A showdown Abbott anticipated
Make no mistake, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wanted this confrontation with student protesters at the University of Texas at Austin. He had been warning since December he would have little tolerance if what he saw on Ivy League campuses spread here.
While free speech advocates have blasted Abbott for flooding the state's flagship public university with state troopers in riot gear on Wednesday to intimidate and arrest Pro-Palestinian demonstrators, the show of force has been welcomed by a GOP base that is critical of universities nationwide for not doing more to shut down the protests.
"These protesters belong in jail," Abbott said on social media brandishing a law-and-order persona he's crafted over his three terms as governor. "Antisemitism will not be tolerated in Texas. Period. Students joining in hate-filled, antisemitic protests at any public college or university in Texas should be expelled."
But critics say Abbott and state leaders are responsible for unnecessarily escalating clashes on the campus by deploying riot police at a demonstration that had been peaceful. At least 50 people were arrested at a campus rally on Wednesday hosted by the Palestine Solidarity Committee, a registered student group that is a chapter of the Students for Justice in Palestine — two groups Abbott had been setting the stage to crack down on for more than a month.
On March 27, he issued an executive order that warned university leaders around the state to deal with a "sharp rise in antisemitic speech" he said was emerging on college campuses. That order warned specifically about the groups involved in rallies around Texas on Thursday.
"Ensure that these policies are being enforced on campuses and that groups such as the Palestine Solidarity Committee and Students for Justice in Palestine are disciplined for violating these policies," Abbott wrote in the order in reference to free speech rules on campuses that prohibit antisemitism.
Even further back in December, Abbott spoke to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board where he warned university leaders statewide if they didn't crack down on antisemitic speech.
"You have a leadership responsibility, to ensure that there is no one on your campuses that are advocating for genocide or antisemitism," Abbott, a University of Texas graduate, said. "It is completely unacceptable in the state of Texas, period."
More about how Abbott was bracing for this fight in my latest piece here.
 | Jeremy Wallace, Texas politics reporter |
Who's up, who's down
Up: Pro-Palestinian demonstrators.
Most of the demonstrators arrested Wednesday at the University of Texas at Austin campus have had their charges dropped, officials and lawyers said. And those arrests clearly did nothing to stop more demonstrations on Thursday as students once again held rallies in opposition to Israel's military offensive in Gaza.
Down: Texas gas producers.
They are facing an uncertain future under new regulations announced by the Biden administration Thursday that would force power companies to rein in greenhouse gas emissions. Under finalized rules from the Environmental Protection Agency, coal and new natural gas plants would be required to control 90% of their greenhouse gas emissions through the installation of carbon capture and storage systems over the decade ahead, potentially forcing a shift away from fossil fuels in the power sector.
What do you think? Hit reply and let me know.
What else is going on in Texas
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Pick of the day
Photo by: Jeremy Wallace
That's the size of the budget deficit Harris County is suddenly facing because of lower-than-expected property tax revenue and increasing costs of operating the criminal justice system. Reporter Jen Rice says just a few months ago they were projecting a small surplus. She looked into what happened and how county officials are prepared to tackle it.
What else I'm reading
With Congress threatening the future of TikTok, the social media app is turning to former San Francisco District Attorney Suzy Loftus to help make the public case that American user data is being protected by a team of U.S. workers without Chinese influence. She tells St. John Barned-Smith of the San Francisco Chronicle: "Ours is a team of 2,000 employees here in the U.S. And it's our job to make sure that protected U.S user data is only accessed under our control."
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