UT Austin’s Jay Hartzell praised by GOP leaders as university presidents take heat over protest response

The call for state police to help wrangle protesters came from the university’s own president, Jay Hartzell. Across campus, many had assumed that Gov. Greg Abbott deployed the intense show of force on April 24, as he’d been vocal about his opposition to the pro-Palestinian protests elsewhere. But Hartzell told a state senator he called for backup because he was unwilling to let the University of Texas at Austin become the next Columbia University, which was making headlines as protesters erected encampments across campus. “[Protesters] indicated their desire to mimic what happened at Columbia and elsewhere, which we are doing our best to avoid for obvious reasons. Our police force couldn’t handle it alone,” he said in an April 25 text with State. Sen. Sarah Eckhardt, D-Austin, first reported by the Austin American-Statesman.

That was music to many Texas Republicans‘ ears. “President [Hartzell] is exactly the right man at the right time to lead our state’s flagship university,” said state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, in a social media post that derided the hundreds of “radical and feckless” faculty members who signed a letter of no confidence over Hartzell’s protest response. Rep. Cody Harris, R-Palestine, said on X, formerly known as Twitter, that “the vast majority of us think [Hartzell] is doing a fantastic job” and referred to student protesters as “snot-nosed, entitled, mindless brats.” UT Austin has joined the ranks of other universities in the national spotlight as hoards of protesters have been recorded being dragged, pepper sprayed and tear gassed by officers wearing riot gear. But Hartzell’s strategy, which so far has netted more than 130 arrests, has prevented encampments or building occupations that have forced presidents of other elite universities into protracted negotiations with students. This refusal to cede any ground earned him rare praise from Republican officials in an environment where university presidents are increasingly becoming punching bags for conservatives angry over their handling of pro-Palestinian protests. Unrest on college campuses has contributed in part to the resignations of the former presidents of Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania. And last week, U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson called on Columbia’s president to resign “if she could not immediately bring order to this chaos.”