May 1, 2024, 4:30 AM.
In the moments just before sunrise, a group of students and faculty at the University of Texas at Dallas begin to pitch their tents at Chess Plaza.
Just days before, they had witnessed DPS troopers in Austin, donning riot gear and armed with assault rifles and grenade launchers to arrest over a hundred protestors in the span of two days.
The Chess Plaza group and the demonstrators in Austin both shared the same goal: Demand the UT system divest from military companies manufacturing munitions for Israel, whose siege of Gaza had killed approximately 34,000 Palestinians at the time of the protests.
By noon, ten tents were set up, and a group of around 100 students had gathered at the encampment. At 4:00 p.m., a mixture of DPS, Collin County and campus police officers, who had been hovering around the growing demonstration, began forcefully moving into the crowd, arresting at least 20 and tearing down the encampment.
During the push, a Fox 4 reporter was struck and injured by an officer with bolt cutters as he attempted to record the arrest of Ali Alibhai, an assistant art history professor. An hour later, police snipers were spotted on the roof of the Student Services building, and by 5:47 p.m., officers had cleared the plaza of all demonstrators.
Just a day earlier, two students, Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez and Maria Shaikh, became the editor-in-chief and managing editor of , the student newspaper of UT Dallas since 1980.
According to Olivares, he had to hit the ground running.
鈥淚 just saw like a ton of messages saying 鈥楾here鈥檚 an encampment on campus. What are you going to do about that?鈥� So we very quickly organized the plan,鈥� Olivares said. 鈥淲e had members of Mercury staff, including myself, just taking turns being at the encampment in the morning. We worked to get our very first article out by noon.鈥�
Print issue draws reprisals
On May 20, the Mercury released their first print issue since the encampments. The cover, which featured a photo of protestors facing a wall of state troopers read: 鈥�.鈥�
The eight pages present a timeline of how protest and police response unfolded by the hour, and an editorial written by Olivares, Shaikh, and two additional editors accused the administration, including UTD President Richard Benson, of 鈥渨eaponizing excessive force鈥� against student protestors.
It did not take long for the paper to land on the administration鈥檚 desks, or for them to make new decisions around then-interim Student Media Director Jonathan Stewart, who advised the Mercury.
鈥淭wo days after that issue was published, Jonathan was demoted,鈥� Olivares said. 鈥淎t the time, there were no grounds provided as to why he was demoted. He just told us that I was next on the chopping block if we didn鈥檛 watch out.鈥�
Jenni Huffenberger, a senior director for marketing and student media, took over Stewart鈥檚 position.
Huffenberger made her thoughts on the recent issue clear during a May 23 meeting with managing staff, which she did not know was being recorded.
鈥淪o the latest issue obviously has gotten the attention of the administration. What I am going to come in here and say is the critical approach starts right now. This is journalistic activism,鈥� Huffenberger said in the recording.
鈥淲hat I see here is wall-to wall-activism. And that really is journalistic malpractice. There has been a longstanding issue with getting [the] administration to speak with you all. I will tell you that this doesn鈥檛 help.鈥�
Concerns raised over prior review
In June, Lydia Lum was hired as the official director of Student Media. She had worked as a professional journalist for over 20 years, and it was her track record that led Olivares and Shaikh to approve her as the Mercury鈥檚 adviser.
However, there was one thing she mentioned during her interview that raised a red flag for Olivares and Shaikh: prior review of articles before publication.
鈥淒uring this interview, Lydia brings up that her previous publication that she advised for, the Horizon at Indiana University Southeast, that she used to basically read their articles and offer feedback and advice to them prior to publication,鈥� Shaikh said. 鈥淎nd we told her, 鈥榃e don鈥檛 want to do that here at the Mercury 鈥� That is too much (like) prior review for us and we would prefer that critiques happen after publication.鈥欌��
Besides pitch and editorial meetings, where staffers discuss story ideas and editors look over final articles, Lum was given 鈥渂lanket access,鈥� according to Shaikh. This included weekly meetings with Olivares, meetings which Shaikh says included discussion on 鈥渃ontent and angle decisions,鈥� as well as full access to students working in the office.
鈥淎nd she seemed super amenable to this,鈥� Shaikh said. 鈥淪o that鈥檚 when we went ahead with hiring her. We did not expect that issue to come back the way that it did.鈥�
On Aug. 23, in a meeting with the managing staff of the Mercury, Lum declared that members of the Mercury would be prohibited from attending collegiate student journalism conferences.
This 鈥渂usiness decision,鈥� as Lum called it, was due to not being allowed access to these traditionally private meetings over the summer. According to Lum, this made it impossible for her to choose delegates for these conferences.
Olivares immediately took issue with this justification, and in a recording of the meeting, he criticizes Lum over what he calls 鈥減unitive action鈥� against the Mercury. He also defends denying prior review as necessary towards maintaining editorial independence.
鈥淣ot prior review, just listening,鈥� Lum responded.
Beforehand, she had also justified her decision by claiming the staff acted like they had nothing left to learn.
鈥淵ou can complain all you want,鈥� Lum said. 鈥淚鈥檓 not trying to cut off your educational sources or anything like that, but if you really believe you have enough among you, then you don鈥檛 need to go to that, because I cannot make an informed choice on who to send. And that鈥檚 my responsibility.鈥�
Lum was not aware she was being recorded in the meeting.
Mike Hiestand, senior legal counsel to the , says that prior review is highly discouraged by the collegiate journalist community, largely due to the high potential it has to lead to censorship by university administrations.
