University of Texas police officers arrest a protestor within the pro-Palestinian encampment on the University of Texas at Austin campus on April 29, 2024A University of Texas at Austin lecturer was arrested and fired this week in connection with his participation in a pro-Palestinian demonstration on campus, raising fresh concerns among faculty members and free speech advocates about academic protections in the state.
According to Heyman’s arrest affidavit, DPS troopers accused him of yelling expletives at law enforcement during the protest, pulling away a trooper’s bike and making a motion with a water bottle “as if he were going to swing it and hit” a trooper. “This is a politically charged atmosphere that this occurred in,” Morris said. “I think in a normal atmosphere, the prosecutor would look at this, drop it pretty quickly. But I’m not sure that it’s going to move very quickly given what we’re in the middle of.”