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.
“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.”…