Statement from the Committee to Defend Tom Alter

Posted November 22, 2025

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Committee to Defend Tom Alter Statement on Regents Firing

Contact: Committee to Defend Tom Alter Email: defendtomalter@proton.me Web: https://defendtomalter.org/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581629577807 Phone: Bill Mullen, coordinator, 765-430-1312

Tom Alter’s firing today by the Texas State University Board of Regents is an attack on the free speech and democratic rights of people everywhere.

The Board of Regents has violated his Constitutional right to free speech, his civil rights as a U.S. citizen, and his rights as an employee of the State of Texas. His lawsuit will now proceed against Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse to win justice.

Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, and his far right supporters in the Republican Party have completely disregarded the Constitutionand openly oppose democratic rights. They have conceded the Constitution. Well, we will take it. All supporters of democratic rights are united to defend the most basic of our democratic rights in the face of authoritarianism and a growing fascist threat.

Texas State University President Kelly Damphousse is carrying out a politically motivated attack on a socialist and a union member. This follows Damphousse’s racist and Islamophobic actions on campus. Damphousse’s language in his public firing of Alter of inciting violence and criminal activity mirrors the language used by Trump and other far-right politicians around the world in going after left-wing and even liberal organizations. Alter was tenured professor who was summarily fired with no due process through a social media post. His firing ignored Texas Stateguidelines for removing tenured faculty, 85 years of academic norms established by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), broke Texas law governing tenure, and violated federal Constitutional rights guaranteed in the 1st and 14th Amendments.

Allowing Damphousse to get away with this firing weakens and chips away at two of our most important Constitutional Amendments whose significance goes way beyond the interests of professors and affects us all, especially the most vulnerable sections of society. We must stand the line and defend our basic democratic rights and prevent further inroads on these rights.

As Tom Alter has said from the beginning of this campaign,“This did not start with me and it does not end with me.” Instead of picking off as an individual, Damphousse instead has ignited a movement for free speech. Membership in the Texas State chapters of AAUP and the Texas State Employees Union has doubled since Alter’s firing as workers unite to defend academic freedom and democratic rights across the state.

We are currently living in time when history has called upon us to standup for our democratic rights or lose them to an ever-creeping fascist current in today’s political reality. However, there is joy in resistance. The support that Alter’s public campaign has garnered from unions, democratic rights organizations, and concerned people and activists around the world demonstrates that we must and can win this struggle for a truly democratic and egalitarian society. Through love and solidarity, we will win.