Texas students launch newspaper after fight with administration

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In late January, the University of Texas at Dallas removed most newspaper stands that once held its official student publication: The Mercury.

The student-produced newspaper hadn’t published a physical edition since last fall after students went on strike over the firing of its editor, Gregorio Olivares Guiterrez, who defended the organization’s coverage of pro-Palestinian protests on campus.

In the following months, Olivares Guiterrez and his colleagues launched an alternative news organization The Retrograde. The students published the first hardcopy edition Jan. 23, one day after the newsstands were removed from campus.

Without newsstands, Olivares Gutierrez and his fellow student journalists passed out by hand more than a thousand copies

He watched as more and more people flipped open the eight-page edition. Inside, a flashy spread of purple, with the banner headline: “Public records revealed.” The article contained what Olivares Gutierrez had learned from examining a thousand emails administrators had sent and received following pro-Palestine protests at UT-Dallas. He reported that the university tried to downplay an update to its free speech guidelines to prohibit tents and barricades in the days after a contentious pro-Palestine protest on campus.

“I don’t want to be the sole knower of this,” Olivares Guiterrez said.

Olivares Guiterrez and his peers launched the Retrograde without university funding or oversight after clashing with the administration over their coverage of those protests while working for the Mercury. They say after that coverage, administrators replaced their adviser with one who wanted to attend editorial meetings and read stories before they printed. When Olivares Guiterrez resisted, the adviser called for him to be fired.

The Retrograde’s creation and the drama that preceded it underlines tensions between students and public university administrators, who state leaders have expected to strongly condemn the pro-Palestinian protests as antisemitic. University of Texas at Austin President Jay Hartzell called in state troopers when students and community members protested the university’s investing in manufacturers supplying Israel weapons in its strikes on Gaza, and UT-Dallas President Richard Benson did the same a few days later. Hartzell’s actions were praised by lawmakers in the state’s capitol. Benson’s appears to have received less of their attention, but this was not the first time the university was accused by students and faculty of stifling free speech. It came under fire in 2023 for removing three boulders on campus — known as Spirit Rocks — after groups painted dueling pro-Israel and pro-Palestine messages on them.

UT-Dallas officials have denied their decisions had anything to do with the Mercury’s content. They said they hope to revive the Mercury, after making some changes to how student media is governed.

Fallout from protest coverage 

The Mercury staff published multiple stories that questioned whether UT-Dallas should have brought state troopers in to dismantle an encampment and arrest 21 people on May 1. The Mercury reported the university did not respond to numerous requests for comment, so they included some of what Benson wrote about the incident in an op-ed for the Dallas Morning News.

Benson said UT-Dallas “staunchly protects the rights of free speech and free assembly,” but had to call law enforcement after it became clear the protesters would not comply with a request to move or disassemble the encampment, which was impeding faculty, staff and students from their daily tasks.

“It is important to note that no one was arrested for being a protester,” he said.

One of the Mercury’s top stories was an interview with an art history professor who was arrested. It garnered more than 100 comments online, most of them critical of the university and Benson.

Olivares Gutierrez said after publication, an administrator called him and then-Mercury managing editor Maria Shaikh into a meeting. That administrator told them they had committed “journalism malpractice,” but wouldn’t explain how.

The university then hired a new adviser, who wanted to attend editorial meetings and read stories before they were published. The staff resisted.

Tensions boiled over in September when Olivares Gutierrez was removed as editor-in-chief at a last-minute meeting of the board that governs the Mercury. He said the university then didn’t follow its own procedures to consider his appeal.

UT-Dallas officials declined to comment on disciplinary proceedings or on personnel matters other than to say the Mercury’s prior adviser was serving on an interim basis and is currently assistant director of student media. They also said they are working with the student government to revise the Student Media Operating Board’s bylaws to be more clear about everyone’s roles going forward.

The bylaws state the adviser, also known as the director of student media “is responsible for general oversight of the material, programming, business affairs and operating procedures of all UTD student media” and “shall attend all staff meetings and training sessions conducted by UTD student media in an advisory capacity.”

The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and the Student Press Law Center have insisted the bylaws be amended to give student editors the ability to make decisions about the newspaper’s leadership, discipline and policies.

“The SMOB’s oversight authority over The Mercury and other UTD student media directly invites the kind of impermissible content control prohibited by the First Amendment,” the groups wrote in a letter to UT-Dallas that has gone unanswered.

