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A horse-drawn hearse paraded down Congress Avenue as students and community members hold a\u00a0funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
Karma Ch\u00e1vez, 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.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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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 \u201cdeath by a thousand cuts.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cThe University of Texas is dead,\u201d said Cameron\u00a0Samuels, a graduate student at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs. \u201cYes, you heard that right.\u201d<\/p>\n
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 \u201cextraordinary circumstances.\u201d<\/p>\n
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An urn and copies of \u201c1984\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is not just one thing,\u201d Samuels said. \u201cBut 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The group called on UT regents\u00a0\u2014 governor appointees who oversee all University of Texas campuses\u00a0\u2014 to listen to student and faculty voices as they make decisions that shape what can be taught at their schools.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In testimony before the board, several students and alumni implored UT regents to protect faculty\u2019s 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<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n 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, \u00a0though UT President Jim Davis told The Daily Texan, UT\u2019s student newspaper<\/a>, the budgets for the individual departments will not change.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, UT Chairman Kevin Eltife refuted the idea that the university system is in trouble, pointing to record philanthropy and student engagement.<\/p>\n \u201cAcross the UT System, we have record enrollment, record applicants,\u201d Eltife said after the testimony. \u201cWe\u2019re not perfect, but we\u2019re damn sure headed in the right direction.\u201d<\/p>\n Why they\u2019re marching<\/p>\n Students and community members hold a funeral-themed protest as they protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.<\/p>\n Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n University leaders have framed the changes as a way to broaden overly \u201cfractured\u201d 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,\u00a0Samuels said.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Neto Longoria, a UT alumnus who ran\u00a0unsuccessfully for a seat on the Texas State Board of Education in Central Texas<\/a>, graduated in 2015 before becoming a bilingual teacher in the Austin Independent School District.\u00a0<\/p>\n 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,\u00a0Longoria said.\u00a0<\/p>\n He implored regents to protect those programs.<\/p>\n Dana Newlove participates in a funeral-themed protest as community members protest the University of Texas System in Austin, Wednesday, May 20, 2026.<\/p>\n Mikala Compton\/Austin American-Statesman<\/p>\n \u201cI struggled to find myself reflected on this campus. I rarely saw Latino faculty or staff in positions of power,\u201d Longoria testified. \u201cEthnic studies helped me understand the world around me.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Wednesday\u2019s protest was\u00a0 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\u2019s a reference to a 1944 protest against regents\u2019 intervention at UT when thousands marched to the capitol in protest with a coffin labeled \u201cacademic freedom.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n The intense rhetoric of hosting a funeral protest is designed to be provocative\u00a0\u2014 and has been effective at engaging people, Samuels said.<\/p>\n But David DeMatthews, a professor in UT\u2019s College of Education, said he\u2019s concerned the hyperbolic rhetoric conflates all Texas universities as equally worthy of concern.<\/p>\n Texas A&M University and Texas Tech University systems have both limited teaching on race or gender in response to conservative pushback<\/a>. Others, like Texas State University, have fired professors in response to speech criticized by conservatives online<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
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