A hearing Tuesday at the Texas Capitol focused on recent protests at university campuses, the law enforcement response to those and allegations of Jewish students now feeling unsafe.
AUSTIN (KXAN) — A hearing Tuesday at the Texas Capitol focused on recent protests at university campuses, the law enforcement response to those and allegations of Jewish students now feeling unsafe.
Levi Fox, a freshman at the University of Texas at Austin, got invited to testify at the Senate subcommittee on higher education about some examples of antisemitism he witnessed on campus recently. He shared a troubling claim about a professor and explained this happened during a protest last month about the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
"He walked up to me and a group of Jewish students, and he said, 'You'll be the next ones they throw into the ovens,'" Fox said. "When I heard that, I was like, OK, that's — wait, did that really just happen? Then when I learned that he was a professor, that was shocking — a history professor, nonetheless. He tried to justify it, and I wasn't — I was also doing another conversation, so I didn't get to hear his full justification. In my opinion, there's really no justification for saying something like that, but to hear that there's a UT Austin professor that holds that belief that teaches young students is terrifying. I hope there's an investigation launched into that."
Fox told KXAN he did not make a formal complaint to anyone at the university about what he said he heard, but he made a promise to two state senators on the subcommittee Tuesday that he would share the professor's name with them in private.
"I didn't want to share it in such a public forum," Fox said. "I don't want to dox him, per se, but I do want to make sure that the correct officials have his information so that they can launch an investigation."
Pauline Strong, an anthropology professor at UT who also serves as president of the local chapter of the American Association of University Professors, heard Fox's claims and expressed skepticism, especially because the alleged remarks he mentioned contained no additional context. She said it's the first time she ever heard about this and reiterated the university has a system for people to report these types of incidents.
"I am concerned that this professor could be targeted for something that the student said that he said," Strong said. "The university has processes in place if a student felt that a professor said something inappropriate, something antisemitic. The student did not say that he had gone through those processes, I believe, so I would ask him to go through the university processes if indeed a professor made an antisemitic remark to him or in his presence."
Texas Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, kicked off Tuesday's hearing, which also included an update on how public colleges and universities are implementing the state's DEI ban, by defending how UT leadership and law enforcement handled the protests.
"Overall, Texas colleges and universities have handled these protests well and maintain their campuses for the overwhelming majority of students, faculty and staff that simply wanted to finish their semester, take exams, enjoy their graduation and walk across campus safely —campuses that are funded by Texas taxpayers," Creighton said. "What we witnessed on college campuses was more than a series of peaceful grassroots protests. It was more than a peaceful demonstration. It was an organized effort to rally comrades from across the state to emulate what was happening at Columbia University and to occupy our campuses and make demands of the taxpayer-funded universities. It was an effort to intimidate Jewish students and faculty."
During protests on April 24, law enforcement arrested 57 people on the UT campus, though the Travis County attorney announced her office would dismiss these cases because they did not have “sufficient probable cause.” However, another 79 arrests happened on April 29, and those cases have been allowed to proceed.
Lt. Col. Freeman Martin with the Texas Department of Public Safety faced questions Tuesday about the agency's response. He explained DPS placed more troopers at UT compared to other universities that experienced protests throughout the state because it had "intelligence" that things could get more unruly there and necessitated the additional officers.
Sam Law is among those still facing a criminal trespass charge from that second round of arrests. He's a Jewish graduate student at UT who came to the Capitol Tuesday to speak against the law enforcement response on campus and refute claims the protests are antisemitic.
"There are people who've been straight up lying, claiming that protesters have said antisemitic things," Law said. "I've been at these protests. I went to a Shabbat service organized on the South Lawn."
He also pushed back against criticism of protesters at times using the phrase, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free."
"I'm talking about that this sort of peaceful coexistence [and] pluralism, and I think that these are Jewish values," Law said.
However, Courtney Toretto, a policy director with the central division of the Anti-Defamation League, told senators Tuesday that this particular chant could be interpreted as hateful. She said she wanted to provide some history so that students and protesters could understand why some find its use offensive.
"It's a cry for Israel not to exist," Toretto said. "It's calling for a Palestinian state that extends from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, effectively erasing the entire Jewish state."
Texas Sen. José Menéndez, D-San Antonio, attended the meeting Tuesday and mentioned it may be worth making more lessons about the history of Judaism and the Holocaust available in schools when the legislature reconvenes for another regular session next year.
