UT Dallas sued by student journalist over alleged free speech violation

The lawsuit is the latest development in a years-long conflict at UTD over the rights and responsibilities of student media that has attracted national attention.

A student journalist at the University of Texas at Dallas is suing university officials, arguing they violated his free speech rights by disciplining him over a disclaimer he attached to a student’s guest column.

In 2024, Gregorio Olivares Gutierrez, then editor-in-chief of UTD’s student-run paper The Mercury, added a note to a student’s letter to the editor about antisemitism and the Israel-Palestine conflict, clarifying that it was an opinion piece and not a news article.

Olivares Gutierrez said he repeatedly asked the writer, president of UTD’s Hillel chapter, to provide sources for factual claims during the editing process, according to the lawsuit filed last week in federal court in Austin. When the writer did not do so, Olivares Gutierrez ultimately chose to run the full piece with a disclaimer that “the presentation of opinion as fact within this article…does not meet the journalistic standards of The Mercury.”

The student then reported Olivares Gutierrez to university officials for discrimination, and he was removed from his post at The Mercury. In February 2026, an outside panel of attorneys concluded he had discriminated against the student by exceeding “ordinary editorial suggestions” and put him on deferred suspension. Olivares Gutierrez is allowed to remain enrolled at UTD but can be suspended if he is found in violation of any other rules.

Click here to read more on this report from our partners at The Dallas Morning News.