Arlington, TX – April 4 was a great victory for the student movement at the University of Texas at Arlington. The impeachment proceedings against Caitlyn Burge-Surles, the racist Turning Point USA leader and then-president of student government, happened with over 50 people in attendance both inside and outside the student government chambers.

This impeachment was only possible due to the intense pressure that came from within the senate, and from the student movement calling for accountability last week. There was a great amount of anticipation regarding this, as this impeachment is the first within UTA student government’s history.

The leading impeachment manager, Senator Jacqueline Avila, led the case to show that Burge-Surles materially failed in her duties as student government president through her transphobia, racism and general xenophobia. Throughout the impeachment, Avila provided testimonial evidence against Burge-Surles Caitlyn Burge being running racist accounts on Twitter that called for deportations, and of course brought up the discord leaks themselves.

Burge-Surles attempted to both say that she was not in the wrong, and that her bigotry are personal opinions that should not be targeted to begin with. This argument was not received well by the student senate, which delivered a resounding unanimous vote against her in the impeachment proceedings. All 25 senators in attendance resoundingly condemned this blatant bigotry. The senators followed the sentiments of the students outside, who cheered at the news, as Senator Matthew Swingler said, “the student body reacted by taking the streets to these comments, that’s what the student body thought of this” during the discussion portion of the Impeachment.

Members of Progressive Student Union, NAACP, Black Student Association were physically present at the meeting with others watching via livestream. As Burge-Surles and others with Turning Point USA walked off, everyone gathered together to say “No bigots on our campus!”

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