensuring the same people who had just gutted Student Media would remain firmly in control. So they created an ad-hoc committee to draft UTDPP1124, the policy that would establish the Committee on Student Media.  

I was on that ad-hoc committee. I sat through those meetings. I listened to Vice President of Student Affairs Gene Fitch and Chad Thomas, senior associate vice president for Student Affairs, as they promised to implement a new structure that would protect students. They agreed to my proposal of a three-student minimum for meetings so that the students of UTD actually had a say over Student Media. They agreed to faculty representative Sarah Moore’s policy background text, which said the four outlets of Student Media would “provide an opportunity for students to exercise constitutionally-protected freedom of the press and speech.” They told us that the old Student Media Operating Board bylaws were broken — vague, outdated, difficult to change and easily manipulated — and they agreed that change would benefit everyone. They told us that COSM would fix that. I had believed them. And then they changed their mind. 

“We do have bylaws that exist; the process being followed today goes off the existing bylaws that have been operated under for years.” Fitch said during the inaugural COSM meeting April 23, 2025. “We have not cast them aside. Dr. McClain Watson will appoint a group at a later date to revise the bylaws.” 

With the creation of UTDPP1124, I stopped my involvement with the whole Student Media fiasco on campus, and so I missed the first warning signs. The same Student Affairs administration that had just fired an entire newspaper staff was now telling the new members of COSM that the current bylaws would continue to work. Them agreeing with me that the bylaws were broken wasn’t genuine, but only served to create false security. They lured in students with the promise of getting a say in changing the bylaws at some undefined later point. Meanwhile, during the present, those bylaws continued to be used to bludgeon Student Media. 

I should have noticed the rot from the outset. I should have understood that Thomas, who slammed an issue of AMP on the table demanding to know why they would dare satirize Student Affairs during the ad-hoc process, was a person not at all interested in the success and protection of Student Media. The ad-hoc committee was subverted.  

The Student Government resolution that created it, S.R. 2024-02, was clear in its intent: “be it resolved … that an ad-hoc committee is formed to review and rewrite the Student Media Bylaws to be in accordance with the best student journalism and media practices.” This of course never happened. The ad-hoc committee didn’t touch the bylaws in the end. All it did was create a second committee, COSM, promising that COSM would do the actual fixing. This way, Student Affairs ensured they maintained control of every level of the bylaws process once the prying eyes of  and the Academic Senate looked away.  

The policy we drafted to create COSM is fine. It provides the basic structure of a committee and it waxes poetically about how much student freedoms matter to UTD and ought to be protected. But the policy is nothing more than a set of empty platitudes on paper. The people interpreting them — the same people who mass fired The Mercury’s staff — were the ones charged with enforcing and interpreting what those words meant. Unfortunately, it seems we have very different dictionaries.  

Canto II — Policy violations in the first meeting? More likely than you think 

Fitch wasted no time setting the tone for what COSM would become today during the April 23, 2025, meeting of COSM. Instead of focusing on the committee’s first charge — revise the bylaws — the meeting was dedicated entirely to interviewing and appointing new Student Media leaders Student Affairs had already picked out.  

Fitch’s opening address set the tone for everything that would follow: 

“I have had to defend decisions related to the operation of our newspaper and unfortunately, individuals not directly involved have been subjected to misinformation and a smear campaign and taken the position that Student Media is broken,” Fitch said. “No one’s attempted to reach out to any of us to understand the scope of what’s occurred. Instead, there’s been a barrage of articles and emails that have attempted to criticize and vilify those associated with Student Media. So most of what’s been shared is simply not true.” 

He continued with what can only be described as a threat: “You’ve been appointed to this committee to do what’s in the best interest of Student Media. You’re not here to serve the self-interest of those who wish to ensure that Student Media fails. If you’re not committed to making decisions that are in the best interests of Student Media, specifically The Mercury, then you may want to reevaluate your position on this committee.” 

If a committee member had been inclined to question the actions of Student Affairs or their predetermined path, Fitch had in effect already told them to get out.  

The committee then proceeded to appoint a then-incoming freshman with no college journalism experience as Editor-in-Chief of The Mercury. She was enthusiastic, sure. But she had never set foot on UTD’s campus as a student. She had no institutional knowledge of the conflicts that had just destroyed the previous paper. She was, by design, a blank slate to be molded without the inconvenient memory of what happened to her predecessors. Faculty committee member Wade Crowder praised this. 

