Listen
The University of Texas at Austin is restructuring departments in the College of Liberal Arts. The decision was announced today, but it’s a move that students and staff have been worried about for months. We’ll hear more about the departments affected.
Police in Austin are still using license plate reader data months after city council ended using the technology on grounds of privacy concerns. We’ll dig into how and when APD says they’re using the data and the tech’s future use here in Austin.
Today, we’re learning more about a life insurance salesman and former college football player who become a chronicler of Black Austin life.
Plus, over 30,000 people are gearing up for this weekend’s Austin Marathon. It will be an especially big deal for one man who was left paralyzed after a snowboarding accident. We’ll hear his story.
The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] The University of Texas at Austin is restructuring departments in the College of Liberal Arts. The decision was announced today, but it’s a move that students and staff have been worried about for months. We’re gonna have more about the departments affected, and police in Austin are still using license plate reader data, months after city council ended using the technology on grounds of privacy concerns. How and when APD says they’re using the data and the tech’s future use here in Austin, that is coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:37] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:42] Plus, 30,000 people are gearing up for this weekend’s Austin Marathon. It’s gonna be an especially big deal for one man who was left paralyzed after a snowboarding accident. Come hear his story. That’s coming up next, right here on Austin Signal. Howdy out there, this is Austin Signal. Thank you for tuning in to listener powered public radio. This is KUT News. I’m your host, Jerry Kikano. It’s Thursday, February 12th. Thank you, for making us part of your day. The city of Austin ended a controversial program last year that had cameras up across the city, helping to find people by reading license plates. But months later, the Austin Police Department still has access to the technology. KUT’s Andrew Weber reports that one city council member wants to close this surveillance loophole.
Andrew Weber [00:01:43] Austin ended its license plate reader program after a lot of pushback from residents. They said the cameras made by Flock Safety constantly scan license plates and those scans are accessible to any law enforcement agency with access. They argued that could enable deportations by immigration authorities or lead to wrongful arrests. Mackenzie Rine, an attorney and privacy advocate, likened the system of cameras across the city to a mouth that constantly needs feeding. And the only way to protect
Mackenzie Rine [00:02:11] protect us, is to refuse to feed the surveillance system entirely.
Andrew Weber [00:02:14] She and others urged the city to end its contract with Flock, and it did. The Austin Police Department removed the dozens of cameras around the city. It was the largest city to do so. Cut to last week.
KXAN [00:02:26] Concern tonight from Austinites over government surveillance and how federal law enforcement may be using local tech. Thanks so much.
Andrew Weber [00:02:33] That’s a KXAN piece on concerns about, you guessed it, flock cameras in North Austin. Those cameras are operated by the Texas Department of Public Safety on its North Lamar campus. The city can’t regulate those, but it got me curious whether data from those cameras could be shared with the Austin Police Department. The answer is yes. But that’s not something the department told Mike Siegel. He’s the Austin City Council member who pushed APD to end its license plate reader program.
Mike Siegel [00:02:59] I think it’s a violation of the intent of council policy.
Andrew Weber [00:03:01] When the city started its program, it required APD to divulge who it was sharing its data with and when it requested data from other departments. That’s important, Siegel says, because those guardrails prevented the Austin police department from sharing data in certain situations.
Mike Siegel [00:03:17] You couldn’t search the system for abortion crimes, right? You couldn’t search it for possession of marijuana offenses. It seriously curtailed how the tool could be used, so that should be respected.
Andrew Weber [00:03:28] But Round Rock and Sunset Valley police shared data from their flock cameras with Austin Police within the last month, according to their publicly available logs, without the oversight the city intended. APD told KUT that they do request access from other law enforcement agencies for investigations. But after KUT asked about the data sharing, the department said it may re-evaluate its policy. For Siegel, the incident highlights the need for a more comprehensive policy on surveillance technology. Siegel and other council members passed a measure called the Trust Act last week that would require formal agreements on data collection and some city approval for APD. After speaking with KUT, Siegel said he plans on closing the gap in the city’s current regulations requiring APD to better document how it requests data from other agencies.
Mike Siegel [00:04:17] So I expect the council will clarify this issue when we adopt a final surveillance use policy to ensure that our police are not relying on a loophole to use surveillance tech that our community has clearly projected.
