UT Dallas Takes Down Free Speech Display
Jose Nino
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Leaders at University of Texas at Dallas recently took down popular free speech campus spirit rocks after several students painted multiple pro-Palestine and pro-Israel slogans on them. Such a censorship attempt has brought up concerns about censorship on campus.
The three boulders were initially installed in 2008. They were designed to showcase “event announcements, words of support and congratulations, welcome notes or creative endeavors,” according to the university’s website.
According to Josiah Sullivan of the College Fix, these rocks have been increasingly painted with politically polarizing messages such as “Black Lives Matter.”
These rocks were taken down towards the end of November after students used the rocks to inscribe statements such as “We are winning” to express support for Israel and “End the occupation” to manifest their solidarity with Palestinians.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression sent a letter to UTD administrators that was critical of the rocks’ removal and deeming the move as viewpoint discrimination.
“Students have used the rocks for political expression, and the university has permitted this use, over the course of their existence. Removing this forum now over objections to students’ political viewpoints about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict constitutes impermissible viewpoint discrimination,” FIRE said in the email statement.
“By providing the rocks for students’ political (and other) messages, UT Dallas created, at the very least, a limited public forum for student speech,” the memo noted.
“Allowing the rocks’ use for political expression does not prevent UT Dallas from imposing reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions. But because UT Dallas has both in policy and practice continuously held open the rocks for the purpose of student expression, including political speech, it cannot now limit that speech—or cut it off entirely—because it disfavors some of the views expressed,” the memo added.
The controversy started in the middle of October 2024. The Mercury, UTD’s student newspaper, posted photos of the rocks. The rocks were painted over 11 times with pro-Palestinians and pro-Israel displays changing hands over the span of three days.
The University’s Division of Student Affairs published a statement announcing the stones’ removal where it argued that the stones were only meant for, and have been usually used for, promoting school activities and to foment school spirit over the years.
“For several weeks, messages on the rocks have been inconsistent with their original purpose and guidelines. After careful consideration, the rocks have been removed,” the university declared.
“The spirit rocks were not intended to be a display for extended political discourse, and because painted messages have been negatively impacting people on and off campus, our best solution was to remove them.”
UTD students were not exactly fans of this move to take down the rocks.
According to a social media poll, 92% of the 1,532 students who responded to the poll disagreed with the removal decision, according to the Mercury.
“They claim to value student input and the student voice, but they took away the only form of student voice or student expression that exists on campus,” UT Dallas Student Government President Srivani Edupugant reportedly proclaimed.
No acts of violence, aggression, or attacks connected to the rocks have been reported.
Simply put, UTD’s actions are a petty form of free speech policing on campus. This should not stand in a country that supposedly markets itself as free.
Moreover, these types of conflicts kicking off at university campuses are the product of the US’s mistaken foreign policy in Israel where it fosters blowback among Muslim and other students sympathetic with the Palestinian cause. To make matters worse, the US’s immigration system is importing these ethnic conflicts to our campuses.
Overall, the US needs to stick to its guns by protecting free speech on campuses, restraining foreign policy, and restricting immigration so that it avoids all forms of blowback.
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