4 September 26 - OctOber 2, 2024 dallasobserver.com DALLAS OBSERVER Classified | MusiC | dish | Culture | unfair Park | Contents Censorship 101 UT Dallas student jour- nalists strike, allege re- taliation. BY EMMA RUBY S tudent journalists at the Uni- versity of Texas at Dallas are on strike following the removal of the paper’s editor-in-chief, Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, by administrators. Staff members of the Mer- cury say that Olivares Gutierrez’s removal is the latest instance of what they see as a pat- tern of retaliation by administrators follow- ing the newspaper’s coverage of a pro-Palestine encampment that was set up on campus on May 1. According to documents shared with the Observer, Student Media Director Lydia Lum called a Sept. 13 meeting with the school’s student media operating board (SMOB) to oust Olivares Gutierrez from his role, which he has held since May 1. Lum al- leged Olivares Gutierrez has committed three violations of the bylaws during his ten- ure as editor-in-chief, including holding multiple student employee positions on campus, causing budget overruns and inter- fering with her ability to do her job. Olivares Gutierrez told the Observer that his removal meeting was called with only a day’s notice, and six members of the operat- ing board were not present. Conversations shared with the Observer show that multiple SMOB members — who Olivares Gutierrez believes would have supported him in the hearing — say they were told by Lum “they weren’t needed to attend” the meeting. None of the students were informed of the meeting’s purpose, and one never received a link to the virtual meeting despite asking to attend, the messages show. Despite presenting evidence he believes contradicts Lum’s claims, Olivares Gutierrez was removed from his position in a 3–2 vote last Friday. Members of the Mercury have protested each of the charges against Olivares Gutier- rez and have ceased production of the cam- pus newspaper until he is reinstated. According to Managing Editor Maria Shaikh, who helped organize the strike, Oli- vares Gutierrez’s removal is a “dispropor- tionate punishment” following an increasingly tense relationship between the newspaper’s staff and administrators. “[We] believe that admin is not ap- proaching us objectively and fairly over le- gitimate concerns, but that they are blowing things out of proportion and using interper- sonal issues, dislikes and minor mistakes to punish us for coverage that they do not like,” Shaikh told the Observer. “The admin has not behaved like this in previous years when the Mercury was not doing investigative journalism and muckraking.” A Pattern of “Punitive” Behavior S taff members of the Mercury have al- leged unprofessional treatment by campus administrators since early May, after the students published a series of stories investigating the university’s han- dling of a pro-Palestine encampment that resulted in the arrests of 21 protesters, in- cluding students, faculty and alumni. According to Olivares Gutierrez and Shaikh, the paper’s advisor, Jonathan Stew- art, was demoted following publication of the Mercury’s May 20 issue, which in- cluded coverage of the encampment. Shaikh also alleges other “punitive” mea- sures by admininstartors that predate Oli- vares Gutierrez’s termination, such as rearranging the Mercury’s pay structure in a way “that harmed multiple members of management,” and demanding prior re- view of the Mercury’s editorial content. When prior review was denied, Lum “gave the Mercury an ultimatum” by stating the students will no longer be allowed to attend student media conferences, Shaikh said. The Observer reached out to Lum, who directed us to a university spokesperson. The university did not respond to the Ob- server’s request for comment. “Unless we satisfy [Lum] and give her ac- cess to things that historically we have not given advisors access to, such as pitch meet- ings or a look at our content before publica- tion, then she will continue to hold our conferences as basically hostages,” Shaikh said. Allowing administrators to review con- tent prior to publication is not a common practice among college media, and denying such review is constitutionally protected at public universities, says Mike Hiestand, se- nior legal counsel with the Student Press Law Center. Hiestand said courts have con- sistently agreed for over five decades that student publications on public university campuses have the rights of a professional press and do not have to agree to review be- fore publication. “The law is clear that student editors are the ones that are ultimately responsible for making content decisions and school offi- cials need to have a hands-off sort of policy,” Hiestand said. “School officials cannot re- quire any sort of mandatory prior review of student media.” Other forms of retaliation, such as bar- ring individuals from attending a conference or removing a staff adviser, are “indirect forms of censorship” that the law center “sees way too often.” All the incidents leading up to his re- moval as editor-in-chief have created a “hos- tile work environment,” Olivares Gutierrez told the Observer. When he was removed from his position, the staff agreed to publish a final issue of the Mercury explaining their decision to strike. Olivares Gutierrez said the students were locked out of their news- paper email accounts following the strike’s announcement. Each of the events of the last four months has now left the student journalists questioning their willingness to continue the Mercury’s 40-year tradition of publica- tion. “All of our management team and staff are in agreement where the conditions we’ve been subjected to aren’t great,” Oliva- res Gutierrez said. “If this is something where they’re going to be attacking us be- cause we don’t want to commit ourselves to censorship, then we will just be an indepen- dent student publication apart from the uni- versity.” Hiestand said it is “rare” to see a student media group “completely shut down” opera- tions with a strike. But according to the staff of the Mercury, Olivares Gutierrez’s removal left them with no other options. He has ap- pealed his firing, and the rest of the staff have agreed to give the administrators until Friday to reinstate their editor and meet other de- mands such as reinstating conferences and ceasing the requirement of prior review. If that happens, the Mercury will live on. Olivares Gutierrez submitted his appeal on Sept. 17. So far, it doesn’t look promising. A “Rare” Response S ince filing his appeal to be reinstated as editor-in-chief, Olivares Gutierrez has received conflicting and contra- dictory information about the handling of his appeals process. Jenni Huffenberger, se- nior director for marketing communica- tions, told Olivares Gutierrez via email that she, single-handedly, will “take his appeal under consideration” as outlined in the SMOB bylaws. Student government President Devin Schwartz has stated that, according to SMOB bylaws, the board should have first review of the appeal. Because Olivares Guti- errez has alleged that students were inten- tionally left out of the first meeting, Schwartz believes a third party should be charged with organizing the appeal hearing to “avoid the mere appearance of impropri- ety.” A Wednesday afternoon vote by the university’s academic senate — the delibera- tive body for UTD faculty — supported Schwartz’s proposal. Lum has claimed, via an email shared with the Observer, that Olivares Gutierrez’s appeal “differs” completely from the SMOB bylaws, and he will have to undergo a differ- ent process handed down “from Student Af- fairs in consultation with other UTD officials.” (One of the demands of the striking Mer- cury staff is cleaning up those bylaws so that this confusion doesn’t recur in the future.) “We just have this super vague, non- functioning set of guidelines, and even then, the people in charge of it don’t follow the guidelines that are there,” Olivares Gutier- rez said. “It’s just this huge circus. … I hope [they] got some fun trying to humiliate a stu- dent publicly. I am glad that I have the level of support I do not only at the Mercury but around the campus community, because if there wasn’t that kind of support, it would just be all of this administrative weight com- ing after me.” Hiestand said it is unusual for an appeals process to be designated to only one individ- ual, and that in Olivares Gutierrez’s case, a “neutral fact finder” would be appropriate. If the university does not hear his appeal, they will be putting “themselves in a situa- tion where they’re gonna leave the students with no recourse but to sue,” Hiestand added. And if Olivares Gutierrez can show that his firing was directly tied to the Mercu- ry’s editorial content following the Palestine encampment, he’ll have a First Amendment case on his hands. For now, Olivares Gutierrez has another concern outside of the strike and ap- | UNFAIR PARK | Emma Ruby Student journalists at the Mercury say retaliation from administrators began after they covered a pro-Palestine encampment set up on campus on May 1. >> p6
