At a glance: Students for Life of America president Kristan Hawkins posted a video of a confrontation at Wydaho Roasters in Idaho after a pro-life meetup. Hawkins told CBN News the owner compared the group to the KKK and told them to leave. The owner, Jim Sheehan, told Fox News he had asked the group a day earlier not to meet there and pushed back on claims they were “kicked out.”
What Hawkins says happened
Hawkins, the founder and president of Students for Life of America, said she, her son, and others met at Wydaho Roasters last month to discuss opposing Idaho’s Proposition 1, an abortion-related ballot measure expected in November. “We’re recruiting door knockers, and we’ve had students going door to door, educating people in Idaho about this extreme abortion ballot referendum, which sadly many people don’t know about,” she told CBN News.
According to Hawkins, after they had “purchased our drinks and our food,” owner Jim Sheehan came out and told the group they could not meet there and needed to leave. Hawkins said she began recording while trying to persuade him: “I was trying to negotiate with him, just like, let us finish this meeting; we won’t come back.” She added, “And then he just kept going and then compared us to the KKK and said, we were like the KKK, that pro-lifers were like the KKK, which was just beyond the pale. And that’s actually why I decided to release the video.”
Hawkins said she believes a private owner can refuse service, but also said she had a right to publicize the encounter. She told CBN News the episode drew intense media attention and that both she and Sheehan later received death threats. “He was well within his rights to kick us out,” she said. “I was within my rights to expose his insanity, believing that community members were like the KKK, but neither of us deserves to die or receive death threats.”
What the owner says
Sheehan disputed the “kicked out” characterization. He told Fox News he had replied on Facebook the day before, asking the group not to hold its meeting at his business: “Sunday she announced on a local community page they were holding this meeting at our business, naming it — I responded to the post politely asking them not to use our business as the agenda of the organization does not align with us. They showed up anyway.”
Why the group met
Hawkins said the meetup aimed to organize opposition to Idaho’s Proposition 1. She told CBN News her son had been rallying people online to form a local pro-life group focused on the ballot question.
What’s next
The video “went viral,” according to the CBN News account. Key claims in this dispute — including the precise words used during the encounter, the prior Facebook exchange, and the reported death threats — come from the parties’ accounts and outlet reporting cited above.
