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Compiled by Pedro de la Torre

Recent History

Students begin organizing to save Players, a burger joint on MLK that has been part of the UT community since 1981. UT is attempting to use eminent domain to seize the property of this local, minority run business to build a parking garage for its proposed hotel and conference center.

Tent State University - Austin

Students from UT Watch, MEChA, LULAC, Student Labor Action Project (SLAP), Food Not Bombs, and Students for the ACLU camp out on the Main mall for three days in order bring attention to proposed cuts to state grant programs, rising tuition, and the need for less restrictive free speech policies. Administrators respond by threatening disciplinary measures, trying to enforce non-existent rules about sleeping on campus.

2005 Legislative Session

Various student groups lobby the Texas Legislature on several issues, including free speech, saving the Top Ten % Program, tuition relief, civil liberties, protecting grant programs, gay rights, and putting a student on the Board of Regents.

Physic Students' Sleep-In

Several physics students occupy a hallway in RLM for roughly one week to save their undergraduate student lounge. Faculty had proposed to transform the room from student space to a faculty lounge.

Hunting Immigrants

In response to plans by the Young Conservatives of Texas (YCT) to stage an "Illegal Immigrant Hunt," 300-400 students stage a counter-demonstration in the West Mall. The proposed hunt involved chasing a YCT member in a shirt with the words "Illegal Immigrant" brandished on the back.

UT Watch and several other campus and community groups begin organizing to stop UT's bid to manage Los Alamos National Laboratory, including hosting multiple forums and teach-ins and distributing pamphlets. UT at one point drops out of the bid only to re-enter it months later.

Shuttle Driver's Struggle

UT shuttle drivers struggle for a new contract and a pay raise. They had gone years without a pay raise, had their health benefits cut twice in one year, and were paid $5 less per hour than others doing the same work. The bus drivers are able to win a new contract without striking.

Elections

Students, most notably the University Democrats, initiate a large voter registration drive, and work on several campaigns. UT Watch publishes a student voter guide rating the candidates' stances on higher education issues.

In coordination with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers' nationwide boycott of Taco Bell, several groups including the Student Labor Action Project (SLAP) attempted to remove the Taco Bell at the Texas Union. In the end, the nationwide boycott comes out victorious, increasing pay raises and gaining a voice at the negotiating table with the corporation.

Students Against War Sit-in, Walk-out, Teach-in, and get Roughed-up

3000 to 4000 students walk out of their classes in protest of a potential War on Iraq, marking the largest student protest in 30 years. Students gather at the MLK statue and march around campus. Students then congregate on the Main Mall for an unpermitted rally in violation of the University's "free" speech rules. For three nights, students campout with tents and signs at the grassy flagpole areas on Main Mall as a buildup to the WalkOut.

Once the war starts, 15 students take over the Guadalupe and 24th street intersection, bound together through PVC pipes, rope, and carabineers. While advertising for this event, a student chalking a message for a rally on the Main Mall is assaulted by a uniformed UTPD officer.

Affirmative Action and the U.S. Supreme Court

Around a dozen UT students travel to Washington D.C. to join 50,000 other high school and college students to demand that affirmative action be upheld. The visit coincided with the two lawsuits brought against the University of Michigan that threatened to eradicate affirmative action nationwide.

Tuition Deregulation and the 2003 Legislative Session

In response to a possibly illegal lobbying campaign by the unelected administration to take tuition setting authority from the state legislature, UT Watch, YCT, and Student Government lobby for affordable education and an accountable tuition setting regime. However, a small group of politicians struck an 11th hour deal on the budget, deregulating tuition.

The UT administration attempts to pass the "Infrastructure Fee," which would have been the single largest fee increase in history. Four students start UT Watch as a response to monitor the University's finances. During the ensuing summer, the Texas Attorney General rules that the fee is illegal.

In response to delays in the creation of an Asian American Studies department, students stage a rally and occupied the Main Building. Ten students were arrested, and three professors were given criminal trespassing citations by the UTPD.

100 students occupy the Main Building to demand that President Faulkner make a public statement and hold several town hall meetings on the future of affirmative action at UT after the Hopwood decision. 40 students stay overnight, and the students win the meetings.

Ancient History

The day that follows the now infamous Kent State University shootings where the National Guard kills 4 college students, Tom Hayden and Yale students call for a nationwide strike that shut down 30% of U.S. universities in order to stop the war in Vietnam and its escalation into Cambodia and Laos and end university collusion in the war machine.

Thousands of UT students march to the Capitol using diversionary measures to evade police blockades. Students and police fought with fists, rocks, and tear gas. Police even shot off tear gas inside the Capitol, angering the state employees caught in the crossfire. The following day 10,000 students gathered for an all-day rally, and partied all night. Snipers are positioned on the roof-tops of buildings between UT and downtown since they are told to shoot and kill anyone who leaves campus.

A few days later, over 25,000 people at UT protest the killings at Kent State and the invasion of Cambodia. This is the largest student protest in Austin's history.

Over 10,000 people participate in what was, at the time, the largest protest in Austin's history. Students picket, hold teach-ins, perform guerilla theatre, boycott class, and march to end the Vietnam War.

Growth of "Counter-Cultural" Institutions

By the end of 1969, Austin was home to a variety of counter cultural institutions, such as a shelter for people on bad acid trips, food and housing coops, and alternative schools.

The Chuckwagon - a former grungy but popular café in the Student Union

Police enter the Chuckwagon to apprehend a runaway girl and are followed outside by 150 angry students as they drag her to the police car. Students get pissed, slash the police's tires, kick their car, and throw rocks and bottles.

Later, non-students are banned from the using the Union, but 500 students protest by entering the café and refuse to show ID. Thousands later arrive and block the doors to keep the cops out, but riot police stormed the Union. Mace, tear gas and night sticks were used to force the students out of their union, while the National Guard stood watch.

Felony charges are pressed against 22 of the protesters, who face 2-20years in prison. Some are beaten in jail. Many students are again outraged when riot after a football game is tolerated by police.

Students from UT and Huston-Tillotson begin a campaign to end segregation on the Drag. Students for Direct Action is formed. White supremacists set off a bomb at the YMCA where civil rights activists hold their meetings. No one was injured, and two UT students are later charged for involvement in the bombing.

The following year, 55 black students hold a sit-in at Kinsolving in order to desegregate UT dormitories. Administrators disciplined many of the students, and refused to integrate the dorms until May of 1964.

Much of the older research was taken from History of Student Activism at the University of Texas at Austin (1960-1988) by Beverly Burr (Spring 1988). The entire thesis is online at www.utwatch.org/archives/burr/.

You can also see a history of UT student, staff, and faculty struggle at www.utwatch.org/timeline