UTSA students and community members joined student-led protests sweeping the nation Wednesday after institutional and law enforcement backlash to an encampment erected by students at Columbia University in New York calling for a divestment of university resources from the war effort in the Middle East and a ceasefire in Gaza.
The UTSA demonstration was far more muted than those gripping television screens across the nation, however, with roughly 100 students and organizers saying they were constrained by university staff directives to refrain from using loudspeakers, or even mentioning the name of the country Israel — something the university denies.
Zach Greenberg, a first amendment attorney at The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), told the San Antonio Report Wednesday that his organization would be investigating to see whether the situation students described actually occurred.
“If this is what happened, blanket bans on specific words violate students’ free speech rights,” he said. “The First Amendment protects your right to political speech to talk on public issues, and merely saying certain words regarding the Gaza conflict would violate that core right to political speech.”
Salma Kherais, a UTSA senior and organizer with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), said the movement was organized to show support with the protests happening at Columbia, which involves a large encampment and has been ongoing for days.
“We are hoping to show our support because the reason [Columbia students] are protesting is they want their administration to cut ties with Israel, with their apartheid regime,” she said, adding that UTSA is affiliated with companies like Raytheon, which manufactures weapons.
Students said they hope in the short term, their actions will pressure the university to end those relationships. Kherais, said she and other organizers had been approached by the university and given a set of rules before the march.
“We can’t use voice amplifiers, they are not allow us to use certain words like Israel or the word Zionism, which is ridiculous, because that is the whole reason we are out here,” she said.
Joe Izbrand, a spokesperson for the university, disputed that claim and pointed to a statement made the previous day by UTSA President Taylor Eighmy, which referred to having no tolerance for anitsemitism.
“That is not correct on certain words [being banned],” he said. “As President Eighmy indicated in his message earlier this week, the university will not tolerate antisemitic expression. That was not an issue today.”
Students stressed in interviews and while speaking that they were not antisemitic, pointing to Jewish students who had joined the march. However, students made clear that they were rallying for Palestine and against what they called a genocide, citing the nearly 35,000 deaths in the country since a war began in October following an attack on Israel by Hamas.
Chants included “Free Free Palestine,” as well as chants calling out Eighmy by name and “charging him” with genocide.
UTSA student protests for Palestine
Students marched through campus and into a parking lot before circling back into the center square, known as the Sombrilla, which had been surrounded by traffic barriers the night before.
But the protest and march at UTSA remained markedly more calm than those occurring at UT Austin, where more than a dozen students were arrested and protesters clashed with law enforcement as crowds continued to grow into the evening Wednesday.
It also was less confrontational than student protests in Dallas, where, after a sit-in that lasted hours at UT-Dallas Tuesday, the president agreed to meet with students to hear their demands, ending the demonstration, according to reporting by the Dallas Morning News.
Students at UTSA were joined by community advocates, including UTSA alumnus Moureen Kaki, a prominent activist and the programs and operations coordinator for the nonprofit Eyewitness Palestine.
Kaki told the San Antonio Report that she was taken aback when student organizers said that they were asked to refrain from using certain language.
“I assumed that for anybody that studied grade three government, it just seems like a basic violation of free speech rights,” she said. “It’s an intentional way to try to suppress their free speech and criminalize their solidarity.”
Local, state and national leaders have increasingly raised the alarm on the protests in recent days, with U.S. Speaker of the House Mike Johnson visiting Columbia’s campus Wednesday and calling for the national guard to be called in to quell the ongoing unrest.
On Tuesday, as dozens of campus facility staff worked to erect traffic barriers to create a pathway for students to safely get to class in the event of a large protest, some students were unaware of the unfolding plans for a protest.
In a statement released on social media Wednesday evening, the university thanked campus law enforcement for their presence.
“UTSA is committed to keeping our campus community safe while balancing each individual’s right to free expression,” the statement said. “We thank the UTSA Department of Public Safety, the San Antonio Police Department and the Texas Department of Public Safety for their partnership and support this week, and our university community for fostering public discourse on campus.”
As students wrapped up after marching around campus, some added their signatures to their protest signs as they were collected for arrival purposes by UTSA special collections.
As students regroup and plan for the next protest, which they said will be “soon,” Kaki said the backlash seen so far is unlikely to deter students across the nation.
“These are all happening because the students are desperate to try to find a way to get people in power to listen to them and at every turn that they’ve tried, those people have refused,” she said. “I think it’s horrible, and I don’t think it’ll slow it down. I think it’ll only empower them even further.”
