KUT Radio, Austin's NPR Station
Far-right conference promoting eugenics and fertility comes to the UT Austin campus
By Andrew Weber
March 28, 2025 at 10:27 AM CDT
A conference promoting fertility will be held on the Forty Acres this weekend.
On its face, that may seem like a banal affair, but the speakers at the Natal Conference have promoted racist, eugenics-based theories and have ties to far-right extremism.
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The conference will take place Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. and all day Saturday, with panels and events at UT Austin's AT&T Conference Center and the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.
The movement that claims a higher birthrate will save the world has also promoted eugenics, the discredited theory that certain genetic traits are more beneficial than others to human evolution.
Event organizer Kevin Dolan has previously said "pro-natalist and the eugenic positions are ... very much aligned," The Austin Chronicle notes. The group had its first-ever conference in Austin last year.
This year's speakers include Jack Posobiec, a hardline conservative influencer who allegedly has ties to neo-Nazis; and a blogger who openly questions whether Ashkenazi Jews are as inherently intelligent as non-Jewish white people. Another speaker was fired by The New York Times after his work for a white supremacist website became public. Another reportedly posts homophobic, racist content on X and has called for journalists to be lynched. (The Guardian has a more detailed breakdown of some of the event speakers.)
Given the antisemitic views expressed by some of the speakers, the Austin chapter of the Anti-Defamation League said it's monitoring the event.
In a statement to KUT, the University of Texas said it was not hosting the group, but that it was merely renting out its event space.
"In conformance with the law, the AT&T Hotel & Conference Center leases space to non-University groups for their events without regard to their viewpoint consistent with the First Amendment," the statement read.
The UT chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society said Thursday that members would be protesting the conference Friday afternoon, arguing the university hadn't considered "widespread opposition" to the event.
"Allowing this event to continue legitimizes dangerous ideologies and endangers students and the Austin community," the statement read.
KUT asked if the university had vetted the speakers' views ahead of booking the event, but a university spokesperson has not yet responded.
It's unclear how much the university was paid to rent the space. A contract between the university and the event's organizer, obtained through an open records request, shows at least 30 hotel rooms at the AT&T Conference Center were booked for it.
The contract, signed Nov. 19, suggests as many as 120 people will attend the conference.
On its face, that may seem like a banal affair, but the speakers at the Natal Conference have promoted racist, eugenics-based theories and have ties to far-right extremism.
(1080x1350, AR: 0.8)
The conference will take place Friday from 5 to 9 p.m. and all day Saturday, with panels and events at UT Austin's AT&T Conference Center and the Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum.
The movement that claims a higher birthrate will save the world has also promoted eugenics, the discredited theory that certain genetic traits are more beneficial than others to human evolution.
Event organizer Kevin Dolan has previously said "pro-natalist and the eugenic positions are ... very much aligned," The Austin Chronicle notes. The group had its first-ever conference in Austin last year.
This year's speakers include Jack Posobiec, a hardline conservative influencer who allegedly has ties to neo-Nazis; and a blogger who openly questions whether Ashkenazi Jews are as inherently intelligent as non-Jewish white people. Another speaker was fired by The New York Times after his work for a white supremacist website became public. Another reportedly posts homophobic, racist content on X and has called for journalists to be lynched. (The Guardian has a more detailed breakdown of some of the event speakers.)
Given the antisemitic views expressed by some of the speakers, the Austin chapter of the Anti-Defamation League said it's monitoring the event.
In a statement to KUT, the University of Texas said it was not hosting the group, but that it was merely renting out its event space.
"In conformance with the law, the AT&T Hotel & Conference Center leases space to non-University groups for their events without regard to their viewpoint consistent with the First Amendment," the statement read.
The UT chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society said Thursday that members would be protesting the conference Friday afternoon, arguing the university hadn't considered "widespread opposition" to the event.
"Allowing this event to continue legitimizes dangerous ideologies and endangers students and the Austin community," the statement read.
KUT asked if the university had vetted the speakers' views ahead of booking the event, but a university spokesperson has not yet responded.
It's unclear how much the university was paid to rent the space. A contract between the university and the event's organizer, obtained through an open records request, shows at least 30 hotel rooms at the AT&T Conference Center were booked for it.
The contract, signed Nov. 19, suggests as many as 120 people will attend the conference.