Andrew Weber [00:04:29] Mackenzie Ryan, the activist we heard earlier who spoke out against flock cameras way back last June, said the department’s loophole was inevitable.
Mackenzie Rine [00:04:37] I mean, I can’t say it’s, like, surprising to me at all. This constantly happens. This is the inherent problem with surveillance.
Andrew Weber [00:04:44] Ryan says surveillance firms like Flock often ask for forgiveness, not permission, and that opaque data sharing like this is commonplace. She says cities and counties are often on their back foot when it comes to ensuring people’s privacy.
Mackenzie Rine [00:04:58] The first step you should ever have before you’re implementing any of this should be, how do you ensure that this is not abused? How do you insure that people’s data is protected, that their privacy is protected?
Andrew Weber [00:05:11] Ryan says she supports the city’s trust act. She says it’s a step forward to protect Austinites from unwanted surveillance. But she hopes the city keeps asking questions of security firms like Flock. I’m Andrew Weber.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:25] And Andrew is joining us now here live on the show for more discussion about this story. Welcome, Andrew. Thanks for having me, Jerry. So I know we were talking a little bit about Austin police here, but I wanted to ask and circle back to the flock cameras being used by the Department of Public Safety up on North Lamar. What do you know about those? What did you find through your investigation?
Andrew Weber [00:05:42] Yeah, I reached out to DPS about those because they’re on the DPS campus, like I said in the story. It’s part of a big network of these flock cameras that DPS maintains across the city. And the way they sort of, the preemption that they have is that these are state-owned roads. North Lamar Boulevard is a state road. So they’re allowed to put these cameras up there. It’s not exactly where that data is going because, like this, like can share that with any department. It’s not immediately clear if they’re sharing it with APD they told me that I had to file a public records request to get that list of Agencies that they share with and I filed that and we’re waiting on it and we’ll report when I get that. Yeah
Jerry Quijano [00:06:25] Yeah, yeah, if you if and when you get that back we will bring it here on Austin signal Okay, I wanted to turn now to City Council We had a KUT City Hall reporter Luz Modena Lozano in a few weeks ago Maybe last week talking about something similar has council considered any use of any other technologies like this prior to these flock cameras
Andrew Weber [00:06:44] Yeah, I was actually talking with Ben, our editor, about that. Today, it’s sort of same genre, different artists. Luz has been covering live view cameras. Those are AI cameras that can sort of predict behavior and log it. And that’s a big, big, sort of sticking point with a lot of folks is that there’s a lot going on here and there’s lot of data. And it’s not necessarily secure data. That’s one thing that they’re looking at. They’re looking biometric stuff as well within the trust uh, and these sort of sites that are these sort of devices that mimic, um, like a cell tower. So it pings somebody’s phone and then police or investigators can get, get somebody’s data from, from a phone.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:28] Okay, I want to circle back lastly to Councilmember Mike Siegel and the trust act Obviously, this is something that is constantly in conversation here in Austin and in other places across the country Should we can expect these kinds of conversations to continue at City Hall?
Andrew Weber [00:07:44] Yes, uh, this, you know, this came after a week after the trust act passed and Siegel said he wants to sort of fast track a sort of correction to this loophole in that as they go forward.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:56] Alrighty, we have been speaking with Andrew Weber. He is KUT’s Government Accountability Reporter. We’re gonna have a link to his reporting in today’s podcast, Show Notes, and at kut.org slash signal. Andrew, thank you very much. Thank you, Terry. Higher education has been in the crosshairs of Texas politics for several years, with the state laws being passed targeting DEI and education, and an effort from Governor Greg Abbott, who said in October to, quote, end indoctrination and return to education fundamentals, end quote. This morning, the University of Texas at Austin announced its restructuring the College liberal arts, a college that was home to ethnic and gender studies. For more about this, we are speaking with QUT’s education reporter, Greta Diaz-Gonzalez-Vasquez. Greta, thanks for talking with us.
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:08:46] Thank you for having me, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:47] So tell us a little bit about what this consolidation looks like and about these affected departments.
