by Austin DSA
Austin DSA unequivocally condemns the decision of the Texas State University President, Kelly Damphousse, to terminate Dr. Tom Alter from his position at Texas State University.
On Wednesday, 10 September 2025, Dr. Tom Alter, a well-respected educator, published historian, and tenured faculty member at Texas State University, was unceremoniously terminated from his position at Texas State University. This unjust decision came just days after Dr. Alter spoke at the Revolutionary Socialism Conference in his legal and protected capacity as a private individual and not as a representative of the university. Karlyn Borysenko, an online personality with known fascist positions, recorded his talk, livestreamed it online, and immediately began calling for his termination on 8 September 2025. Dr. Alter was summarily fired from his position by university President Kelly Damphousse without notice nor due process. The decision was announced (and communicated to Dr. Alter) via public letter.
Dr. Alter’s firing is the latest in a string of recent firings under similar circumstances: an individual acting in bad faith records the words of professional educators, publishes them online, and conducts a smear campaign against the targeted professor calling for their immediate termination. This is not just an attack on Dr. Alter himself; **it is an attack on the very institution of public education**. Further, it is an attack on the right of all Texans, of all Americans, and of all people around the world, to speak freely without fear of retaliation. It fits the ongoing pattern of right-wing, often openly-fascist, attacks on public and higher education as a means of eroding the trust, legitimacy, and power of the very concept of human knowledge.
From the intense repression of the protests during the Student Intifada last spring, to the direct targeting of immigrant students and educators as with Mahmoud Khalil, Rümeysa Öztürk, and others, to the push for school vouchers from Governor Greg Abbott, the education system is being targeted and dismantled. This sustained campaign against education is being conducted via an inside-outside strategy of institutional repression from university presidents combined with online harassment and smear campaigns by fascist “influencers” on social media platforms. In taking their marching orders from internet micro-celebrities, university administrations show a level of hypocrisy that is unbecoming of those who claim to be educators, circumventing due process and labor rights to enact openly political decisions that go against the right to freedom of speech.
Austin DSA has hosted Dr. Alter for political education events in the past. Many of our members have learned from him and hold him in high esteem. Further, our comrades in Texas State YDSA are directly affected by the decision to fire him without due process and the lack of any guarantee to protection from repression and retaliation for their own free expression. We stand in solidarity with Dr. Tom Alter and call upon Texas State University to:
Reinstate Dr. Alter immediately.
Publicly affirm the constitutional right of all employees to speak as private citizens without retaliation.
Establish clear policies guaranteeing due process before any termination related to off-duty expression.
We ask our comrades to sign this letter from Dr. Alter’s union, the Texas State Employees Union (TSEU-CWA Local 6186), voicing their own support for the above demands.