“I think it’s an advantage that she’s coming in as an outsider and doesn’t have prior knowledge, she has no preconceived notions,” Crowder said. “She doesn’t have ideas that have been formulated from being here and thrown into a cauldron that’s still brewing. It should be recreated by someone that doesn’t try and make it something that it was before.” 

Student concerns were raised and quickly dismissed. Rohith Raman said that “the EIC would be a freshman, which is too young to hold The Mercury’s EIC position.” Caden Brenner expressed concern that “there is already a competent student newspaper on campus” — a reference to The Retrograde, the paper I founded with the fired Mercury staff.  

None of it mattered. The vote proceeded. Jane Burkhardt would become EIC just as soon as she officially became a student. The three student members at the time — Raman, Brenner and Vice Chair Farhan Iqbal — told me the meeting felt horrible and that Student Affairs staff had scared them. They told me Student Affairs had insinuated Retrograde coverage was untrue and no one had contacted them. This seemed odd to me since I had sent countless emails to the very same Student Affairs officials and the Office of Communication in hopes of a comment for various Retrograde articles. I don’t just write “Official X did not respond to comment” in so many articles for the sake of it. Each of those relates to an attempt to directly communicate with an office that loves to keep its secrets close to its chest.  

So, I went over to Senior Director of Marketing and Student Media Jenni Huffenberger’s office to ask if she had concerns about our coverage and if there were any corrections we could make. Her response one minute into our conversation was telling: “I’m not interested in getting into another situation with you where what I say is misrepresented and misconstrued or miscommunicated because every communication we’ve ever had has been misconstrued and misrepresented or has turned into just a lie on your end.” 

Six minutes later, in the same conversation, when I said “You think we’ve misrepresented you, that it’s verged on lies; if you have things that we can correct, we would love to hear them,” she responded with “I never said that, Gregorio. I did not say that. So where you are getting that information, I don’t know.” 

Huffenberger then accused me of unethical behavior for recording administrators, which is a perfectly legal and journalistically ethical tool in Texas, a one-party consent state for recording. 

This was the person who was, and continues to serve as, senior director of marketing and Student Media, an unusual combination. This is the person who would oversee COSM and guide them on best journalistic practices despite never being a journalist herself. The high school yearbook doesn’t count.  

It is thus no wonder that the committee was forced into appointing a high schooler as EIC, in direct violation of their own bylaws and the university policy that governed them at their very first meeting. The old Student Media Operating Board bylaws, still in effect during COSM’s appointment process, required that the EIC candidates complete a full semester and publish three articles in three different issues of The Mercury before their appointment. A high schooler could not meet this requirement, so it was immediately ignored. Just like the requirement to revise the bylaws was ignored.  

Canto III — A summer of relaxation and resignations 

The summer meetings of COSM were, on their face, productive. The committee established multiple subcommittees with Student Affairs staff that weren’t officially on COSM so that they could all revise the bylaws with input from the newly appointed Student Media leaders.  

But beneath the surface, something was wrong. Multiple student members resigned from the committee over the summer. Raman and Brenner were the first to go. This was then followed by Joshua Kalakoti and Jackson Logue. It is incredibly rare for students to just outright resign from a university-wide committee. Most of the time, the committee doesn’t even meet enough for students to care that they are on one. And yet COSM managed to burn through four at a breakneck pace. All of this happened under a shroud of secrecy as Committee Chair McClain Watson told members to “not share any draft language or details about our work to people outside COSM.” 

The meeting minutes from the Sept. 8 COSM meeting in which the bylaws were being reviewed for the first time was troubling. When the subcommittee’s draft bylaw revisions were presented, the discussion revealed deep disagreements about different roles and definitions, with issues raised over the consistent vague language of the bylaws particularly around its AI policy. These concerns weren’t addressed and more students resigned.  

These students weren’t quiet about their experiences. Word spread quickly that COSM was an unwanted and miserable appointment. I was thus not too surprised when SG reached out asking if any of the experienced journalists from The Retrograde wanted to try to help fix the broken committee as SG’s “last resort.” We agreed, but also told SG that our appointment would greatly anger Student Affairs.  

