Republicans applaud strong police action at UT Austin protest, advocating “Don’t mess with Texas.

AUSTIN — Republicans from Texas praised the success that Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) and the University of Texas at Austin had shutting down a pro-Palestinian protest on campus just hours after it got underway.

“Take your intifada and shove it! Don’t Mess with Texas,” said Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-TX) in a post Thursday on X.

State Rep. Craig Goldman applauded the Austin effort and said authorities in New York, who have taken a delayed approach to protests on campus at Columbia University, ought to take note.

“This is how it is done @Columbia. Thank you @JCHartzell,” Goldman wrote in a post, tagging the president of UT Austin.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX), whose district includes the outskirts of Austin, also cheered on UT Austin for how it handled the situation.

“UT President Hartzell got this right. Thank you,” Roy said in a post to X.

Brendan Steinhauser, a leading GOP political consultant in Texas and partner with Steinhauser Strategies, said, “Time will tell whether [Hartzell] will be rewarded” or punished for “standing up to the antisemitic radical left.”

Fifty people were arrested out of the hundreds of protesters who participated, the Texas Department of Public Safety told the Washington Examiner on Thursday. The department had hundreds of state troopers on campus Wednesday afternoon into the evening until the officers successfully pushed the group away from academic buildings on campus and toward a commercial street.

Other state officials touted that the police’s swift movement onto the scene prevented the situation from getting out of control on a campus with 51,000 undergraduate students and mere blocks from downtown Austin.

“Thank you to @TxDPS and @Austin_Police for their quick response and commitment to keeping our city safe during the ongoing protest at @UTAustin,” Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham said.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER

Police were back on site Thursday as protesters regrouped for the second day. State and local police were also on campus with campus police taking the lead in enforcement.

“Today, at the request of the University of Texas (UT) and at the direction of Texas Governor Greg Abbott, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) personnel remain on standby in order to support UT Police in maintaining the peace on the University campus,” a DPS spokesperson wrote in an email to the Washington Examiner Thursday evening. “While we do not discuss operational specifics, DPS is continuously monitoring events and their impact on public safety and will adjust operations as needed in order to assist our law enforcement partners.”