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:08:53] Yeah. So seven departments were affected in total. And I want to be clear that these departments will no longer exist. So it’s the African and African diaspora studies, American studies, Mexican, American and Latina studies, and women’s gender and sexuality studies will be, those four will be consolidated into a new department of social and cultural analysis. And then there’s other three, which is French and Italian. That’s one. Germanic Studies and Slavic and Eurasian Studies, those will become the Department of European and Eurasian Studies. This information was given to the heads of departments this morning, and we first heard it from faculty from those departments, and then UT President Jim Davis sent an email to the community announcing these changes later in the day. On top of the departments being consolidated, Davis also said curriculums will be reviewed and they will determine which minors majors and courses will be offered once this restructure is done.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:52] Okay yeah, lots of department names, we’re going to have a link to the reporting in our show notes, it’s at kut.org slash signal as well. So they gave this news about what was changing, what was their reasoning behind the changes.
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:10:03] So faculty from the affected departments told us they kept hearing it was a matter of efficiency and fragmentation and in his letter later in the day, Davis also said that the restructuring was needed or is needed because an evaluation of the college revealed that there was quote, significant inconsistencies and fragmented across the college’s departments. He has also talked a lot about balanced and challenging educational experience for UT students and that was something else that was mentioned in this letter.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:33] Okay well this news was announced today but this is something that department chairs and students in these programs kind of had they seen this coming correct.
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:10:42] Yes, yes. They saw it coming. Back in October, the UT system began auditing courses related to gender studies. And that same month, department chairs were sent, they got an email saying that there was a new committee had been created that would help a potential restructure of the college. And they were told that some units would lose autonomy, but they didn’t have many details. And the committee that was created was not allowed to talk about what was happening behind closed doors.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:10] Okay, well, this is a process that’s going to be playing out over months into the future, but there are still students who are in these programs. What does it mean for those students?
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:11:19] So faculty say at least 800 students will be affected, and they say because of bureaucracy and their attention will be taken away from students. And David said in his letter that students currently enrolled will be able to continue their degrees as changes are happening, but it’s still unclear what will happen after.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:39] Okay, well again, we have more on this story at KUT.org. A lot has been unfolding this morning. Greta, you’ve been reporting a lot, speaking with a lot of people from the university as well as a lot faculty members. What have you been hearing from them?
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:11:51] Yeah, so I’ve been talking to faculty in the last few months since October leading up to this announcement, and they have been worried about what this means, of course, for students. That’s their main reason of being here, but also their research in terms of bureaucracy, how much more staff will have. And of course they’re also worried about this means in terms in terms of potential layoffs. Also this morning I talked to Karma Chavez, who teaches in the Department of Mexican American and Latina studies and this is what
Karma Chavez [00:12:21] she told me. So we’re seeing a nationwide trend in attacks on ethnic and gender studies and attacks on American studies departments that those on the political right view as providing a view of both history and contemporary society that they don’t like because it provides an analysis of this specifically around issues like race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:46] Okay, you got the last question before you get out of here. This move was announced today. Is this a done deal, or is there any recourse for students and faculty in these departments?
Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vasquez [00:12:55] This seems to be a done deal. We don’t know the exact timeline of this. UT said they don’t have an exact timeline. As I said, UT has not been very communicative regarding these changes up until now. So staff, faculty, students, they don’t know a lot, and they’re feeling the uncertainty. We’ve seen protests in the last few months, and I can imagine we’ll continue to see them now that the announcement is official, and we’ll keep an eye.
Jerry Quijano [00:13:21] Okay well we will have this story in our podcast show notes so you can find more at KUT.org slash Signal. I know you have an interview after this interview right now to continue reporting on this story so we will continue to bring you that reporting here on Austin Signal and everywhere that you get news from us on the KUT app online at Kut.org all these good places. This is listener powered public radio and we have more Austin Signal coming up after this break. Stay with us. This is Austin Signal, welcome back. 30,000 people are expected to run in this Sunday’s Austin Marathon. People of all ages and all abilities testing themselves on the notoriously hilly course. And for one 24-year-old runner, it’s an especially big deal. KUT’s Katie McAfee has his story.
Katy McAfee [00:14:19] Max Crone was never a big runner. He grew up in Wisconsin playing football and basketball with his older brothers. But all of that changed four years ago. Crone, was about to start his junior year in college. He was on track to graduate with a finance degree, but something about that didn’t feel right. He decided to take a break from school. He moved out to Breckenridge, Colorado.
Max Crone [00:14:41] Not a whole lot of people were in favor of that decision, but I guess in some way they ended up right.
Katy McAfee [00:14:50] Crone had an easy routine at West. Wake up, go to work at a local Mexican restaurant, clock out, and hit the slopes. He spent a lot of his free time skiing and snowboarding.
