A speech by a pro-life activist at the University of Texas at Austin was quickly evacuated Monday night after several students set off a smoke bomb outside the lecture hall, causing a mass panic.
According to the UT Austin police, a talk by pro-life activist Ryan Bomberger was suddenly forced to disband after a large cloud of smoke appeared outside the lecture hall where he was speaking.
No one was hurt during the incident.
“We were hosting a speaker by the name of Ryan Bomberger, the President of Radiance Foundation. a pro-life advocacy group. [The speech was ]called ‘Should Have Been Aborted,'” explained Young Conservatives of Texas Chairman Saurabh Sharma. “The event was going normally and then we heard the fire alarm and evacuated, as we were leaving we saw smoke. Shortly after evacuating, the police informed us it was a smoke bomb.”
This incident is the latest in a series of attempts to suppress the speech of pro-life students and guest speakers on college campuses.
In March, administrators at the University of Northwestern, a Christian university in Minnesota, chose to block pro-life activist Star Parker from speaking on campus, claiming that while they look to expand the worldview of students on their campus, they aren’t interested in speakers who many of their students may not agree with.
“Our staff has been very adamant about bringing speakers to campus who educate and expand worldviews, but we really don’t bring speakers who radically hold beliefs that UNW as a whole would not agree with,” the administrators said in a press release.
Sharma said the UT Austin event was allowed to continue in another lecture hall. UT Austin police opened a criminal investigation into the incident.
John Patrick (@john_pat_rick) is a graduate of Canisius College and Georgia Southern University. He interned for Red Alert Politics during the summer of 2012 and has continued to contribute regularly.
