Reporting Texas
News and features from UT-Austin's School of Journalism
byDestiny Lewis
Chanting “do not sign,” dozens of University of Texas students Monday protested the university’s potential support of the Trump administration’s college compact, a pledge critics say threatens academic freedom, diversity and freedom of speech on campus.. “One, two, three, four… We know what we’re fighting for. Five, six, seven, eight…We will not be sold today,” the marchers chanted.
Monday’s protest, organized by Students for a Democratic Society, was the second UT demonstration opposing the Trump administration’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education,” an offer of preferential funding for schools that agreed to follow the administration’s priorities. Although the UT System regents chairman initially welcomed the offer, the university has not announced a final decision.
byAlex Lamb
In April 2024, state and local police cracked down on University of Texas students protesting Israel’s invasion of Gaza, following calls for intervention by university administrators. As with protests on other college campuses, university and political leaders accused the pro-Palestinian protesters of antisemitism.
Almost a year later, one of the same groups involved in those protests, the Austin Chapter of Students for a Democratic Society, took part in another protest — this time to oppose the presence of alleged neo-Nazis and eugenicists at a conference held on the UT campus. The activists highlighted what they called a disconnect between the treatment of two groups accused of connections to antisemitic views
byRebecca Butler
Stella Perez planned to have an at-home date with her boyfriend on Valentine’s Day. Instead, she got a call from her student housing complex, Crest at Pearl, that she would be evacuated and relocated to a hotel room for “routine inspections” in her unit. She spent the rest of Valentine’s weekend in a hotel and the next month haggling with the apartments.
She’s since learned that Crest at Pearl, 706 W. Martin Luther King Blvd. just southwest of the University of Texas campus, has had four code complaints filed against it over two years for structural problems.
Crest at Pearl, built in 2014, is one of 14 student living complexes in Austin’s West Campus neighborhood owned and managed by the Austin-based property management company American Campus Communities.
byRebecca Butler
Responding to student frustrations about the cost of on-campus printing, the University of Texas’ Student Government voted Tuesday night to give students a $2 printing allowance each semester.
The pilot program, which will be implemented over the next few years, aims to change UT’s longstanding printing system that results in financial strain for some students