June 6, 2023

Chancellor Milliken:

I am writing regarding recent troubling reports that the University of Texas (UT) is participating in
censorship of conservative media organizations. As you may be aware, the Congressional House
Oversight and Accountability Committee Chairman James Comer has launched an investigation into the
Department of State’s funding of the Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a British company that creates
“risk ratings,” which are used by major advertising companies in deciding websites and media
organizations to avoid. GDI’s actions have caused the suppression of lawful speech by defunding
legitimate news organizations that GDI disagrees with: all under the guise of combating
“disinformation.”

It has recently come to light that UT’s own Global Disinformation Lab was paid to participate in this anti-
free speech effort and that GDI used the research to censor media organizations. Specifically, there
were instructions “to compile a media list — based on the national media market and put together with
a local partner/country reviewer — and conduct research on a selection of news domains applying a set
of questions and data fields to determine each of the domain's disinformation risk.”

We must vigilantly defend the First Amendment rights of all Texans, and I am far more concerned about
governmental arbiters of “misinformation” than misinformation itself. Further, no taxpayer-funded
academic institution should be allowed to help censor free speech or push harmful ideology.

I respectfully request UT’s connection with GDI be severed immediately if that has not already occurred.
Additionally, if these are the types of projects that the Global Disinformation Lab is participating in, I
have grave concerns with the existence of the lab at all. I request a full accounting of the projects, both
past and present, that the lab has participated in, as well as any outside entities the lab collaborated
with in any manner.

I look forward to working with you to address this issue and also to strengthen the integrity of Texas’s
world-class academic institutions.

Respectfully,

Brian Harrison