Max Crone [00:15:01] I just, I always wanted to be a ski bum.
Katy McAfee [00:15:03] Then he had an off day. It was sunny and unseasonably warm. Cron was snowboarding with some friends down a blue diamond. That’s a tough course. They hit a fork in the road.
Max Crone [00:15:13] And they went right, I went left, and we just kind of lost each other. I saw them kind of disappear behind a big wall of trees.
Katy McAfee [00:15:22] Krohn was alone, racing 40 miles an hour down the mountain. Then he tried doing a trick, one where you pop off the nose of the board and catch some air. It’s called a nollie, but it didn’t work.
Max Crone [00:15:34] The nose of my board stuck into the snow because it was a warmer day. The snow was a little bit softer. It grabbed the front of my bird as I was propelling off the nose. And yeah, I just, I went flying. Felt like I was in the air forever.
Katy McAfee [00:15:51] He flew maybe 100 feet and landed on his neck.
Max Crone [00:15:55] The first thing that went through my head was did I just die, you know, because from that point there was no sensation, no function, no nothing.
Katy McAfee [00:16:07] Krohn doesn’t know how much time passed while he was lying in the snow. He tried calling for help, but no words came out. Eventually, he says someone found him.
Max Crone [00:16:16] They tended to me and they got ski patrol involved and from that point it was just going to a bunch of hospitals.
Katy McAfee [00:16:24] He was brought to the intensive care unit. Doctors confirmed he was paralyzed from the neck down.
Max Crone [00:16:30] My mom called me on the phone. I was like, okay, jeez. I wish she didn’t call me right now, but because I knew that she was devastated.
Katy McAfee [00:16:43] Crone spent eight days in the ICU. He did start to regain some feeling, but the doctors were careful not to say if he’d ever be the same again. There’s a video from the day after the accident. Can you squeeze my fingers? A physical therapist asks him to spread his fingers out. I have a harder time on this side.
Max Crone [00:17:00] Yeah, really hard time.
Katy McAfee [00:17:03] He can’t. But Crohn says he stayed positive. He developed a mantra while he was recovering. Goal or highest potential.
Max Crone [00:17:13] What can I do every single day to grow and to try to get the best possible odds for a good recovery?
Katy McAfee [00:17:21] Months of physical therapy followed. First, he practiced sitting in a wheelchair and propelling his legs. Then he practiced standing. Then standing with his eyes closed without falling over. Once he could do that, he was ready to learn how to walk again. He’d put on a big, bulky harness attached to a track on the ceiling, then one foot in front of the other. He says it was like being right-handed and having to write with your left hand.
Max Crone [00:17:45] For the rest of your life until you perfect writing with your left hand.
Katy McAfee [00:17:48] After three months, Cron was walking again, mostly supervised trips from the couch to the fridge, but he kept improving, more and more each day. He was learning how to move again, and he didn’t want to take that for granted. He got an idea.
Max Crone [00:18:02] I was like, you know what, I’m gonna do a triathlon.
Katy McAfee [00:18:05] He signed up for a sprint triathlon. It’s a half mile of swimming, 12 miles of biking, and a little over three miles of running. It’s generally considered a beginner-friendly race, but remember, Crohn is still deep in recovery at this point. I asked him why he signed up.
Max Crone [00:18:20] I really don’t know why other than just to prove to myself that I can.
Katy McAfee [00:18:25] A year and a half after his injury in Breckenridge, he finished the sprint triathlon. After that, he says
Max Crone [00:18:31] I kind of got the runner’s bug.
Katy McAfee [00:18:33] He signed up for a marathon in Madison, Wisconsin. His friends and family weren’t really supportive of this. He had never run more than four miles before. A marathon is 26.2 miles.
Max Crone [00:18:45] Everybody was kind of convinced me, well, you’ve never even ran a half marathon before. You’ve never done this, you never done that. And I was like, well, like, the point is it to do something that I know I can do.
Katy McAfee [00:18:54] His goal was to finish. That was his conservative goal, anyway.
Max Crone [00:18:58] I had in the back of my mind, I would love to go sub four. I ended up with four hours and nine seconds.
