Texas law students warn that bill to quash “terrorist activity” in universities could trample free speech rights

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Law school students and civil rights organizations warned senators on Wednesday that a measure that would require universities to report students accused of supporting terrorist activities to federal authorities could turn their schools into immigration enforcement agencies.

More than half a dozen students from the University of Texas at Austin testified against Senate Bill 2233. The bill, authored by Sen. Adam Hinojosa, a freshman Republican from Corpus Christi, would require universities and colleges to prohibit their visa-holding students and employees from publicly supporting or persuading others to support terrorist activities related to an ongoing conflict.

The bill, which took up a majority of the K-16 Education Committee’s time Wednesday morning before they adjourned to the Senate floor, uses the federal government’s definition of terrorist activity, which includes the highjacking or sabotaging of aircrafts, vessels or vehicles; seizing or detaining and threatening to kill, injure or continue to detain another individual in order to compel a third person, including a governmental entity, to do or abstain from doing something; a violent attack upon an internationally protected person; an assassination; or the use of any biological or chemical agent, nuclear weapon, explosive, firearm or any other dangerous device for purposes other than mere personal monetary gain.

The bill does not define what would constitute as supporting terroristic activity.

Under SB 2233, the universities would be required to suspend students for one year for the first violation and expel or terminate them for a second violation. Higher education institutions would also be required to report the students’ and employees’ suspensions, expulsions or terminations to the Department of Homeland Security and no other university or college in the state would be permitted to admit or hire them.

Everyone who testified before the committee Wednesday was in opposition to the bill. Many said the bill was too vague and could be used to either punish or discourage people from expressing their political views because doing so could be conflated as support for a terrorist organization. Others said it would open the door for universities to monitor and surveil visa-holding students. Some said universities might even have an incentive to do so because the bill also puts their funding at risk.

Those who testified on Wednesday, including representatives from the Texas Civil Rights Project and the American Civil Liberties Union, said SB 2233 would violate free speech rights protected under the First Amendment. They also raised concerns that it would violate the Fourth Amendment, which protects people against unreasonable searches and seizures by the government, and the Fourteenth Amendment, which guarantees the right to due process.

UT-Austin law student Alice Min told the committee that her parents came to the U.S. from China on a student visa after participating in a protest in 1989 that culminated in the massacre at Tiananmen Square. She said they came to the U.S. because they felt they did not have a say in China’s future and knew they would put themselves and their families in danger by speaking up. They are now U.S. citizens, she said. Her father is a professor and her mother works for FedEx.

“They are shocked and ashamed of the country that they have sought refuge in has become more and more like the country they have fled,” Min said.

SB 2233 is one of several bills aimed at addressing protests of the Israel-Hamas war that took place on campuses across the country last year and a rise in reports of antisemitism. The protests sparked a debate over what kind of behavior is considered antisemitic and which is protected by free speech rights. State leaders have condemned the protests as inherently antisemitic while protest organizers have defended their right to criticize Israel’s actions in the war.

The bill comes as more than 250 international students and at least one professor in Texas have either had their visas revoked or their immigration status marked as terminated in the Student and Exchange Visitor Information System, or SEVIS database. They have not been told the reason for the revocations or terminations, but DHS has said it is targeting those who have committed crimes and who it believes are antisemitic.

Last year, Texas ranked third in the United States for the state with the most international students, with 89,546 students, according to Open Doors, an organization that conducts an annual census of international students in the country and is sponsored by the federal government.

The Senate has already passed one measure related to combating antisemitism. SB 326 would require public schools to consider the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism and its examples if a student is found to have violated the school’s code of conduct and if administrators find that the violation could have been motivated by antisemitism. Some people, including Jews, have criticized the definition, saying it could lead to students being punished for protected speech that is critical of Israel.

That bill was authored by Sen. Phil King, R-Weatherford, who during Wednesday’s hearing said he took offense to one witness who said during their testimony that international students are being “kidnapped” by masked law enforcement officers across the country.

Both King and Sen. Brandon Creighton, R-Conroe, said law enforcement sometimes need to wear masks when carrying out their duties to protect their families from retaliation.

“When you say things like that it’s exceptionally offensive, particularly when you refer to them as kidnapping, because if they were kidnapping I guarantee you somebody, particularly in Travis County, would have been filing charges against them,” King said. “They’re operating either with a warrant or under some other lawful authority to make that detention or apprehension.”

Creighton has a bill the committee is expected to consider later on Wednesday that in part would prohibit students from wearing masks, facial coverings, disguises or other means to conceal their identity when protesting. Creighton said he was proposing that measure to assist law enforcement in identifying students who have broken the law.

SB 2233 would also allow the attorney general’s office to bring suit against higher education institutions that do not comply with this law and for a court to fine them 1% of their annual budget per instance of failure to comply.

The bill was left pending in committee after Democrat Sens. José Menéndez of San Antonio and Royce West of Dallas raised concerns with the bill, which also says that visa-holding students and employees would be prohibited from publicly supporting or persuading others to support terroristic activity or terrorist organizations “unless it is the policy or practice of the United States to support that activity or organization.”

“The whole bill is problematic, but that in particular makes no sense,” Menéndez said.

Kyle Zagon, a Jewish UT-Austin law student who also identified himself as a Zionist, said he has participated in debates with other students since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel that have both reaffirmed his convictions and taught him to be more empathetic.

“I will remind you that we are not your convenient victims. Jewish wellbeing, our safety, it is not an excuse to infringe on the rights of others, of Americans,” Zagon said. “To imply that our people, our very name, that means to wrestle with God, need to be protected from dissenting views, is infantilizing and opportunistic.”

The Texas Tribune partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.

Disclosure: University of Texas at Austin has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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