UT Teaching Assistants Fired Over Letter Supporting Palestinian Students

Gaza before the October conflict (image via Getty Images)

Just before Thanksgiving break, two UT-Austin teaching assistants, Parham Daghighi and Callie Kennedy, were approached by a student asking if they could provide mental health resources for Palestinian, Muslim, and Arab students, given the context of the escalating violence in Gaza. Their first-year course, Women & Madness, focuses on the history of psychiatry, with emphasis on institutional harm done to marginalized groups. The TAs say they took the request to their professor, Dr. Lauren Gulbas, and that the three of them spent more than an hour crafting a message to students including counseling resources and a statement saying "we do not support the University's silence around the suffering many of our students, staff, and faculty are experiencing on campus. ... We firmly support the rights and autonomy of Palestinians."

A few days later, Kennedy and Daghighi say the professor notified them that an anonymous student had gone to the School of Social Work Dean Allan Cole, saying the message made them feel unsafe. On November 22, Cole fired them with a letter, effective immediately.

In the letter, Cole wrote that the TAs "lack the professional judgment required for the role," disallowed them from working as TAs next semester – though they retain their pay and benefits for the semester – and pointed to three justifications for the firing: that the message they sent was "unprompted," that it was "unrelated to the course," and that it was done "without the approval of a supervising faculty member."

Kennedy says those claims are false: A student's request prompted the action and the professor approved it, plus "the content of the class is heavily focused on mental health" and "the style of the class is what's referred to as a signature course at UT. Part of the explicit mission of signature courses is to promote university resources for first-year students."

However, an email sent to students after the firing appears to conflict with the TAs' characterization of Gulbas' support, at least after the fact. Though the university declined to specify who sent it, the author references "working closely with my Dean and University administration to address this matter" and asserts "our Canvas page should be reserved for University and class-related messages – not messages relaying personal viewpoints on current events." Gulbas did not respond to the Chronicle's multiple requests for comment.

When asked for a statement, the Dean's Office stood by the decision, saying the TAs "unprofessionally misused the official University classroom communication platform to send a personal political message to the students in a course. This is inconsistent with the recent statements made by the teaching assistants, who now suggest their message was merely an attempt to share mental health resources and that the content of the message was related to the course."

The TAs say their message was not "overtly political or inflammatory," but rather "offered mental health resources to a neglected student population," says Daghighi. He and Kennedy are pursuing an appeal because they say the dean flouted UT's due process standards in firing them, but the decision also has broader implications, echoing professional retaliation for speaking in support of Palestinians sweeping many fields across the country. "We're fully aware that this is not an isolated issue," says Kennedy. "The university is proclaiming free speech, but failing to protect it in reality."

Last month, more than 1,000 UT students walked out of classes calling for the school to release a statement acknowledging violence against Palestinians specifically, which it has not done. "That's a gap that we identified, and because of the ethical demands of our training, we made the choice to acknowledge that gap," says Daghighi.

Many have come out in support of the TAs, flagging that the firing is part of a deeply concerning national trend of censorship. Presidents of colleges across the country are facing intense backlash for public statements (or the lack thereof); Harvard is under federal investigation for both antisemitic and anti-Muslim harrassment. This week, 111 UT-Austin faculty signed a letter to President Jay Hartzell, writing "this political moment poses a threat to the democratic mission of higher education not seen since the McCarthy era."

They say the firing "sends an intimidating message to other students and instructors on campus ... which is becoming increasingly hostile to anyone demonstrating support for the Palestinian people. ... Meanwhile, UT administrators have failed to meaningfully act on the intimidation and threats Palestinian students and their allies have faced on and offline. ... This double standard contributes to a chilling effect on members of our campus community and concern that your administration does not support those who might condemn Israel's actions."

The faculty echo the Palestine Solidarity Committee's demands that the TAs be reinstated and that the school express equal support for Palestinian and Jewish community members and "establish a clear policy indicating that retaliatory actions in response to instructors' and students' right to free speech will not be tolerated." At a protest last Friday, 60 demonstrators read the demands to Dean Cole at the School of Social Work. The university issued a statement Wednesday that "Friday's activities toward a University leader stem from intentionally false narratives and a coordinated disinformation campaign. We are investigating and will punish those found to violate our rules, policies, or the law."