Ashna Karia, the committee’s newest appointee and Retrograde staff by the time of the Nov. 7 meeting, raised concerns over vague language in the bylaws. The response from administration was not to address the concerns but to questions why they were being raised at all.  

“We have never had a single question come up about it,” Fitch said. “I’m guessing what’s different now.” 

What was different was that new student members — appointed because previous ones had resigned — were actually reading the proposed bylaws and talking to lawyers specialized in protecting free speech about them.  

Canto IV — If you thought SMOB bylaws were bad, COSM bylaws are somehow worse 

The Nov. 7 meeting was supposed to be routine. Instead, it became the clearest demonstration yet that COSM was not what it claimed to be. 

Karia and I had been appointed just weeks earlier after multiple resignations had left the committee without student representation. We came in with fresh eyes and, perhaps foolishly, the assumption that our role was to actually draft working bylaws that supported Student Media. We were wrong.  

The meeting began with student leader updates. Burkhardt, now the freshman EIC, reported that The Mercury was “nearly fully staffed” but then added: “Beyond these general updates, I prefer not to share any additional details at this time as two members on this committee are affiliated with our competing publication.” 

She was referring to us. Karia and I, both editors at The Retrograde, were now officially persona non grata in the very committee we had been appointed to serve on. At the time, The Mercury hadn’t published anything. They weren’t competition. Now they’ve published five issues, and I still don’t see them as competition. More journalism is great — there are 30,000 students on campus and a small nonprofit investigative newsroom can’t cover everything. At a time when student journalists should be supporting each other, it is unfortunate to hear they think we can’t talk to each other, especially since our staff has experience with the broken system now governing The Mercury.  

Then came the bylaws vote.  

The bylaws presented before the committee were nothing more than 19 pages of contradictions, vague standards and provisions that directly undermined the editorial independence they claimed to protect. The bylaws mandated that student editors must “consult regularly” with advisors — a term and interval left deliberatively undefined. They gave the Director of Student Media “general oversight of the material” produced by Student Media and called on them to be involved in “all phases of the publication’s operation” for each outlet. They imposed editorial standards that went far beyond what any student press freedom or legal organization would consider acceptable. We know because we asked. 

I raised concerns. Karia raised concerns. Iqbal raised concerns. We all pointed out glaring contradictions that undermined and endangered the students and the advisors. We emphasized that the bylaws should not contain clauses that go directly against each other, like the various sections which say the advisor will be present in all meetings and the other clauses that claim the advisor is there only on request. We asked why the committee hadn’t consulted media law experts. The response was immediate and hostile.  

“I’ve been working so hard on these bylaws, correcting them, working with students, getting their input,” Karen Fioretti, the current Director of Student Media, said. “And then two members are appointed to this board that are not a part of Student Media, that are a part of a newspaper that is contrary to what The Mercury does. And they are trying to not pass the bylaws.” 

She was accusing us of sabotage for doing our jobs on the committee. If I wanted Student Media to fail, I would have rejected the appointment. I would let Student Affairs do as it wished with Student Media since that alone is more than enough to kill it. It had already killed the student newspaper once, that was the whole reason COSM existed. 

Jonathan Stewart, the Assistant Director of Student Media, doubled down: “There is a public statement of you saying that you want to take down The Mercury.” This was outright false. I am not sure if they just assumed I forgot the things I said and wrote after saying and writing them. It is no secret that I have spoken to various news outlets and written editorials in which I discuss how unfortunate it is that Student Affairs killed The Mercury, and that Comets shouldn’t work for the revived Mercury Student Affairs is building if they care about student expression. My time on COSM and the ad-hoc committee was served with the express intent of fixing the bylaws so they’d never hurt a student publication again, and my opposition to the current structure of The Mercury is because it exists under damaging bylaws that are flouted or enforced at administrators’ will. I have reiterated this time and time again. That is not “wanting to take down The Mercury.”  

Despite our objections, despite the clear contradictions in the document, despite the fact that we spent less than 30 minutes even considering issues with the bylaws before ex officio Student Affairs staff motioned to end the discussion, the vote proceeded. Watson as chair initially said the vote failed because it did not achieve the required two-thirds majority required by Robert’s Rules of Order to revise bylaws.  

