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A walkout protest in support of Palestine at the University of Texas at Austin on Wednesday turned increasingly chaotic as the day went by, resulting in at least 30 people being handcuffed and removed from the school, including two members of the media.

About 500 students demanded that UT-Austin divest from manufacturers supplying Israel weapons in its strikes on Gaza. They gathered outside the university’s Gregory Gym before moving to the South Lawn, where they had planned to stay into the evening. A small crowd of counter-protesters were present at the student demonstrations.

Officers at the scene donned riot gear and in some cases wielded mace or mounted horses while trying to drive back the protesters. Some officers could be seen pushing protesters with their batons. Several students were pushed to the ground and handcuffed with white plastic ties. Students acting as legal observers frantically shouted to get their names.

The demonstration showed no signs of violence before authorities intervened, though police did order the attendees to disperse and warned many that they would be arrested for trespassing.

Authorities on scene included campus police and troopers from the statewide Department of Public Safety, which said in a statement had been deployed “at the direction of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, in order to prevent any unlawful assembly.”

On the social media platform X, Abbott cheered the arrests and said students participating should be kicked out of school.

“Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled,” he wrote.

One of the protesters who was detained helped organize the event. An officer singled him out and told other officers he would be the first to be arrested.

A freelance photojournalist was arrested. A Dallas Morning News reporter at the scene said a cameraman with Austin news channel Fox 7 was also detained. Another reporter with The New York Times was injured during the protest.

After the protesters were taken to Travis County Jail, officers warned the shrinking crowd that more arrests could happen if the students didn’t disperse.

Jeremi Suri, a UT-Austin professor of history, called the law enforcement response inappropriate and an “attack on students.” He said he did not find the protest to be disruptive when he had his class this morning.

“I see police attacking students who are standing peacefully and shouting. All that does is anger the students more,” said Suri, who identified as Jewish. “The appropriate response would be to ask them to be contained in an area, let them stay on the grass and let them shout until they have no voices left.”

Evan, a postdoctoral student who did not disclose his last name for fear of being suspended for his participation in the protest, called Wednesday a sad day in UT history.

“These are my friends and my fellow organizers,” he said of those who have been arrested. “You see injustice like this, you just want to show up.”

The Austin Police Department told The Texas Tribune that its officers were helping university police transport those arrested at the protest at the request of UTPD. UTPD did not immediately return a request for comment.

The university sent an alert on Wednesday afternoon commanding students to disperse from the South Mall.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick also chimed in and criticized organizers, who said they'd establish "THE POPULAR UNIVERSITY FOR GAZA" in an Instagram post Tuesday announcing plans for the Wednesday protest.

"This is delusional. We have big problems on our college campuses," Patrick said on X. "In Texas, we won't allow antisemitic, pro-Hamas protesters to take control of our universities."

State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, said the arrests were “out of hand” if there wasn’t an actual threat of violence.

“In normal times when I was a student I was in a ‘sit in’ [with Rev. Jesse Jackson] INSIDE the actual UT law school and administration just ignored us,” she said on the social media platform X.

The arrests attracted the attention of civil rights organizations in the state.

“UT Austin students have a First Amendment right to freely express their political opinions — without threats of arrest and violence,” the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas wrote on X on Wednesday.

The arrests at UT-Austin come a day after pro-Palestine students staged a sit-in at the University of Texas at Dallas with similar demands, The Dallas Morning News reported.

In the six months since the decades-old conflict in the Middle East reignited in horrific violence, tensions have bubbled in campuses across the U.S. between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel groups.

Hamas militants attacked Israel in a surprise offensive in October that resulted in the deaths of 1,200 people and the abduction of about 250 hostages. In response, the Israeli military launched a campaign that so far has killed over 34,000 Palestinians and wounded nearly 77,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Two-thirds of the casualties are women and children.

The devastating violence — much of which has been shared over social media — has prompted demonstrations on campuses across the country.

Last week, Columbia University called on the New York Police Department to empty a campus encampment of pro-Palestinian protesters, which resulted in the arrest of more than 100 people. According to the Columbia Spectator, the university’s student newspaper, NYPD did not report violence or injuries.

Some Jewish students have reported feeling unsafe and harassed due to the protests. During the weekend, some protesters who appeared to be unaffiliated with the university verbally attacked Jewish students with antisemitic remarks, The New York Times reported. President Joe Biden on Sunday denounced antisemitism on campuses amid the protests, calling it “reprehensible and dangerous.”

In response to the arrests, Columbia’s faculty senate planned to hold a vote on a resolution to censure President Nemat Shafik. Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle have called for Shafik’s resignation for what they say was a failure to protect students from antisemitism.

Similar protests have been held at other universities, including New York University, Yale University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Protests on Texas campuses have already tested administrators’ handling of the fraught subject and their commitment to free speech on campuses. As pro-Palestine and pro-Israel students engage in protests and heated discussions, school leaders have struggled to strike a balance between their roles as moderators and facilitators of intellectual debate on campus.

Universities have also faced pressure from state leaders, who have been public about their support of Israel. Gov. Greg Abbott, who traveled to Israel in November to reaffirm his support, issued an executive order last month requiring schools to update their free speech policies and punish what he described as “the sharp rise in antisemitic speech and acts on university campuses.”

“Texas supports free speech, especially on university campuses, but that freedom comes with responsibilities for both students and the institutions themselves,” Abbott wrote in the order.

Ikram Mohamed and Annie Xia contributed to this story.

This is a developing story, check back for details.

Disclosure: The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Texas at Dallas have been financial supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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This article originally appeared in The Texas Tribune at https://www.texastribune.org/2024/04/24/ut-austin-israel-hamas-war-palestine-student-arrests/.

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