Battle scars litter the hallowed hall of the UTD Student Media office. For decades, the students toiling to produce a deluge of news media and entertainment have been at odds with each other. From the inception of A Modest Proposal during what historians today call the first student media war to the full fledged cyber attacks of the fourth student media war, the members of student media have remained a contentious bunch. Now a new contender enters the field of battle, the goliath of campus administration preparing itself to go toe to toe against the feral members of Student Media. That a fifth Student Media war has arisen speaks volumes about the severe administrative failures and oversights within the misbegotten Office of Student Affairs. 

To understand the conflicts of the modern era, one must first understand the strife of the past. Founded in 1980, The Mercury would be the first branch of student media to arise, and its dominion would exist uncontested for 22 years. In 2002, RadioUTD would arise from the shadows as music enthusiasts on-campus gathered within damp ECS closets full of radio equipment to begin their underground station. They would operate in secret until 2004, when the Office of Student Affairs extended their beneficent aid unto the radio-heads by bringing them into the fold of Student Media. In 2003, a noble sect of Mercury dissidents would break away from the stifling order of the newspaper to form their own satire and opinion magazine, known today as AMP, on the grounds that The Mercury had forsaken its journalistic ethics to disparage student organizations and be overly zealous in its defense of campus administration. 

The formation of AMP is considered the First Student Media War. A usurpation of the means of publication would occur as AMP founders made use of the same printing company that The Mercury did. Faction lines were drawn and closed door policies were instituted. The Second Student Media War would be dragged out across the next five years. The members of AMP would operate in secret, moving their base of operations between different University Village apartments as leadership graduated and housing situations changed. Those who worked for AMP were prohibited from working at The Mercury and vice versa. Rivalries both petty and valid would fester and flare during this period as each organization demanded the fickle attention of the student body, at the time a mere third of what exists today. In 2008, Student Affairs brought AMP into the fold of Student Media and provided them with a dedicated space on the third floor of the McDermott Library. Likewise, in 2008 a humble film club would be elevated into UTD-TV. 

The Third Student Media War would begin in 2010 when all four organizations were brought together in one office under the supreme leadership of a new Director of Student Media, Chad Thomas. The feuds of the past would not be forgotten, and now not only would the printed publications fight over politics and opinions, but would find new allies in their sister organizations. UTD-TV would ally itself with The Mercury and RadioUTD with AMP. Conflicts would simmer on and off until 2015, after which relative peace endured with only brief skirmishes. That peace would be broken during the Covid-19 pandemic as a new wave of online conflict broke out. The bitter rivalry reached such a violent degree that weapons of web destruction were deployed against AMP and The Mercury’s websites. Legend says that ancient malware still lingers within both websites to this day. Student Media would recover from this fourth war with a new sense of unity across all the organizations, as the remaining students were for the first time all amicable with each other. Thus began the short-lived Golden Age of Student Media. This age would come to an abrupt halt with the onset of the Fifth Student Media War. 

The start date of the conflict remains contested. The divestment school of thought would say that the conflict began as early as Spring 2023 when the Student Government passed its resolution in support of divestment and The Mercury chose to cover this, only for Supreme Leader Richard Benson to distance himself publicly from the student body in a letter to the Texas Jewish Post. Those of the Spirit Rock school of thought would say that the conflict began in Fall 2023, with the sudden and cruel removal of the Spirit Rocks from campus after a hidden decree from the Office of Student Affairs. And yet, many other people would say that the shitshow only truly began on May 1, 2024. This date marks the first time a student encampment has ever formed on the UTD premises, and the first time state troopers have been called in to raid a student event and conduct mass arrests of students, faculty, alumni, and community members for daring to speak out against the university’s investments in weapons manufacturers whose products facilitate genocide. 

The true start date of this conflict ultimately doesn’t matter. Neither did the rules, policies, and bylaws of the university during this period. For during this era, the Office of Student Affairs began its dalliance with concepts such as absolutism and the divine right of administrators. The one word that mattered, was the word of administration. Students were but an annoying gnat whose ruckus was interfering with the most important function of UT Dallas, making copious amounts of money. 

On September 12, a missive was sent to the then Editor-in-Chief of The Mercury regarding a special Student Media Operating Board meeting to be held on September 13; that meeting had but one action item, the immediate removal of the Editor. The meeting was scheduled at a time wherein a majority of the voting student members could explicitly not attend, and the non-voting members were prohibited from coming. The scant few attendees, after discussing no evidence and merely relying upon the holy word of Jenni Huffenberger, the then Senior Director of Student Media, did not vote upon whether the Editor had violated any rules but instead elected to immediately remove the Editor from their position, thus beginning The Mercury’s strike. 

On September 16, a strike paper would be distributed across campus, a paper exceeding past distribution records with a 100% pick up rate. Stands had to be refilled multiple times to meet the student demand. Also on September 16, Student Affairs would retaliate by suspending all access to The Mercury’s email accounts, which were presumed to be the sole record of Mercury emails. And so Student Affairs began its posturing against the dissident student editors, stating that a special meeting of the Student Media Operating Board would be held to evaluate their continued employment within Student Media. No such meeting would be or has been held, yet the monetary harbingers at the Payroll Office began demanding that payments be returned for the month of September since according to Student Affairs, all stipended students at The Mercury had been fired from their positions. Student Affairs dared not engage with striking students, let alone inform them of their removal from office.