At the very first meeting of COSM, 198 days before the November meeting, Fitch, as previously mentioned, said, “We do have bylaws that exist — the process being followed today goes off the existing bylaws that have been operated under for years.” Robert’s Rules of Order section 56:50 “Article IX: Amendment of Bylaws” states that a two-thirds vote is required to revise bylaws. Watson was correct in his ruling that the bylaws were not approved. But then after a chorus of Student Affairs staff, all non-voting members of the committee, said they believed only a simple majority was needed, Watson changed course. He asked for a revote and declared that a simple majority was enough. This didn’t follow Robert’s Rules of Order and Watson made no attempt to double check. The rules are a book that is pretty easy to check, if you have the digital version you can literally just ctrl-F whatever you need at that moment. However, Student Affairs had spoken, so proper procedure did not matter anymore.  

The bylaws were improperly approved in a 5-4 vote. All the undergraduate students and one graduate student voted against them.  

Watson had told us as we joined the committee that we were not to speak to anyone outside the committee. Alarmed by the bylaws and the email, which was grounded in no policy, standing rule or bylaw, I emailed the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression’s Student Press Freedom Initiative. Their response was damming.  

“These bylaws constitute the end of editorial independence for Student Media at UTD, imposing numerous restrictions on content and reporting,” Dominic Coletti, a program officer at FIRE, said. “The in-depth standards and restrictions within the bylaws don’t belong in committee-created bylaws … they should be set by the student editors and the student editors alone. The bylaws should cover only the structure and form of the outlets as corporate bodies; content guidelines don’t belong there. Otherwise, the disclaimer about editorial freedom isn’t worth the paper on which it’s printed.” 

The experts underscored what the committee refused to acknowledge: these bylaws won’t protect students. They are a loaded gun, ready to fire whenever Student Affairs wants to control what’s being published.   

So knowing all of this, I wasn’t surprised that the members of COSM were so insistent on not letting experts or anyone outside COSM help revise the bylaws, and were so hostile to the idea that the bylaws needed to be fixed. I wasn’t surprised that they spent all their time attacking this warped idea of me as their ultimate adversary because I was saying the same thing I had been saying since before my firing: the bylaws are wrong and Student Affairs does not care about the First Amendment.  

Canto V — You can’t help those that refuse to be helped 

The Dec. 12 meeting just proved the experts right: the bylaws did not work because they were overly specific in all the wrong ways.  

The committee had convened to appoint Kezia Sunil as Managing Editor of The Mercury. Sunil was passionate, enthusiastic and completely unqualified by the standards clearly laid out in the bylaws the committee had approved last month.  

Section 2.4(d) of the erroneously-approved bylaws requires that “the editor and managing editor must have had at least one printed byline in at least four editions of the newspaper in the semester in which he or she is appointed by the committee.”  

But that wasn’t the most concerning part. Sunil described herself as, “I can’t read or write,” and when asked to describe the inverted pyramid — the most basic structural concept in journalism — Sunil responded: “I’m actually not familiar with that. I don’t really see how that pertains to The Mercury.” The sole candidate for Managing Editor of a newspaper didn’t know the inverted pyramid.  

The administration’s response was not concerned about the lack of training or preparation Mercury staff received from their adviser, but it was simply meant to instinctively defend Sunil’s ignorance. Fioretti first defended the candidate by arguing that “jargon or inside baseball terminology is not really the most important factor [today].” Crowder dismissed the inverted pyramid as “hardly used now anyway.”  

And then Fioretti dropped a bombshell piece of information: “These students are mostly freshmen who really haven’t had an opportunity to have any specific training.” No specific training. When pressed for more information, Fioretti added, “So you know there’s been struggles to find training time.” It is no wonder The Mercury has struggled with staff retention, Managing Editor selection and understanding journalism’s basic fundamentals. The director, who works full time as the trainer and advisor to Student Media, just hadn’t found the time to train any students. I guess this doesn’t count as sabotage in the world of Student Affairs, since refusing to teach them anything makes sure they remain the blank slates Crowder and Fitch so love.  

But a Managing Editor being untrained, while incredibly unfortunate, isn’t the end of the world. The Mercury did need the position filled. The committee had the power to change its bylaws with a two-thirds majority. Sunil could become Managing Editor. Thus, I raised a point of order for the committee to consider: the appointment would violate the committee’s own bylaws. The bylaws that had been forced through just weeks earlier, and that administrators had insisted were necessary for “standards.” However, these bylaws can be changed.  

