Naked City

UT students protest on the South Mall. Or sleep. Whichever. (Photo By John Anderson)

All speech is free at the University of Texas – as long as you follow the rules, that is. This is what a group of UT students learned when they tried to illustrate their concerns over the high cost of tuition by pitching some tents and camping out on the UT mall – big tuition bills eat up students' rent money, get it? Their theatre of protest was stymied early on, however, when UT administrators answered their application to erect a tent city with a list of rules that prohibited the use of tents for shelter (tents as "exhibits" are fine, as long as no one goes inside them), and forbade sleeping. Is this a violation of UT's policy that all students, faculty, and staff have the right to express their opinions wherever and whenever they choose? Not at all, says the handy list of rules that the UT office of student activities provided to the would-be tent dwellers to make sure they keep their free speech within acceptable bounds: "Sleeping is not expressive conduct, it is an unconscious state," they explained. So there.

The students see this as a way UT can pay lip service to free speech even while regulating it to death, and, therefore, one more thing to protest about. "I think we can stand there with a sign, but that's about it," said UT Watch member Dominique Cambou. Nevertheless, they did their best to follow the rules, staying up all night and taking their tents down in the morning. Some even made it to class that day.

Beyond the free speech concerns embodied by their tents, however, the students remained committed to their larger cause: drawing attention to legislative attempts to protect financial aid programs and rein in runaway tuition. "My main concern is making higher education accessible to everyone," said Pedro de la Torre of UT Watch. "It's getting worse and worse, and harder and harder for middle and lower-class families to afford higher education, which is the key to social mobility."

They got backing from Senators Rodney Ellis, D-Houston, and Tommy Williams, R-The Woodlands, who appeared on bicycles shortly after a dozen pizzas were delivered courtesy of Ellis' office. (Williams promised he'd also pitch in on "victuals.") Decked out in a blue lycra biking top, Ellis surveyed the pizza boxes and soda cans, reminded the students that a proper protest ends with cleaning up after yourself, and then chatted with a group of University Democrats about prospects for protecting tuition rates and the TEXAS Grant program, of which he was an original champion. Currently, the Lege is considering cutting by 40% the program, which has provided about 60,000 low-income Texas students with tuition grants. Instead, needy students will be shuffled into the B-on-Time loan program, which offers grants to students who finish in four years with a B average, but makes students pay them back if they don't meet those requirements. The senators also want to see UT tuition stop rising. Williams, who has two Longhorn sons, sponsored a bill that would cut state appropriations for any school that raised its designated tuition – the portion of tuition over which regents have control – beyond $94 per credit hour, UT's current rate. (The board of regents this spring approved a 4.75% tuition increase for UT-Austin, which would follow a 37% increase the year before.)

Ellis admitted that keeping higher education affordable is an "uphill battle," but added, "I feel better about the prospects of keeping them from devastating the TEXAS Grant program."

As the sun faded from the sky, the two senators strapped on their helmets, bade the students farewell, and pedaled off toward Town Lake for a quick, bipartisan battle of the bulge. Looking somewhere between awed and bemused, University Democrats president Marcus Ceniceros watched them go. "That's so awesome," he said.