Student journalists’ rights and trends

Courts have repeatedly ruled that the First Amendment forbids college administrators from censoring or taking adverse action against student publications unless they can show a story would lead to a violent disruption in the educational environment or is obscene, libelous or invades someone’s privacy.

Some states have built upon those rights, enacting laws to protect college student journalists from censorship and advisers from retaliation for refusing to censor them. Texas is not one of them, and this is a time when student journalists are under pressure the likes of which have not been seen since the Vietnam War. Some who have covered protests to the Israel-Hamas war have been expelled and arrested in the past year, said Jonathan Gaston Falk, a staff attorney at the Student Press Law Center.

Still, he believes student media can have both university support and editorial independence.

“Unfortunately, this movement of protests has called that into question a bit, but there are still plenty of effective models,” Gaston Falk said.

The Brechner Center for the Advancement of the First Amendment at the University of Florida studied some of these models in 2024. It found that a majority of student news outlets get some of their funding from their associated university and have university-paid faculty or staff advise them.

To combat the threats associated with this, it recommended making the university agree in writing when an adviser will intervene and how. It found one attempt to do this via student media operating boards and their bylaws.

Other UT system student newspapers have also been critical of their universities’ response to protests last year and appear to not have faced any repercussions, but that may be because they are set up differently than the Mercury.

The Mercury is supported by student fees and advertisements. It is housed under the university’s Student Affairs Office and is allocated $65,000 annually. It is overseen by the Student Media Operating Board, which consists of five students and two faculty members. The student government president can recommend nominees to the board, but the university’s vice president of Student Affairs has the final say on who serves.

The Daily Texan is partially funded by UT-Austin and also has a university employee advising it. It, too, is overseen by a board where students hold the majority. But unlike the Mercury, students are elected by the student body to the board. The Daily Texan’s editor-in-chief is also chosen that way.

The Retrograde is pursuing a 501c3 nonprofit status, which few student media outlets around the country have. The Brechner Center counted 52 in 2024, including UT-San Antonio’s Paisano. It operates under the Paisano Educational Trust, which has been a nonprofit since 1989.

Crowdfunding pays for records request 

UT-Dallas does not offer a degree in journalism, but its students are no less committed to the field.

They designed the Retrograde’s website in two weeks while waiting for Olivares Gutierrez’s appeal of his firing to play out. They refused to give the university the password for the Mercury’s Instagram. They argued the account had been created and maintained by students, so it belonged to them. They renamed it and directed the Mercury’s followers to the Retrograde’s website when Olivares Gutierrez’s appeal was denied. There, on Sept. 30, readers found coverage of the university similar to that of the Mercury’s — a feature on an alumni-owned restaurant, an update on the latest actions of student government.

They planned to continue publishing online biweekly until they raised enough money to print. The $900 advertisement FIRE took out in January allowed them to do that.

In the lead-up to the publication, the university called the police on students for being in the now-empty Mercury office. It picked up Mercury kiosks from campus so they couldn’t be used to distribute the Retrograde. Katherine Morales, UT-Dallas’ associate vice president of media relations, said police were called after one student was repeatedly asked to leave the office and refused. She said it was after hours and the office was not a public space. No students were arrested. As for the kiosks, they’re considered a limited public forum, but students and others in the community may distribute literature in the university’s common areas.

Oliveres Gutierrez said despite these hiccups, the students put out 1,900 copies of the Retrograde in the past two weeks and only 33 remained as of Monday.

This has only caused the students to focus more on the Retrograde rather than returning to the Mercury.

For Shaikh, building the Retrograde was scary and stressful at times, but worth it. She had worked her way up at the Mercury, earning $150 a month as a copy editor to $750 a month as managing editor. She was scared they would not be able to attract students to work for no pay. This has so far not ended up being the case.

“I remember ending up in tears a couple of times because there was so much we were unsure about,” she said.

Shaikh, who now serves as the Retrograde’s managing editor, is majoring in biochemistry; Olivares Gutierrez in political science and philosophy. Both said working at the Mercury helped them grow in ways their classes couldn’t.

“It has really helped me break out of my shell and talk to people who I never would have even thought to talk to before,” Shaikh said. “That has done so much for me and my confidence and my self growth that I really want for that option to exist in the future.”

They also think an independent press must exist to keep UT-Dallas accountable. The main story of the Retrograde’s inaugural print edition was the product of a public records request the students spent nearly $3,000 to receive. They expect to receive more records in the coming months and plan to review and report on them when they do.

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

Disclosure: University of Texas – Dallas and University of Texas at Austin have been financial supporters 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.