My motion to table the appointment until after the bylaws preventing it were fixed failed. A motion to make an exception to the bylaws was proposed.  

Before the vote, which Watson said would have no discussion for the sake of time, Huffenberger gave a speech framing any vote against the exception as a vote to “handicap Student Media.” She had made no such objection when the bylaws handicapping Student Media had been proposed. She made no such plea when I proposed we fix the bylaws so that passionate students could work for The Mercury. So I raised another point of order: if Watson has said there will be no debate on the pros and cons of the motion on the table, then Hufenberger can not give a speech to intimidate voting members into voting her way. The vote to suspend the bylaws — which Robert’s Rules of Order does not permit in any way unless the bylaw allows for its own suspension — failed in a 5-3 vote. It needed at minimum six votes to meet the two-thirds threshold Watson had arbitrarily decided on for a motion which is literally not allowed by the rules of order he is required to follow.  

I motioned for COSM to meet over winter break to revise the bylaws, specifically Section 2.4(d) concerning the requirements for the Managing Editor position, so that Sunil could serve in the role come spring.  

That is when Huffenberger exploded. She immediately dismissed the motion as somehow “not a real motion.” 

“Your behavior is a clear sabotage of this committee for the good of the order,” Huffenberger said. “We are here for the good of the future of this paper which you obviously aim to sabotage. We all see that, Gregorio.” 

A voting committee member had pointed out the committee was violating its own rules and motioned to fix those rules so The Mercury could have the Managing Editor Burkhardt said it desperately needed. My reward was to be publicly accused of sabotage by an administrator that had spearheaded the approval of the bylaws which were now causing issues for The Mercury  and which we were now bound to unless they were amended by a two-thirds majority. 

No further thought was placed on the issue of the bylaws that day, since all of the Student Affairs executives had a luncheon to get to. I can only presume that this was a luncheon of the utmost importance, since it meant they couldn’t spend any time trying to schedule a single meeting over winter break.  

Canto VI — Meet the admin redux; now with gaslighting and emotional abuse! 

One of the articles that got the old Mercury in trouble was an editorial called “Meet the Admin.” Huffenberger said this kind of journalism was “malpractice.” Gee willikers! Journalists reporting on things that make the school look bad when the school does bad things. It is almost like this is what they are supposed to do alongside writing editorials to reflect their perfectly legal-to-publish opinions. There is no valid reason for Huffenberger to label that article or the issue it came out in as malpractice. It is awful that the head of marketing for Student Affairs is now in charge of Student Media. Student Affairs truly couldn’t make it more clear that Student Media is meant to just be a cheap PR arm for the university. The Student Affairs website even organizes the Student Media department as a part of the marketing department. I would laugh if it wasn’t so grotesque.  

I think it’s worthwhile really diving into the fascinating cast of characters that makes up the Student Affairs squad in COSM.  

Fitch is the vice president of Student Affairs. He is the man in charge with all the power over student life. He sets the tone. On day one of COSM, he told everyone that if they weren’t committed to “the best interests of Student Media” — as defined by him and his immediate subordinates — then they should leave. He oversaw this entire ordeal and dealt with it gracelessly. 

Huffenberger is the senior director of marketing and Student Media. She is the wonderfully two-face confidant who, with a smile on her face, accuses you of sabotage for daring to ask questions. She regularly refuses to respond to emails, accused me of unethical behavior for recording my meetings with her and publicly branded student committee members as saboteurs for following Robert’s Rules of Order.  

Her triumphs, however, extend far deeper than just the committee meetings. On Aug. 25, 2025 — the first day of classes that semester — she pulled Sasha Wuu, then Editor-in-Chief of Student Media satire magazine AMP, into a private meeting. The problem she wanted to discuss, as far as I could gather, was The Retrograde distributing newspapers near a Student Media event at the Plinth. The conversation quickly veered away from any standards of professionalism.  

“I have worked so hard to prove my loyalty to you,” Huffenberger said. “I feel like I am a joke behind y’all’s back and I’m just tired.” 

Huffenberger framed the entire conflict as a personal betrayal because, somehow, AMP was involved with or responsible for Retrograde distributing papers nearby. She asked Wuu: “Who do y’all work for? Do you work for AMP or do you work for Retrograde?” 