鈥淲e鈥檝e got some good case law that indicates that even prior review, a reading only ahead of time, is also unlawful at the college level,鈥� Heistand said. 鈥淰ery often the people that are going to be reading the content, at least in schools, they鈥檙e sometimes the people that you鈥檙e covering.
The city paper doesn鈥檛 let the city council read their story about the city council before it鈥檚 published. It鈥檚 just bad journalism.鈥�
Olivares called before board
Unfortunately for Olivares, objecting to prior review would come at a cost.
On Sept. 12, he received an email from Lum containing a memo for a vote to be held by the Student Media Operating Board, which oversees all student media at UT Dallas, the next day. The meeting only contained one item: 鈥淩emoval of The Mercury Editor-in-Chief.鈥�
Three charges were brought against Olivares in the memo sent by Lum: 鈥淗olding a second appointment as a student employee,鈥� since Olivares also worked as a peer advisor, 鈥渃ost overruns鈥� involving physical prints of the Mercury and 鈥渂ypassing advisor involvement.鈥�
As the meeting began on Zoom, Olivares sat in a conference room in front of his computer, with managing staff members observing from the sides. The subsequent meeting would last over two hours.
One of the SMOB voting members on screen, undergraduate math senior Avery Bainbridge, had his doubts before the precedings even began.
鈥淭he meeting start was delayed initially. The chair of the board, Lydia Lum, explained to us that we were waiting for more people to come,鈥� Bainbridge said. 鈥淏ut actually, we found out later that everybody else on the board had already been contacted and said that they couldn鈥檛 make the time.鈥�
Emails show Lum told the five student voting members of the board that they 鈥渨ouldn鈥檛 need to attend鈥� due to the meeting鈥檚 鈥渦nusual鈥� nature, and that a 鈥渞eal meeting鈥� of the board would be scheduled soon. This supposed 鈥渞eal meeting鈥� never ended up taking place, and Bainbridge ended up being the only undergraduate voting member in attendance, along with one graduate student and two faculty members.
According to Bainbridge, Lum and other administrators almost immediately began peppering Olivares with personal attacks.
鈥淗e was interrupted and was called a liar, which is not appropriate behavior to have during a board meeting,鈥� Bainbridge said. 鈥淗e was able to provide information to us in a much more forthcoming way than the people who are making these allegations were doing.鈥�
Bainbridge was also disturbed by the lack of opportunities given to Olivares to respond to the allegations.
鈥淗e was initially held to just ten minutes to discuss and refute the allegations against him 鈥� And so he continued giving his statement, which was frequently interrupted by the student media administrators who were present to try to stop him from saying certain things or to refute his refutation.鈥�
To Bainbridge, the administrators failed to be impartial or fair throughout the discussions.
鈥淚t seems like no matter how well the editor-in-chief could refute the allegations that they brought against him, no matter how unfocused and unstructured those allegations were to begin with鈥� It seems like it was a foregone conclusion,鈥� Bainbridge said.
鈥淎t the end of the process, I felt sick.鈥�
In the end, the board decided to remove Olivares in a 3-1 vote, with Bainbridge being the only 鈥渘ay鈥� vote.
Mercury staff organizes and charts new path
Before the vote, Managing Editor Maria Shaikh had pitched a bold contingency plan to the Mercury鈥檚 student management: A full-blown, staff-wide strike.
鈥淚 get unanimous consent from everyone. Friday meeting happens. He鈥檚 fired. Honestly, we鈥檙e all in shock. We all intrinsically know that something significant just happened,鈥� Shaikh said. 鈥淪omething really major has just died and we are now in a completely new paradigm. And honestly, I cried.鈥�
After the vote, Shaikh and the management team quickly met at a restaurant to game it out.
The students put out a public strike statement the next day on the Mercury鈥檚 website, as well as on all social media accounts. The strike statement receives over 1,200 signatures, and in the Sept. 16 black-out print issue, one page reads: 鈥淲ant to read the rest of the Mercury? Bring our Editor-in-Chief back.鈥�
The day after the issue鈥檚 release, Olivares sent his appeal to the board.
According to the bylaws, the appeal should have been heard by SMOB, with Director Huffenberger acting as a final tiebreaker if the board failed to come to a consensus. However, Gene Fitch, vice president of student affairs, approved of Huffenberger bypassing the board and allowing her to reject the appeal on her own.
On Oct. 10, student affairs fired all ten remaining members of the Mercury managing staff. This included Shaikh who, due to her position as interim editor-in-chief, should have triggered a separate SMOB vote, but did not.
The Mercury has not published anything since its strike edition in mid-September.
But Olivares, Shaikh, and the rest of the Mercury鈥檚 staff weren鈥檛 finished just yet. Together, they founded a new, nonprofit paper called , completely independent of the administration.
After being recognized by the UTD Student Government as the official school newspaper, they鈥檝e been able to raise over $2,400 on GoFundMe, as well as gain additional grants and sponsorships to fuel development.
Through public information requests, the Retrograde says they鈥檝e collected well over 500 pages of internal documents regarding the administration鈥檚 actions against the Mercury, which they plan to release in late January.
And finally, after months of turbulence, Olivares is now editor-in-chief again.
鈥淚t felt really good 鈥� These people were willing to forsake the Mercury, willing to go and form a new student newspaper entirely from the ground up as a nonprofit,鈥� he said. 鈥淎nd that鈥檚 a lot of commitment. That鈥檚 a lot of effort to put in as a student. So I really appreciated it.鈥�
Texas Standard reached out to Student Media Director Lydia Lum, Senior Director Jenni Huffenberger, and Assistant Director Jonathan Stewart for comment on this story but did not receive a reply. Student Affairs Vice President Gene Fitch declined a request for comment.
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