KUT 90.5 | By Neena Satija

In a harshly worded letter sent Wednesday evening, the University of Texas at Austin’s top lawyer accused KUT Public Media General Manager Debbie Hiott of making “false” statements about the last-minute changes the station was forced to make to its first KUT Festival, which starts Friday.

“The University is disappointed that the inaugural KUT festival had to relocate and resize some of its events due to poor planning,” UT’s vice president for legal affairs and general counsel, Amanda Cochran-McCall, wrote in the letter.

“Contrary to your public statements, it was false to assert that you and your staff agreed to every health, security, and safety request made of KUT,” she said.

In an interview on Wednesday night, Hiott said she didn’t know what to make of the letter. University spokesperson Mike Rosen sent KUT a copy of the letter about 45 minutes after Hiott said she received it.

“It just says that I said false things, which I did not. I feel it’s unfortunate that they believe something that had not been the case for us,” Hiott said, referring to university officials.

Hiott responded directly to the letter by emailing Cochran-McCall, UT Austin President Jim Davis and UT Provost William Inboden late Wednesday. In her response, which she shared with KUT News, she strongly disputed the university’s account.

“While it is true that KUT and its production team had many meetings with the university over the past several months, KUT was never informed at any point until Friday’s cancellation that there were any university concerns that threatened the viability of the festival,” Hiott wrote in the email.

She continued, “Even after seeing your letter today, the first written communication detailing such concerns, I remain confused that the university chose to cancel a major portion of the festival without significant discussion or warning in the last week before the event.”

Responding to a request for comment, Rosen said he did not anticipate any additional statements beyond what was in the general counsel’s letter.

Festival organizers refute UT Austin claims

Hiott provided KUT with numerous records of communications involving herself, the event producers contracted to work on the KUT Festival and university officials. The communications date back to October 2025, and many contain detailed exchanges regarding all aspects of the festival, including security considerations.

Agnes Varnum, who was hired by KUT as a consultant to help produce the festival, also provided records of similar communications. In an interview, she said many of the university’s claims “seem blatantly false.”

She pointed to the allegation in Cochran-McCall’s letter that “initially, your team refused any police presence.”

“It’s unbelievable that they would say that,” Varnum said, “because it’s just not true. At any event this size, there’s a police presence. That is a given.”

Hiott and Varnum both said that event production staff had conducted an on-campus “walk through” with UT’s police department on April 22. They both said Sgt. Brian Schlather of UTPD told the staff following the walk-through that all of the university’s recommendations had been met.

Tensions escalate between KUT and university

Cochran-McCall’s letter did not order Hiott to take any specific action or indicate that she’s under official disciplinary review. Still, its tone represents a major escalation in a series of tense public exchanges between Hiott and UT Austin, which owns KUT’s license to operate, regarding the event.

The back-and-forth first began to heat up publicly on Tuesday, when the Moody College of Communication, which includes KUT and its music station, KUTX, first announced the last-minute changes to the festival in an email to festival attendees and KUT staff.

“Our analysis has identified key areas where KUT provided insufficient planning for safety measures, including security, health, fire, and emergency services,” wrote Anita L. Vangelisti, the interim dean of the Moody College of Communication, in the email. Vangelisti has not responded to a request for comment.

Hiott quickly fired back in her own email to KUT staff, writing, “The university ordered KUT to cancel the outdoor portions of the events citing a safety analysis that they have yet to provide us.”

Universities across the country have started to reconsider their relationships with on-campus public radio stations, citing budgetary restraints and dwindling support from federal and state sources.

Penn State University’s board of trustees voted in 2025 to effectively shutter WPSU, the local NPR and PBS affiliate, after Congress rescinded funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting at the behest of President Donald Trump. The CPB allocates funding to NPR and its local member affiliates. Citing budgetary reallocations, Baylor University announced last year that it would no longer fund KWBU.

UT Austin experiences significant changes in recent years

The staff of KUT, KUTX and the daily news magazine Texas Standard are UT Austin employees, but they are editorially independent from UT and their funding comes almost exclusively from members and business donations.

The rare intervention from the university in KUT’s affairs comes at a time of significant change at UT Austin, and at public universities across the state in recent years. Earlier this month, UT announced it is set to consolidate seven ethnic and gender studies departments within the College of Liberal Arts into two new departments this fall.

Last year, UT Austin was one of nine universities the Trump administration had asked to sign a “compact” in exchange for access to federal funding. In an interview this month with The Daily Texan student newspaper, UT President Jim Davis said he did not see the compact as something he was required to sign, but instead an invitation to comment on the idea.

In 2024, UT Austin eliminated around 60 staff positions previously focused on diversity, equity and inclusion following a Texas law that banned DEI programs from public universities in the state.

KUT’s Andy Jechow and The Texas Newsroom’s Ana Campbell contributed reporting to this story.