When Wuu tried to explain the complexity of the situation — that AMP had relationships with multiple student organizations across campus, that as the student newspaper The Retrograde had influence outside Student Affairs’ control and that she was doing her best to navigate all these pressures to ensure AMP was successful — Jenni dismissed it and escalated.  

“They’re playing you, man,” Huffenberger said to Wuu, a trans woman. “They’re using you to get attention for themselves.” 

This was emotional abuse, plain and simple. A senior administrator pulled a student into a one on one meeting and tried to use psychological manipulation to turn that student against fellow students. Huffenberger spent the whole time hedging her comments with the phrase “I shouldn’t say this,” and then she just said it anyway. She framed her personal grievances as a loyalty test.   

When Wuu pushed for AMP to maintain its editorial independence, Huffenberger simply said, “I can’t tell you what to do. I’m not going to. I can just tell you this is how it makes me feel.” 

Fioretti is the newest Student Media director after the mass firing of Mercury staff. She fits right in with her direct boss’ leadership style by creating an atmosphere of intimidation.  

On Dec. 11, 2025, Fioretti pulled AMP management member Ellie Maguire and another Student Media editor, who was granted anonymity, into a punitive meeting. Their crime was an offense most grave. They critiqued The Mercury’s mistakes in a public space after a Mercury staff member asked them to.

Maguire and the student editor pointed out typos in a Mercury article about UTDTV — a completely normal thing for an experienced editors to notice. Neither made any personal attacks beyond the typical criticism that happens in literally every newsroom in the U.S. every single day. Fioretti did not agree with the notion of criticism.

“We now have folks in this space who don’t want to be in this space because they feel that the approach that is taken sometimes, maybe you’re kidding, maybe you think you’re being funny, but you’re hurting feelings and you’re making people uncomfortable and feeling demeaned,” Fioretti said.

When Maguire and the student editor said that they had provided critique when requested, Fioretti was not convinced.

“Do you really?” Fioretti said.  

The meeting went on for another fifteen minutes. Fioretti’s comments at the end showed that she didn’t care about creating a supportive environment in the Student Media office, but about shutting down any criticism or feedback at all toward her pet project, The Mercury.

“If it happens again, it’s gonna go further,” Fioretti said. “We want everyone to feel like this is a safe space for learning, for collaboration, and people are starting to feel that that is not how it is, and certain names keep coming up in those conversations … Hopefully things dissipate and you know if you feel like you could contribute, you could help them get better, then damn well do it and criticizing them isn’t the way to do it. Write a story, offer to be on the staff, help out, right?” 

Fioretti didn’t take the traditional approach of saying “we’ll have another conversation” or “we’ll work together to improve.” Simply, “It’s gonna go further.” Dropping mob boss-style threats to a bunch of college students and telling them to “damn well” do work they aren’t interested in is actually what the bylaws COSM approved fully empower Fioretti to do, with the near limitless authority she holds over the positions of these students, so at least this time it’s nothing illegal.  

As Assistant Director of Student Media, Stewart’s role primarily focuses on the work of UTDTV and Radio UTD. He used to oversee all the outlets as interim director until Student Affairs leadership decided he was too lenient as advisor to The Mercury. He was removed from his position as advisor two days after the Mercury’s May 20 special issue covering the May 1, 2024, encampment came out. Now he walks up to Retrograde staff and demands they stop handing out newspapers to students — an act university policy specifically allows — and accuses student journalists of wanting to “take down The Mercury” because they pointed out issues in bylaws that would go on to actively harm The Mercury.  

It is honestly impressive how often Crowder, an assistant professor of instruction in professional and technical communication in the Bass school, is willing to make the most outlandish claims about journalism as if they are fact. He claims the inverted pyramid, which is used in practically all newsrooms, is “barely used.” He claims it is good when student journalists don’t know things. His expertise as a communications expert serves only as a rubber stamp to whatever Student Affairs wants. I truly fear for any student that takes his classes expecting to learn anything accurate about communications. While I don’t often agree with George Bernard Shaw’s famous quote of “those who can, do; those who can’t, teach,” Crowder has done a really good job making me think that sometimes it is true.  

