UT Dallas Punishes Student Journalist for Adding Disclaimer to Antisemitism Article

The former editor of the University of Texas at Dallas’ student newspaper, The Mercury, was placed on a deferred suspension this month for “discriminatory harassment” after adding an editor’s note to a student opinion piece about antisemitism on campus in 2024.

The journalist, Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, states that the disciplinary action follows a trend of retribution against former Mercury staff members that stems from the paper’s coverage of a pro-Palestine protest held on campus in May 2024. In fall 2024, administrators fired Gutierrez from his editor role, which led to the paper’s staff going on strike and starting their own, independent newspaper called The Retrograde. 

Gutierrez has appealed the disciplinary decision involving the published disclaimer, and as the appeals process is underway, the deferred suspension will be lifted. According to the UT Dallas code of conduct, a deferred suspension means that a student’s suspension from campus is postponed but will become automatic if that student is found responsible for any additional rule violations. In Gutierrez’s mind, it’s only a matter of time before the university finds something additional to punish him for, ultimately forcing him from campus and chilling free speech. 

“I think this is a clear setup for a future suspension of me if I do something they don’t like. If I publish an article that makes an administrator look bad, [they could say], ‘Well, Gregorio is already on deferred suspension, now let’s drop the hammer,’” Gutierrez said. “[It’s also] a big, telltale sign of what they plan to do to try to subvert the news coverage [The Retrograde] does.”

The deferred suspension comes only one month after Gutierrez and the staff of The Retrograde were named winners of the Student Press Law Center’s 2025 Courage in Student Journalism award. In a statement, Gary Green, executive director of the Student Press Law Center, said their work “in the face of their administration’s interference with a free student press” is evidence of the importance of student journalism, “even, and especially, when they face censorship, intimidation or retaliation.” 

Officials at UT Dallas did not respond to the Observer’s request for comment. 

Free Speech at UT Dallas

A letter sent last week to UT Dallas administrators by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a free speech advocacy group, urges the university to rescind the judgment that placed Gutierrez on deferred suspension. According to the letter and Gutierrez, an investigation into his conduct was launched in August 2024 while he was still the editor-in-chief of The Mercury. 

The complaint centered on a Letter to the Editor submitted to the paper by a leader of the Jewish student group UT Dallas Hillel, regarding campus antisemitism. The piece discussed the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas, the resulting cultural shift felt by Jewish students on American university campuses and the authors’ positive perception of Israel. Gutierrez responded to the submission by requesting sources for some of the claims made in the piece, such as the number of people killed in the Oct. 7 attack. The letter also accused The Mercury of perpetuating campus antisemitism through its coverage. 

Ultimately, Gutierrez decided to run the article with a short disclaimer even though the edits were not made because he felt it was “important to talk about antisemitism” and “hear a student express their concerns.” 

The disclaimer read: “The information presented within this letter to the editor is the opinion of the author and should not be treated as news. On June 12, a UN commission found Israel guilty of “crimes against humanity of extermination, gender persecution targeting Palestinian men and boys, murder, forcible transfer, and torture and inhuman and cruel treatment.” The presentation of opinion as fact within this article, despite repeated requests to address the issue, does not meet the journalistic standards of The Mercury.”

According to FIRE, which has previously represented Gutierrez in free speech issues involving the university, the disclaimer was deemed by UT Dallas’ Office of Institutional Compliance to be “unprecedented,” “subjectively and objectively offensive,” and “severe and pervasive,” thereby amounting to discriminatory harassment. Gutierrez said that, over the course of the investigation, he was asked by administrators to defend basic news practices he’d done while in his editor capacity. 

“It felt like I was explaining basic principles of what an opinion is, what news is, to these administrators who are supposed to be in charge of dealing with severe sexual harassment and actual hate crime [claims] on campus,” Gutierrez said. “[I was] explaining the most basic fundamentals of media to them because, apparently, editing stories for facts counts as discrimination.”  

“If a student can get put on deferred suspension or outright suspended for simply doing their job, what does that say to other prospective journalists at UTD? What does that say to journalists across the UT system … that they are in a school that so brazenly will attack free speech and free expression?” He added.

Editor’s notes or disclaimers are a standard practice, outlined in the Society of Professional Journalists’ Code of Ethics, and newspapers are generally under no obligation to print any given Letter to the Editor or submitted piece in the first place. Additionally, the organization argues that Gutierrez’s editorial decisions, as a member of a public student newspaper, are protected by the First Amendment. 

Over the last three years, FIRE has identified six separate instances of free speech suppression at UT Dallas. The group ranks the university 240th out of 257 schools for its protection of free speech. FIRE Student Press Counsel Marie McMullan told the Observer that UT Dallas has never previously reversed a policy or administrative action in response to a complaint from the organization. 

“UT Dallas has the opportunity now to correct its course of action through the disposition of Gregorio’s appeal and to ensure a student editor is not disciplined for editing the school newspaper,” McMullan said. 

Gutierrez is halfway through his junior year at UT Dallas. While he says he doesn’t plan on stopping his work for the independent student paper he helped found, he worries about the precedent that will be set if university processes are successfully “weaponized” against student reporters exercising their right to free speech. After a year of what he describes as administrators working against the former Mercury staff members, he believes that it is clear that UT Dallas is “at the forefront of new ways to censor students.” 

“I think it’s tragic that I am used to it,” Gutierrez said. “When we’re so severed from the law and what a campus ought to do for its students, it becomes almost desensitizing. I’m not surprised that I’m on deferred suspension for editing and asking people for facts that would make their stories stronger, because honestly, that tracks. I’ll see what [the university] comes up with next.”