Our Civil Litigation attorneys in MLFA’s Legal Division filed another Title VI complaint with Department of Education alleging race, national origin, and shared ancestry discrimination, most recently against the University of Texas at Dallas on behalf of both students and faculty. The complaint describes UTD administration’s hostility toward students and faculty after a peaceful and non-disruptive pro-Palestinian encampment in May 2024. Less than 12 hours after the encampment began, UTD administrators called in dozens of state troopers in riot gear and police officers from multiple departments. These officers, at UTD’s request, violently broke up the encampment and arrested students and professors. Those arrested experienced discriminatory treatment in jail, and upon release both students and professors remained the targets of UTD administration with disproportionate punishment.
UTD’s administration voiced hostility to student protesters and modified UTD’s disciplinary procedures to remove previous community oversight. Chelsea Glover, Civil Litigation Senior Staff Attorney even says –
“UTD administrators are afraid of Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, but they should remember their obligations under federal law. Texas’ anti-Palestinian animus provides no excuse for UTD to unlawfully discriminate and retaliate against students and professors based on their pro-Palestinian advocacy and speech.”
UTD administrators also retaliated against the students who used their free speech rights to publicize how UTD’s targeted students and faculty, which led to a student newspaper strike. By calling armed police in riot gear to campus and penalizing nonviolent protesters solely because those protesters advocated for Palestinians, then retaliating against students when they exercised their free speech rights, UTD infringed on students’ and professors’ rights to free speech and academic freedom in an environment free from discrimination under Title VI. Our attorneys urge the Office for Civil Rights to promptly open its own investigation into these ongoing and escalating discriminatory acts at UTD.
Civil Litigation Department Head, Christina Jump shares –
“UTD administration owes all of its students the same safe environment where they can learn, free from harassment based on shared heritage or allied status. UTD as an employer owes its professors equal treatment and the ability to perform the duties of the jobs they’ve been hired to do. UTD failed its students, and continues to target those who express views its administration does not like. And UTDfailed its employees, by calling for their arrests despite their actions violating no laws, and then by imposing severe and unwarranted limitations on their abilities to perform their job duties – as if trying to set them up to fail. UTD’s transparent hostility violates the law. UTD can do better, and Texas’ students and employees deserves better.”
