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THURSDAY, JANUARY 29

@THEBATTONLINE

SILVER TAPS

SPORTS

Ava Lawson White, Brianna Marie Aguilera, Andwele ‘Andy’ L. Nash, Brandon Tate Black, Kyle David Cox A2-3

After having to put together last-minute roster, Aggies bond on, off court, leading to stellar assist numbers A6

Scholars address voting, redistricting in discussion panel By Taryn Stilson News Reporter

REUTERS/via SNO Sites/Tyrone Siu

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents stand guard outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building during a demonstration against increased immigration enforcement, days after a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good, in Minneapolis, Minnesota, U.S., January 10, 2026.

Bryan PD issues ICE statement Department confirms ICE operations amid sightings, videos in Bryan-College Station By David Swope News Editor The Bryan Police Department released an official statement to local media in response to online posts detailing the operations of ICE agents throughout Bryan-College Station on Jan. 27. The statement verified rumors regarding the agency’s activity, with Bryan PD claiming it does not have any affiliation with ongoing operations. “The Bryan Police Department is not in-

volved in federal law enforcement, including Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” Bryan Chief of Police Dean Swartzlander said. “While we respect and uphold the constitutional rights to free assembly and free expression, those rights do not include interfering with active law enforcement operations or placing public safety at risk. Our priority is the safety of our community.” In recent weeks, videos have circulated online showing ICE agents operating on University Drive, Highway 21 and throughout the greater Bryan area. Residents have taken to online forums and social media platforms to document the sightings. Protests and other organized demonstrations continue to take place throughout Bryan-College Station, notably at the intersection of East Villa Maria Road and Texas Avenue,

where Bryan High School students assembled in response to the detention of two students’ father. Bryan PD emphasized the importance of keeping these protests within lawful areas and refraining from interfering with official operations. “While the Constitution protects free speech and peaceful assembly, those protections do not allow individuals to enter or disrupt active law enforcement areas,” the statement reads. “ … Just as the public is kept back from accident scenes, fire responses, or secured crime scenes, similar safety boundaries are in place during active law enforcement operations. These measures are necessary to protect the public, officers, and first responders.” Bryan PD has not published any further information about ICE at this time.

YAL challenges weapons policy Young Americans for Liberty advocates for student self-defense, non-lethal weapons By Jolie Jackson News Reporter Texas A&M’s Young Americans for Liberty, or YAL, is fighting to allow non-lethal weapons, such as pepper spray and tasers, for on-campus residents. According to the current weapons rule on the Division of Student Affairs website, “Students may NOT bring into the Residence Halls or University Apartments, for any reason, any firearm (except as permitted by law), illegal knife, club, or any other weapon (not restricted to legal definitions) that may be hazardous to the health or safety of residents.” The rule lists rifles, pistols, shotguns, pellet guns, BB guns, taser/stun guns and more as unacceptable weapons for on-campus housing. While pepper spray is not explicitly listed in the policy, it could be considered a hazardous weapon and remains a gray area. Members of YAL — a chapter which pushes for policy changes to defend student rights — are fighting to change the wording on the current policy to clearly permit non-lethal self defense tools. The Division of Student Affairs’ weapons policy marks the second non-lethal weapon policy that YAL has challenged. The organization previously fought campuswide restrictions of non-lethals under Student Rule 24.4.14 which bans tasers and “dangerous chemicals.” After creating a petition that gained over 2,000 signatures, Houston and College Station State Chair and management senior Audrey Lee recently received confirmation from Associate Vice President of the Division of Student Affairs, Justin Jeffery, Ph.D., that the rule will be changed. “Back in November, we printed out the petition signatures and delivered them in a big box to the Office of the President,” Lee said. “We were able to get a meeting with some of the people on the different boards that affect that policy, and they were super receptive. They saw that this was something that the students thought was a big issue, so they were super willing to change it.” According to Lee, she has seen the same level of receptiveness while attempting to

Corby Maurine — The Battalion

Applied youth development graduate student Amanda Laurel holds mace outside of Hart Hall on Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026.

