A police officer questioned the legality of arresting peaceful student protesters without probable cause at a pro-Palestine demonstration at the University of Texas at Austin, audio from body camera footage provided to Rolling Stone shows.
The recording is part of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s federal lawsuit, which was filed last week, alleging students faced unlawful mass arrests, physical intimidation, and retaliatory discipline related to a pro-Palestine action on April 24, 2024. The complaint alleges that Texas Governor Greg Abbott (R) and UT Austin officials suppressed pro-Palestine speech in violation of the First Amendment, the Fourth Amendment, and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act.
These arrests are just one of many instances of college students being punished for taking part in pro-Palestine protests, as thousands of students across the country have been arrested, suspended, and had their futures put in jeopardy. Donald Trump’s administration has actively targeted foreign student activists for removal — including Mahmoud Khalil, a pro-Palestine student activist at Columbia University and green card holder who was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in March.
The recording and lawsuit provides new insight into how some of these crackdown are being carried out.
According to the complaint against UT Austin and Abbott, which involves four current students and recent graduates, police officers tackled students and tied zip ties so tight around their wrists that they caused bruising and one nerve compression injury. Some students were forcefully arrested while attempting to follow police orders. One police officer tackled a student face-down and put their knee on her neck. Students say they also heard officers talking about arrest quotas. A police officer removed a student’s hijab during her arrest, and one student was doxed after a photo of her arrest went viral.
The charges against the students were dropped for lack of probable cause, but their lawyers say they’ve faced retaliatory disciplinary measures from the school, including campus bans, administrative holds, and threats of suspension. They have experienced “injuries, trauma, and long-term academic and professional consequences,” according to the lawsuit.
“These students were arbitrarily, randomly selected to be tackled and violently brutalized and punished simply because Governor Abbott decided to turn this campus into a war zone because he didn’t like the message,” human rights lawyer Maria Kari, a co-counsel on the case, tells Rolling Stone.
In the audio the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee provided to Rolling Stone, one officer questioned out loud what it was that the students were doing wrong.
“We’ve been asking this question, but now what are they doing illegal?” one Texas Department of Public Safety officer asked.
“What?” asked another DPS officer.
“What are they doing illegal now? What if this was after a game or something? This many people [are] out … after a basketball game. We do this after the Aggie games?” the first officer asked.
“No,” the second officer replied.
“All right, let’s shit or get off the pot,” a third officer said.
“We’re going to do it so they won’t get agitated,” a fourth officer said.
“Which one are we going after?” the third officer said. “I don’t know.”
Kari, the co-counsel on the lawsuit, says, “This tape confirms that these students were not arrested for breaking any law. They were arrested for speaking out on Gaza. The officers themselves are admitting they don’t know what’s illegal there and the situation that they’re observing, because as the clients, as our plaintiffs, have described it, it was a peaceful protest.”
She calls the recording “chilling.”
“We’ve now captured law enforcement acting at the instruction of Governor Greg Abbott, admitting that they have no cause, but acting anyway,” she says. “So the state of Texas and UT Austin can’t claim ignorance when their own officers have been caught questioning the legality of their orders.”
The groups behind the lawsuit, filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas, argue that this audio shows that the protests were peaceful — and that the students were wrongfully arrested.
Named in the lawsuit are UT Austin, Texas Governor Greg Abbott, UT Austin President Jay Hartzell, officers of the University of Texas Police Department, and officers of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Co-counsel on the lawsuit are Muslim Legal Fund of America, Webber Law, and Project TAHA.
The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee is seeking a declaratory judgment that officials violated plaintiffs’ rights; a reversal of disciplinary actions; damages for physical, emotional, and academic harm; and attorneys’ fees.
“The protesters tried to deliver on their stated intent to occupy campus,” Hartzell said at the time of the arrests, according to the Houston Chronicle. “People not affiliated with UT joined them, and many ignored university officials’ continual pleas for restraint and to immediately disperse. The university did as we said we would do in the face of prohibited actions.”
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s National Executive Director Abed Ayoub tells Rolling Stone that the audio shows that the police officers were not threatened.
“To me, they understood that it was peaceful. They communicated it was peaceful, and that this is not nothing outside of the ordinary. And if it wasn’t outside of the ordinary, why did it require such an extraordinary response?” He adds: “That’s what that conversation … shows is these officers were looking at this [and] basically saying, ‘What the hell are we doing here? Guys … we could be doing something else with our time right now.’”
Ayoub adds that the arrests show “the desire of the leadership at UT Austin, the governor’s office, and elsewhere, to punish those exercising their First Amendment rights simply because they disagree with them.”
“That’s what led to this,” Ayoub says. “This shouldn’t have happened.”
