Donor Pressure May Lead to Campus Smoking Ban
A campuswide smoking ban would likely encompass many outdoor areas. Photo courtesy Fried Dough at http://www.flickr.com/photos/42787780@N04/The University of Texas at Austin is considering becoming a tobacco-free campus.
The proposed move comes after a major research donor announced all of its grant recipients would be required to maintain tobacco-free campuses.
The news came as a surprise to student Ryan Levihn-Coon, as he smoked at the corner of 21st Street and University Avenue. He said that at his last school, the campus police had jurisdiction beyond what a casual observer would consider campus property.
“I’d be concerned that I would be encroached upon if I were smoking and I were walking down 21st Street, which I don’t think the campus owns, but I could be wrong,” he said.
Jade Calloway is also a transfer student. She says her last school had designated smoking areas to help limit smoking across campus.
“I think that if UT could set those up and have certain areas where students would be allowed to smoke, it wouldn’t be a big deal,” Calloway said. “But I find it kind of ridiculous that they’re going to ban smoking on a campus this large. And I don’t think they’re really going to be able to enforce a rule like that campuswide all the time.”
The Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas has already given $30 million to UT Austin, and the school is in line for millions more — as long as it adopts the tobacco ban.
Era Sundar contributed reporting to this article.