When groups such as the Student Government and Academic Senate intervened asking for some semblance of parliamentarian order, the most high Vice President of Student Affairs, Gene Fitch, would go so far as to tell these forums of campus opinion that while shared governance was a core value of this institution, they must learn their place and refrain from interfering in the matters of Student Affairs. As such, the bylaws would be thrown to the wayside despite being absolute uninterpretable law a mere week ago. Huffenberger would circumvent the Operating Board, and reaffirm her initial decision with no thought paid to the 26 page appeal document containing a menagerie of evidence submitted by the Editor to contest the erroneous decision of the 13th. 

Email after email was fired off by Student Affairs administrators. Emails intended as overtures of force only revealed the cracks in the administrative fortress, each one not only a blow to students but a blow to the public image of Student Affairs. Administrators showed themselves to be callous and indifferent to the wants of students and faculty, to the rules they themselves had written. 

The bylaws which govern Student Media are not some ancient bit of esoterica passed down between generations. They were created in 2017 when Amanda Smith, the current Dean of Students, chose to excise the bylaws from university policy, discarding heaps of definitions and points of clarification, to create a vague, unintuitive monstrosity. This act was taken on the stipulation that new policy be created to outline the relationship between Student Media and Student Affairs. No such policy was ever added to the Handbook of Operating Procedures. From the onset of the bylaws, Student Affairs was already disregarding the rules by which it was bound. 

The bylaws do not have any sorts of provisions for who functions as the chair of the committee. The bylaws do not have any provisions regarding who can call their meetings to order. The bylaws do not outline how to amend the bylaws, despite this being the reason they were apparently removed from the full handbook of operating procedures. The bylaws fail on every level to function and organize any sort of orderly body. A work is a reflection of its author, and the failures of the bylaws are truly an appropriate reflection of the administrators and office which made them. The bylaws do not care for the well-being of the students they oversee; no protections are provided to ensure that students can learn and grow while engaging in active and ethical reporting free from campus censorship. The Office of Student Affairs does not care about the students whose affairs it oversees, either. It would be incredibly simple to have scheduled the initial September 13 meeting at a time in which every member could attend since it was held virtually. It would have been easier for Student Affairs to follow what is outlined within the bylaws when it came to the appeals process and allow the operating board to review the appeal. The inclusion of students is easy — the operating board is meant to include students. Instead of doing any of this, Student Affairs has circumvented and discarded the opinion of students whenever convenient. 

This is not an issue unique to Student Media either. It is an issue the highest echelon of Student Affairs brings with them wherever they seem to go, an issue most clearly visualized with how this office has handled campus expressions of free speech. When students painted political messages on the Spirit Rocks, Student Affairs removed them. When students formed a peaceful encampment on campus, Student Affairs arrested them. When students used chalk to express themselves, Student Affairs banned chalking. 

Student Affairs acts as the prosecutor against students and then as its own witness. The Senior Director can antagonize students, call them liars, and withhold pay on a whim without consulting the dedicated operating board or even making an attempt to provide proof to her claims. Student Affairs can demote the advisor of The Mercury for his so-called lack of oversight of the publication, as not stepping in to censor a newspaper is clearly an affront worth punishing. The Director can walk around comparing her students to her rapist gynecologist, she can touch them without asking, she can deadname and misgender them, and that changes nothing. Student journalists insisting against prior review, an affront of course. Truly, how dare student journalists want to remain editorially independent from administrators, such behavior cannot be tolerated.

The university can tout whatever ideals it wants, it can write whatever it wishes as the free speech policy of the institution, and it can affirm its commitment to free speech and free expression at every meeting and in every school-wide announcement. But if the administrators tasked with acting upon those policies do not care about them, and instead act upon their own opinions and impulses, then what value do the rules protecting students have?  What value do the rules protecting staff have? What about faculty? Students can be arrested for demonstrating out of turn. Students can be fired for speaking out of turn. These severe actions taken by the Office of Student Affairs do nothing but advertise to prospective students and the current student body that if you do not act in accordance with the whims of your divine sovereigns within administration, then you will be punished. 

The Fifth Student Media War was inevitable. The contradictions within Student Affairs, within the operating board, within the bylaws and policies themselves, would have come to a boiling point sooner or later. It just so happened that campus administrators chose sooner. Student Affairs has grossly mismanaged Student Media for years now. It chose to kill an award winning newspaper with 44 years of history and accolades because the students dared stand up for themselves. The issues afflicting Student Media still persist. Nothing has changed other than the loss of the most public branch of Student Media, and nothing will change unless students and faculty continue pushing for large-scale reform. Such behavior from administrators only hampers the university as a whole. If they do not serve students, if they do not serve staff or faculty, then who do the administrators serve?  How can an institution such as UT Dallas call itself a university when it does not care for its students? It cannot. The cognitive dissonance required to maintain such a belief is simply beyond the pale. The Mercury is the first casualty of the Fifth Student Media War. The largest and longest lasting of the four branches, snuffed out in the span of a few weeks. This sets a terrible precedent for the three remaining branches. Student Affairs has bared its fangs and shown its willingness to quash student voices whenever they act independent from the school. The three remaining branches of Student Media now swim with sharks in a pool full of the blood of The Mercury. Take your bets on who gets killed next. My bet? AMP will be the next to go.