Texas State Rep. Briscoe was removed from campus by college administrators after Black Lives Matter protesters ambushed the Republican politician’s free speech event.
Cain was attending discussion at the historically black Texas Southern University (TSU), where he was invited to share his experiences with the students. However, before Cain could to take the podium and deliver his remarks, he was interrupted as a wave of black students burst in, and started to shout him down.
After the protesters were forced out of the auditorium by campus police, TSU President, Austin Lane – who was attending the event – took to the podium and commanded, “Officers, to the [Black Lives Matter] students out in the hallway, let them in.” The school president then declared that Briscoe Cain’s presence was, “unapproved.” The lawmaker was then escorted off campus by police, “for his own safety.”
The university released the following statement, and their retelling of the events;
“Texas Southern University welcomes free speech and all viewpoints on campus as part of our collegiate experience. Today’s event, which was scheduled at Thurgood Marshall School of Law, ended early because it was not a registered university student organization event.”
Following the event, Cain issued a statement criticizing the university and arguing that the speech was indeed scheduled and cleared by the university far in advance. Cain slammed the TSU administration, declaring, “Black Lives Matter was not protesting the paperwork not being filed properly, they wanted to silence speech they disagreed with, and the University allowed it. It’s disgraceful. The cover up is worse than the crime and it’s time TSU officials come clean.”
Many of the black students made their views heard – and indeed, as Cain said, they were simply there to silence voices that they disapproved of. Without offering any evidence, other than Cain’s existence as a white man, they declared, “He just stands for hatred and bigotry.” They went on, with the usual collection of slurs, saying, “He’s anti-woman. He’s anti-LGBT. He’s trans-phobic, and so if he is actually against the existence of people.”
However, others argued that they wished things went done differently, “I would’ve heard what he had to say in order to challenge his stand, because now he’s moving on to the next, and we haven’t educated him on our perspective and where we come from,” said Thurgood Marshall School of Law student Preston Strickland.
Briscoe Cain has said that he is, “very open to revisiting the issue” of returning to campus to speak at the historically black university.