The University quietly dissolved the UT Police Department Oversight Committee in April 2024, according to records obtained by the Texan.
Its functions are “rolled into” the Campus Safety and Security Committee, which has no formal oversight responsibilities. It is unclear whether a new University body exists to provide community-level oversight on UTPD activities.
Archived documents describing the oversight committee’s responsibilities state that it provided oversight over UTPD hiring and training policies, use of force and complaints filed against UTPD employees. The University did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
The UTPD Oversight Committee included faculty, staff, the chief of police, representatives from different University departments and students to serve as the “principal institutional channel of communication” between UTPD and the community.
Additionally, the committee advised UTPD on the “most effective strategies for implementing research-based implicit bias and de-escalation training in policing.” The committee was created in 2003 by former UT President Larry Faulkner following a University report that raised concerns about alleged police misconduct and racial profiling, according to an archived University news release.
Jennifer Laurin, professor of law who specializes in criminal law and civil rights litigation, served on the oversight committee between 2021 and 2022. The committee’s most public facing initiative, Laurin said, was providing input on a data transparency dashboard, launched in Aug. 2022, summarizing the incidents occurring within UTPD jurisdiction, including breakdowns by day and month.
“Pathways for community input and oversight over the police force that’s responsible for that community’s public safety is a vitally important part of policing,” Laurin said.
Campus protest is one issue relevant to police oversight, Laurin said.
Laurin said the committee also discussed the University’s transition to a traditional public forum in 2019, which previously allowed anyone, regardless of University affiliation, to exercise free speech rights on campus. UT has since returned to a “limited public forum” status following the implementation of the Campus Protection Act, which only allows UT students and employees to engage in expressive activity on University grounds.
According to the University’s free speech policies in compliance with the law, the UT Police Department and any other law enforcement officer with jurisdiction may “immediately enforce these rules if a violation of these rules constitutes a breach of the peace, compromises public safety or violates the law.”
Sergio Romero, associate professor in the Spanish and Portuguese department, was one of four faculty members appointed to the committee in March 2024, a month before it was dissolved. Romero said he never received any further communication explaining the status of the committee after he was nominated.
Romero said his motivation for participating in the oversight committee stemmed from a longstanding interest in the interactions between civilians and police. Following the campus pro-Palestinian demonstrations in April 2024, where state and local law enforcement arrested 136 people, Romero said there seemed to be a loss of communication between the community and police, particularly UTPD.
Michael Hames-García, a professor in the Mexican American and Latina/o Studies Department and whose research focuses on community oversight of law enforcement, said in an email that police oversight bodies across the country have faced increased scrutiny over their efficacy since they often include people without formal police training.
Hames-García was nominated along with Romero and two other faculty members in March 2024 to serve on the committee, according to Faculty Council documents. He said he could not comment on the end of UTPD’s oversight committee specifically.
“As a scholar in this field, I am personally disappointed — not with UT, but with the larger national trend to end police oversight — that other options for building trust between oversight boards and rank-and-file officers aren’t typically pursued before the option to end them is taken,” Hames-García wrote.
