A public radio station festival previously scheduled for this weekend on UT-Austin’s campus will move off campus following disputes over safety and security standards.
At issue is the KUT Festival, an event designed to highlight Austin’s cultural and political scene. KUT, Austin’s local NPR affiliate, is housed at the University’s Moody College of Communication.
KUT reported Tuesday that radio station officials were “confused” by the university’s concerns. The station’s general manager claims that university officials first informed them of their misgivings on Wednesday, April 22.
University officials dispute these claims.
According to an April 29 letter from UT-Austin’s General Counsel to the station’s general manager, university officials had communicated “areas of concern” with the radio station “over the past months.”
The letter cites six specific unresolved issues:
- Police staffing. Initially, your team refused any police presence. Even after accepting police staffing was required, your plan was short ten officers based on the appropriate staffing needed for your event’s anticipated attendance and components.
- Youth protection measures. There were no youth protection measures incorporated, including insufficient reunification processes for lost or missing children.
- Emergency medical response. There was not an adequate emergency medical response plan that included EMS services with basic or advanced life support, ambulance transport, and physician oversight. For events of this anticipated attendance and scale, this is always required by the University.
- Crowd control staffing. The UT Fire Marshal’s recommendations were not addressed. In fact, the event planners had initially indicated that no formal plan was in place for portions of the event. This could lead to dangerous unmanaged situations (e.g., crowd crush), increased time to resolution/mitigation, and elevated risks to life and safety.
- Inclement weather shelter plan. There was no plan that identified appropriate facilities, including consideration of occupancy limits, ADA accessibility, protection of minors, and life safety requirements.
- UAV Overwatch. Event planners rejected UTPD’s advice to include unmanned aerial vehicle overwatch. When an event space covers a large outdoor area where political officials are speaking, this is a critical component of the event’s safety.
The letter then states that the university intervened when these issues remained unresolved last week.
“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,” the letter states.
“It was also false to assert that KUT did not have an opportunity to sit down with campus safety officials to go over their concerns and remedies,” the letter continued. “[T]hose meetings and opportunities were numerous over the last few months.”
A UT-Austin source told Texas Scorecard that the university applied the same security standards to the KUT event that it applied to a recent visit by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and that KUT “refused to comply.”
UT-Austin is a component institution of the University of Texas System. The UT System is overseen by a Board of Regents that is appointed by the governor and confirmed by the Texas Senate. Kevin Eltife of Tyler is the current board chairman.
