SALT LAKE CITY — A first-come, first-served ticket handout for an event featuring former Breitbart editor-at-large Ben Shapiro was met with controversy itself at the University of Utah, Saturday.

Now, when Shapiro takes the stage Wednesday night to speak, it might be the last time the university allows a student organization to control event ticketing duties on-campus.

Young Americans for Freedom, the student organization sponsoring the event, refused to give students from specific student organizations who were at the front of the line, tickets to the event. But the parties disagree on what happened and why they were denied.

Shapiro's appearance Wednesday comes with interest from several groups. In his speech, dubbed "Trigger Warning," Shapiro will "take on leftist myths of white privilege, trigger warnings, microaggressions and diversity," according to the event Facebook page.

His appearance sold out the 399-seat auditorium in the university's social and behavioral sciences building.

Shapiro previously spoke at California-Berkeley on Sept. 14, and his appearance there led to nine arrests after hundreds of protesters came to demonstrate on campus, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Locally, there have been some peaceful protests at the university against the decision to allow Shapiro to speak on campus. Those have included a sit-in protesting the speaker who university student Jasmine Robinson called “incredibly divisive” and a “white supremacist.”

"From a university perspective, this is unprecedented," said Chris Nelson, the university's director of communications. "We've never had a student group bring a speaker who draws so much attention."

So when Robinson and a group of about two dozen other students from black, Latino and Asian student organizations tried to grab tickets to the event so they could silently protest, they were upset when they were turned away.

Ticket mishap

It all began Saturday morning when Utah’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom scheduled a specific time to hand out tickets inside the university's student union building ballroom.

Dillon Clark, chairman of Utah’s Young Americans for Freedom chapter, estimated hundreds lined up for tickets.

Heading the line were about two dozen students from various student organizations involving minorities who had camped overnight in the union building, including Robinson.

Their plan was to secure tickets and peacefully protest the event Wednesday, using measures such as turning their backs to Shapiro or walking out of the event.

However, when the sponsoring organization began to hand out tickets, they skipped over the students from the minority student groups, according to Robinson, a member of the University of Utah Black Student Union.

“They basically took one look at the ethnic minority students and immediately started shutting the doors to the ballroom,” she said, accusing them of racial profiling. “(They) had gone directly outside the Union and just started out handing out tickets to the white people standing outside, essentially."

However, Clark said his group was not discriminating. They chose not to give the students tickets because they believed the students had improperly camped inside the building to get a head start in line, he said, and had not gone through the correct process to camp in the building.

“They exploited their access to the building, and so it was unfair to everyone outside,” he said.

If those in the ballroom had followed proper protocol, Clark said, they would have been given tickets. The sponsoring group instead called an audible and pushed their ticket operation outside where others were lined up, Clark added.

But Robinson argues the group of students was granted permission from a university official to stay at the building overnight. University administrators and police were eventually called in to settle the matter, she said. After it was sorted out, the individuals from the student organizations received seven tickets to the event.

A new policy?

The university concluded Robinson and the other students from the minority groups had been allowed to camp in the building but didn't follow the correct guidelines the Young Americans group set for ticket pickup.

"It kind of set up this problem where you were going to have two groups of folks who were going to be frustrated with each other," Nelson said. "I think going back in time, if the university could redo that, we would not have allowed those students to stay inside and make everyone follow the same process."

Nelson said the university will likely review its ticketing policy and may take over the ticketing process for future student-run events after the Shapiro event through ticket offices like Kingsbury Hall or athletics. The university currently allows student organizations to handle all ticketing for events but provides security and a venue if the event is on campus.

"I think we'll use this as a case study in how to support our student groups a little bit better with ticketing," Nelson said. "I think it's a conversation we'll have."

The event will likely not be the school's only test. The Young Americans group announced a crowdfunding effort Monday for another speaker for the spring semester.

If they secure a speaker for the spring, it's possible the student group will not have control of how the tickets are sold that time around.

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