Watson, though, might be the worst. Watson is a clinical professor of business communication in the Jindal School of Management. He doesn’t work for Student Affairs. He is not bound by their will, nor is he eligible to be fired for not doing what Fitch wants in the same way Student Affairs staff are. As COSM’s committee chair, he is the one that is supposed to enforce Robert’s Rules of Order, he is the one that is supposed to know policy and ensure COSM does its best. And yet, every time the opportunity to unabashedly support Student Affairs’ next deranged decision appears, Watson has been the first one there. He is their biggest enabler.  

Not once has he stood up for students. He tells committee members never to speak to outside experts when drafting bylaws about a precarious legal topic: editorial independence. He refuses to schedule meetings to fix the bylaws after they are clearly shown to be an issue for Student Media by blocking key leadership appointments. And every time student members of the committee raise legitimate concerns, he watches gleefully as Student Affairs verbally berates them. I guess the allure of power and Fitch’s approval is just too strong.  

Canto VII — The insurmountable damage 

The damage COSM has done isn’t abstract. It’s in part measured in the students who have quit, resigned or otherwise been driven out.  

Mercury staff have already quit or been removed. In her November report to COSM, Burkhardt said the paper was nearly at its staffing capacity. By December, two-thirds of the editor positions were empty and Burkhardt was begging for the committee to provide her with support.  

“I’ve been waiting for months and some incredible fully-experienced managing editor has just not popped up,” Burkhardt said. “There’s a lot of weight falling on me, and I think being able to distribute some, even like lesser tasks that would maybe take more time away from looking at the bigger picture for me is really going to support the productiveness of The Mercury moving forward.” 

Burkhardt’s plea was ignored as COSM refused to at all consider revising the bylaws over winter break so that Sunil could take some of the weight off Burkhardt’s shoulders. 

Meanwhile, AMP wasn’t just the target of multiple predatory and manipulative meetings with Student Affairs leadership, it also lost its Editor-in-Chief. On Feb. 4 this year, Wuu resigned from her position effective immediately. Her resignation email summed up a year of COSM for the students of Student Media best: 

“I hereby resign from my position as Editor-in-Chief of AMP, effective immediately. I am not interested in discussing my reasoning at this time. I’d say I’ll see you all in Hell, but I don’t plan on returning to the office anytime soon. I’ve left the key with my former staff.” 

Student Affairs had created an environment so hostile to students that the Editor-in-Chief of UTD’s most visible and popular magazine resigned in the middle of her second year in that position. Wuu’s resignation is the surrender of a student that fought tooth and nail to support the magazine she loved, who kept fighting until she was emotionally drained by an environment no student at UTD should have to endure.  

On March 3, UTDTV’s station manager delivered a speech to SG in defense of COSM after Karia and I had been removed from the committee by Student Affairs. She said that the picture painted by senators that resigned and representatives removed from COSM was not the picture students in UTDTV saw. She apologized that so many senators felt like they had no other option but to resign. As part of the core of her emotional appeal, she said, “Student Media is one of the best things that ever happened to me.” This isn’t a defense of the committee. This is a student that’s terrified of losing something she has loved for four years.  

Student Media as an idea is great, because it provides UTD’s creative student body various outlets to freely express themselves. I got into journalism because of Student Media, since The Retrograde didn’t exist in my freshman year. And yet, the bylaws in place today don’t support this view of what Student Media can be. They practically encourage unprofessional power plays by administrators who care more about the perception of the university than they do the students that actually attend it.  

With Karia’s and my removal, SG did what it has constantly done this academic year and appointed new students to enter the “hell” that is COSM. Green Initiative Chair Colton Rupe and Diversity, Equity and Belonging Chair Nivedha Maniv are respectively the eight and ninth members appointed to COSM in its first year. Their very first meeting, held April 3, was one in which they were expected to pick out The Mercury’s next executive team. The same issue that prevented Sunil from becoming Managing Editor in December was now preventing all Mercury leadership appointments, since The Mercury had only published three times by the time of their meeting. Section 2.4(d) once more reared its poorly-written head, but this time Maniv and Rupe, who had consulted SG executives on how to best fix the bylaws, had a solution in hand — simply change the requirement to four articles published in the semester of their appointment. All three candidates met this standard, which was numerically the same article minimum as the previous standard.  