change the housing policy after a meeting with the University Chief of Police, a representative from Student Life and a representative from the Office of the President. However, she said that this change is more complicated, as housing policies are separate from campus policies. “The question ultimately became, ‘How are we going to word the change and be specific enough to convince housing?’” Lee said. “From a liability standpoint, they don’t want any weapons. But given that most of the sexual assaults on campus happen in the dorms, if you’re going to allow a student to have pepper spray or a taser in their backpack, it doesn’t make a lot of sense that they couldn’t bring it to their apartment or dorm.” The College Station 2025 Annual Security Report documented 239 cases of domestic violence and 257 cases of stalking, all occurring at on-campus residential facilities for the calendar years 2022-2024. According to dance science freshman Sandra Thompson, she recently had an experience that made her feel unsafe in her dorm room in Aston Hall. “While I was sleeping, I thought I was dreaming, because I heard my door open, and I heard people talking,” Thompson said. “I woke up to the door in the dorm slamming

really loudly as they left. So, I don’t necessarily know if they walked in or not, but I do know that my door did open, and that’s still an invasion of my privacy. The next few nights, they pounded on my door really loudly, like an FBI pound almost. So that was really scary.” Thompson said that non-lethal weapons could provide students a greater sense of security in situations like hers. “Guys are naturally stronger than girls, and there were multiple of them from what I can remember,” Thompson said. “There was only one of me. It would have been important to actually be able to use my pepper spray if they did end up coming in, because obviously I do have pepper spray, but me not being able to use that, I don’t know what I could have done in that situation.” To address that uncertainty, YAL plans to continue advocating for non-lethal self defense tools. “I think it comes down to constitutional rights,” Lee said. “The right to bear arms is ensured in the Second Amendment, and obviously, the point of America’s Constitution is to ensure liberty for every citizen resident of America. So, allowing people the means to defend themselves, especially without lethal force, comes down to rights and liberty.”

Texas A&M hosted the “Democracy by Design: Voting and Redistricting” panel discussion at the Annenberg Presidential Conference Center on Jan. 21. Faculty, staff, students and community members were invited to attend the event, where A&M Associate Professor of Political Science Soren Jordan, Ph.D., moderated a discussion on voting and redistricting reform. Panelists included Eric Maskin, Ph.D., Jonathan Katz, Ph.D. and Nicholas Stephanopoulos, Ph.D. The professors’ areas of expertise are economics and mathematics at Harvard University, social sciences and statistics at California Institute of Technology and law at Harvard Law School, respectively. Maskin, the 2007 Nobel Memorial Prize co-winner in Economic Sciences, referenced the Supreme Court’s ruling that allowed Texas to use a newly drawn congressional map for the 2026 elections. This decision followed the United States District Court in the El Paso Division’s Nov. 18, 2025, ruling, which found the congressional map unconstitutional on the basis of racial gerrymandering. “This panel discussion was proposed before the state of Texas got into the act [of redistricting]; the panel is not a reaction to that,” Maskin said. “ … It just so happens that because of Texas’ actions, perhaps the panel is even more timely than it might’ve been.” Before the panel began, a reception was held at the Annenberg Presidential Center. Attendees mingled and shared perspectives on politics and elections with the invited speakers. After transitioning to the auditorium, Jordan opened the event with an introductory statement. “First, I’d like to acknowledge the support we’ve received for the event today,” Jordan said. “And for the Private Enterprise Research Center and the Mosbacher Institute for Trade, Economics, and Public Policy. They sponsored the entire event today.” Jordan then kicked off the panel discussion with a question: “For people who don’t think about districting as often as we do, Jonathan, what do we mean by districting?” With the audience’s attention turned toward Katz, he explained that in the mid1960s, the Supreme Court mandated districts be of equal size to distribute political power evenly and prevent malapportionment. “Now, after every decennial census, states are required to redraw [district lines] to reequate population sizes [between districts],” Katz said. Jordan acknowledged the complexity of this topic before posing another question: “As a scholar, what is the most interesting reform to electoral designs that you think would be interesting to see states or localities or even Congress try?” “I think one problem with the current, predominant voting system in this country, which is plurality rule … is that it fails very often to elect a candidate who is representative [of the voters],” Maskin said. He explained that in elections with three or more candidates, the votes are often split between the most similar candidates. This results in a candidate winning the election who may not accurately represent voters. Stephanopoulos built off these concerns, using aspects of the Australian electoral system such as compulsory voting and proportional representation for the Senate as examples of proposed solutions. A discussion then ensued among the panelists following a question from Jordan about institutional reform. Katz said that an external push would be required to reform our electoral system, with Stephanopoulos in agreement. Maskin said he has hope for reform that is supported by evidence of voters circumventing the legislature, as shown by ranked-choice voting in Maine and Alaska. After a thought from Stephanopoulos about court intervention, Jordan asked: “How effective has it been to rely on the courts as an arbiter with respect to electoral designs?” “There is a really good argument for courts stepping in to help with Democratic malfunction,” Stephanopoulos said. “The political process is what’s broken, [and] a malapportioned or gerrymandered system can’t fix itself. The Warren Court of the 1960s famously said that this was the right way for the court to think about its operations. The current court, unfortunately, is the polar opposite of a court that believes in stepping in to fix the political process.”

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