A horse-drawn hearse paraded down Congress Avenue as students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
University of Texas education graduate student Mia Reballosa participates in a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Dressed as the grim reaper, Neto Longoria participates in a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Cameron Samuels speaks outside the board of regents meeting as students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Reflected in a horse-drawn hearse, students and community members march in a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
A man reacts to seeing a horse-drawn hearse as students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Horses pull a hearse as students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
Karma Chávez, a professor of Mexican American and Latina/o Studies at Texas, participates in a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
A horse-drawn carriage traveling down Guadalupe Street Wednesday carried not tourists, but a hearse, to symbolize the death of academic freedom at Texas universities.
A few dozen students, professors and community activists marched in mourning garb alongside the carriage from the University of Texas tower to the UT System building downtown to deliver an urgent message: their university, symbolically, has suffered “death by a thousand cuts.”
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“The University of Texas is dead,” said Cameron Samuels, a graduate student at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. “Yes, you heard that right.”
The protest, attended by a few dozen demonstrators, took place Wednesday before a UT System Board of Regents meeting where the board is considering changing a policy to make it easier to cut departments in “extraordinary circumstances.”
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An urn and copies of “1984” by George Orwell are transported in a horse-drawn hearse as students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
“This is not just one thing,” Samuels said. “But a plethora, a myriad of decisions that one after the next have eroded our institution that we once had seen as a university of the first class.”
The group called on UT regents — governor appointees who oversee all University of Texas campuses — to listen to student and faculty voices as they make decisions that shape what can be taught at their schools.
In testimony before the board, several students and alumni implored UT regents to protect faculty’s ability to teach freely and preserve ethnic and gender studies departments, which are being consolidated at UT Austin and the University of Texas at San Antonio.
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At UT Austin, faculty fear the consolidation of four individual departments into a new Department of Social and Cultural Analysis will mean cuts to staff and courses, though UT President Jim Davis told The Daily Texan, UT’s student newspaper, the budgets for the individual departments will not change.
On Wednesday, UT Chairman Kevin Eltife refuted the idea that the university system is in trouble, pointing to record philanthropy and student engagement.
“Across the UT System, we have record enrollment, record applicants,” Eltife said after the testimony. “We’re not perfect, but we’re damn sure headed in the right direction.”
Why they’re marching
Students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
University leaders have framed the changes as a way to broaden overly “fractured” degrees and academic discussion. But some students say the cuts infringe on professors’ ability to teach freely and on students’ access to courses that reflect their lived experiences, Samuels said.
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Neto Longoria, a UT alumnus who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education in Central Texas, graduated in 2015 before becoming a bilingual teacher in the Austin Independent School District.
Coming to Austin from Eagle Pass, he felt lost on campus and disheartened by the small percentage of Latino students at UT, until he found classes in the Mexican American and Latina Studies department. There, the classes helped him understand the historic inequalities that have fueled the lack of Latino representation in positions of power, Longoria said.
He implored regents to protect those programs.
Dana Newlove participates in a funeral-themed protest as community members protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.
Mikala Compton/Austin American-Statesman
“I struggled to find myself reflected on this campus. I rarely saw Latino faculty or staff in positions of power,” Longoria testified. “Ethnic studies helped me understand the world around me.”
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Wednesday’s protest was the second funeral procession Students Engaged in Advancing Texas, a student-run advocacy group founded by Samuels, has organized in Texas to mark the threats facing universities today. It’s a reference to a 1944 protest against regents’ intervention at UT when thousands marched to the capitol in protest with a coffin labeled “academic freedom.”
The intense rhetoric of hosting a funeral protest is designed to be provocative — and has been effective at engaging people, Samuels said.
But David DeMatthews, a professor in UT’s College of Education, said he’s concerned the hyperbolic rhetoric conflates all Texas universities as equally worthy of concern.
Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University systems have both limited teaching on race or gender in response to conservative pushback. Others, like Texas State University, have fired professors in response to speech criticized by conservatives online.
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But DeMatthews said UT’s response has been more measured. He felt supported by UT’s affirmation of academic freedom as outlined by new statement on academic responsibility released last fall and thinks an “honest dialogue” about improving higher education is worth having.
“It’s important not to treat all Texas public universities as having the same experience or set of policies right now,” DeMatthews said. “Some of the actions that have transpired at Texas Tech, Texas A&M and elsewhere are very concerning. Yet, at UT I have not seen evidence of widespread changes to faculty work or academic freedom.”
Still, Sumya Paruchuri, a student organizer at the University of North Texas, is helping to plan a funeral demonstration at her university next. She said that leaders must commit to faculty’s freedom to teach and students’ ability to learn about a diverse history if they want to “resurrect” Texas universities.
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