Katy McAfee [00:19:04] Now Krohn is determined to break four hours in the Austin Marathon. He signed up for it after moving here in November. He trains almost every day after work and he has sort of an unusual way of training. Typically, marathon runners run four to five days a week. One of those is a long run. You start around six miles and then build your way up to at least 18 miles before race day. Not Krohne. He mostly does strength training. The farthest he’s run before this race is 13 miles. On the treadmill. Without music. But he has a good reason for this.
Max Crone [00:19:37] My C3 and C4 vertebrae are now fused, and if you fall and that breaks, that could be a full sever of the spinal cord and that could put you in a wheelchair for good.
Katy McAfee [00:19:52] Looking back at videos from Krohn’s recovery, it’s hard to believe he’s the same guy taking on a 26.2 mile race. In one video, he tries taking a step down a flight of stairs.
Max Crone [00:20:04] No, that’ll hurt. Alright, we’ll try that again.
Katy McAfee [00:20:12] It’s painfully slow. Watching him on the treadmill now, you would never know he once struggled with that one step.
Max Crone [00:20:21] I always tell people my snowboarding injury was the most important thing that’s ever happened to me. And I’ve learned more from that than I’ve learnt from anything else.
Katy McAfee [00:20:35] I’m Katie McAfee in Austin.
Jerry Quijano [00:20:44] It is Black History Month all February long, and Myles Bloxdon from our sister station KUTX has been telling the stories of Black excellence here in Austin. Today we’re learning more about a life insurance salesman and former college football who became a chronicler of Black Austin life.
Miles Bloxson [00:21:07] Tommy Lee T. L. Wyde was born on July 27, 1937, in Point Blank, Texas. He grew up playing football, excelling at the sport and earning a scholarship to Bishop College in Marshall, Texas, where he graduated with a degree in business administration. But Wyde’s education extended far beyond the classroom. He came of age during the height of the civil rights movement, a period that shaped his understanding of collective strength and the importance of community. And in 1962, Two years before the Civil Rights Act was signed into law, he moved to Austin, Texas, carrying with him both formal training and lived experience that would soon shape his life’s work. Upon arriving in the capital city of Texas, Wyatt recognized the beauty of East Austin as a thriving hub of black businesses, culture, and community. He felt compelled to tell the stories of the people who built and sustained this vibrant area. At a time when positive media coverage of black life was rare. Motivated by that vision, he founded the Villager Newspaper in 1973 alongside his then-wife Barbara and a close friend with a mission to spotlight the positive stories of Black Austin. Accessibility was central to that mission. From his very first publications, the Villagers was free to the community. Wyatt also believed the newspaper should be a platform where the community could speak for itself. So over time, he hired black reporters. Students, and community members to help tell these stories, documenting black life, leadership, culture, arts, and politics across Austin and Central Texas. The Villager quickly became the go-to newspaper for Austin’s black community. While its circulation numbered in the thousands, its reach extended far beyond the printed page. The newspaper was passed hand-to-hand through barbershops, schools, grocery stores, and black-owned businesses. The newspaper became one of the most influential voices in black Austin. Wyatt often said the community needed a voice, and he made that belief his mission. His community work even extended outside of the villager. Over the years, he didn’t just cover East Austin, he became a civic leader, serving on multiple boards and commissions, including the East 11th Street Village Association. He launched initiatives like the Youth Brigade to support children’s education and became a trusted advocate for East Austin residents. More than 50 years later, The Villager remains a light in the community. Even as technology transformed the journalism landscape, Wyde remained committed to print, once saying, people still keep scrapbooks of articles. We continue to do the work for the people. And that work continues. The Villagers still covers everything connected to Black Austin and continues to play a vital role in shaping the city’s music scene, spotlighting local musicians and national artists. From neighborhood events all the way to the Grammys. Tommy Lee T.L. Wyatt passed away on January 10th of this year at the age of 88, but his presence remains, living on in the stories he preserved, the voices he amplified, and the community he believed deserved to be seen, heard, and remembered. His legacy continues on through The Villager, the newspaper he founded to ensure Black Austin would always have a voice.
*Music* [00:24:35] Bad self Say it loud
Miles Bloxson [00:24:38] For more on Tommy Lee T.L. Wyatt, visit KUTX.org. I’m Miles Bloxson. This is Austin Signo.
Jerry Quijano [00:24:48] And I’m your host Jerry Kehannel, thank you for being with us. We’ll be back with you tomorrow at one o’clock. This is Austin Signal.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