Instead of spending a few minutes to immediately solve this specific bylaw issue, Student Affairs staff reacted aggressively to the newest members of COSM once more. No discussion of the bylaws would be tolerated, since, according to Rupe’s senate report, “We were told during the meeting bylaw discussion was not relevant to appointing applicants; however, these are the very rules by which the new applicants tenure is controlled and thus are very relevant.” Discussing an easy fix for the rule that blocked the appointments was somehow not relevant. Rupe and Maniv said that they were repeatedly and aggressively shot down every time they proposed a fix to the problem. Rupe said he was alarmed when every non-voting committee member voted anyways on motions and how Watson asked them to keep their hands up for him to count — a flagrant violation of procedure again.  

“From my experience, the environment was very intimidating, and I did not feel like my or Nivedha’s voice was respected,” Rupe said in his report.  

It is no wonder, then, that both Rupe and Maniv walked out of the meeting. They aren’t paid to be in a hostile situation. Serving on COSM is a completely volunteer role. Their departure broke quorum, which has stopped anyone from being appointed to serve in any Student Media leadership position for next year. Student Affairs is so rabid in its attacks against students that it can’t even maintain a basic quorum requirement. I won’t be surprised if Rupe and Maniv resign from COSM, too. They would be fully in their right to not subject themselves to this wretched committee.  

This is just some of the human cost of COSM. Students in and outside of Student Media are being manipulated, intimidated, harassed and broken by administrators who see them as nothing more than obstacles to control.  

Wuu quit, Maguire was threatened, Rupe and Maniv walked into a room so hostile to their voices that they fled. Four student appointees quit and two were removed. The only student on COSM left standing is Iqbal, who has been a constant voice of opposition through this entire process. It is a miracle he has survived so many flat-out ridiculous meetings. 

This is just what I know; what students have chosen to share with me knowing full well who I am and what I represent in the eyes of Student Affairs. What administrators have chosen to say around me even when they know full well the audio recorder is on. Who knows how many other students have had their experience ruined by this neverending shit show, and how many students failed to record these incidents for proof because they didn’t ever believe they would have to.  

Through all this, Huffenberger rests in her office, bringing students in to tell them that she is “tired” of being a target, demanding loyalty tests, contradicting herself in the same conversation and, all the while, wondering why no one trusts her. Other administrators act and think similarly. I am no oracle, but the answer to their question might lie in their own actions.  

Canto VIII — In conclusion  

So yes, UTDPP1124 might have been intended to serve as a bulwark against administrative overreach and censorship; however, today it serves as nothing more than an empty piece of paper that rests atop the letterhead of what I believe to be the single worst committee on campus.  

The harm that COSM has done to Student Media could, honestly, be irreparable. Student Affairs took the fruit borne of a university-wide partnership between students, faculty, staff and administration, and in just a few short months corrupted it.  

I wish I could have done more to stop this. I felt every minute of those tedious ad-hoc meetings, believing we might build something better for other students. I watched as the committee I helped create immediately devolved into what I had wanted to prevent. When I was appointed as a last resort, I consulted experts, followed Robert’s Rules and brought up my concerns over the contradictions that jeopardized the work of each Student Media outlet. For all my trouble, I was accused of sabotage, removed from email chains, removed from COSM and branded by Student Affairs as an enemy of the Student Media I was trying to save.  

For that failure, I am sorry.  

I am sorry to the students of UTD, who deserve better from their Student Media after paying over half a million dollars for it each year with their tuition fees. I am sorry to the journalists of The Mercury trying to do real work who are now afraid to seek the truth and report it. I am sorry to The Mercury staff that have already quit because they allege that Fioretti doesn’t let them write articles critical of the university. I am sorry to the COSM appointees that walked into a hostile environment and were told their voices didn’t matter.  

I am not sorry to the Student Affairs administration or to the broken, abusive committee they loom over.  

I don’t have to endure whatever horrors now exist in the Student Media office. My interactions with COSM now are whatever gossip spreads through SG after another disastrous committee meeting. Our publication, The Retrograde, exists entirely outside of this environment and we don’t have to worry about any of these issues afflicting our staff. But there is only so much 50 unpaid volunteers can do on a campus with 30,000 people. A healthy Student Media would have been better for everyone.  

I am sorry we built a committee that became a weapon against students. I am sorry I believed the empty words administrators said when they agreed to protect student expression. I am sorry I didn’t see the monster that would come for Student Media.  

But mostly, I am sorry that another generation of students is going to have to fight the same battles we thought we had already won. 

Editor’s Note: Some comments have been removed for violating our Community Code of Conduct.