ALBANY — State Sen. Fred Akshar, a Southern Tier Republican, canceled a visit to Binghamton University Monday after political student groups clashed at the state campus during another event featuring a conservative speaker.

Akshar was scheduled to speak at the university at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, but he pulled out of the engagement late Monday night after an event featuring conservative economist Arthur Laffer was disrupted by student protesters and ultimately canceled. Laffer, who was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Donald Trump in June, was prevented from speaking, according to a university statement Tuesday.

The senator posted a video of the Monday event to his Facebook page, where a male student with a bullhorn is seen reading a statement in protest of the Trump administration. Police attempt to intervene, and other protesters gather around the student to protect him, as other attendees chant "free speech."

“I’m disgusted by the chaos we’ve witnessed erupt across the Binghamton University campus over the past several days," Akshar said in a statement. "Our college campuses should be places where ideas and peaceful discourse can be shared freely by all individuals, no matter their differing politics or opinions. Like many campuses across the country, it appears that leftist mob mentality and brute force intimidation have been given preference over free speech and the right to peacefully assemble."

He added: "It’s become clear to me that Binghamton University’s campus has become no longer suitable for civic engagement. I’ll be canceling my appearance.”

The clash came just days after a fiery confrontation between political groups on Binghamton's campus, as conservative student organizations tabled for gun rights, as well as the Laffer event, in a campus courtyard on Thursday. Hundreds of students gathered to protest the groups, which leaders of the university's Student Association allege had not been permitted to table at that time. Protesters took the organizations' posters and physically removed their tables, Pipe Dream, Binghamton's student newspaper, reported.

Video footage of the incident also showed students berating the conservative student group as university police officers responded and tried to calm the situation. The Binghamton College Republicans said in a statement that they were "verbally harassed" and "threatened and intimidated" by protesters.

On Tuesday, Akshar reached out to the Binghamton University College Progressives, College Democrats and the College Republicans to schedule a meeting "to meet with me personally to discuss the incidents over the past week and try to work on a path forward together where everyone can enjoy the right to express their ideas in a safe and productive environment on campus," he said in a statement.

After last Thursday's altercation, state Assemblyman Doug Smith, a Suffolk County Republican and ranking minority member on the chamber's Higher Education Committee, sent a letter to Binghamton President Harvey Stenger asking what the college would do to promote free speech and "diversity of political opinion." On Tuesday morning, Smith said Binghamton "should be ashamed," and he is following up on the issue with his colleagues in the state Legislature.

"Our state university campuses should be laboratories of free thought, expression, and dialogue," Smith wrote on Facebook. "Instead, this administration has lost control and enabled a complete breakdown of political discourse on campus. They are doing a disservice to every SUNY Binghamton student and family."

Binghamton University posted a statement to its Facebook page early Tuesday condemning the disruption at Monday night's event. Administrators "anticipated that the event would attract demonstrators, given the challenges with a tabling activity by the College Republicans last week," and so they moved the Laffer event to a larger auditorium and offered protesters an adjacent lecture hall to demonstrate.

"The university is incredibly disappointed with the events that happened, particularly given that demonstrators were provided an adjacent lecture hall to engage in a counter discussion," the statement reads. "The protestors chose instead to infringe on the expressive activity of others and to prevent those who wished to hear the speaker from doing so."

The student who spoke with the bullhorn was arrested, and the university is investigating the organizations and individual students who "encouraged or participated in any activity that violated applicable law and university policies," according to the statement.

Lacey Kestecher, a freshman and the president of Binghamton University's Turning Point USA chapter, was present at both altercations over the past week. She said last week's clash with protesters turned violent, and some of the students had ripped off a "Trump 2020" cap she was wearing and threw it across the campus courtyard.

Conservative student organizers had expected protests at Monday's event, Kestecher added, but she was disappointed in the reaction from the school. She said Binghamton should have protected Laffer instead of directing police officers to escort him away and cancel the event.

"That’s a small, small group of people who are embarrassing our school throughout the nation right now," she said.

In a Facebook statement, Young America's Foundation also indicated that it is exploring its legal options after the incident, "including litigation against the school."

A spokesman for Binghamton University, as well as a spokeswoman for the SUNY system, did not offer additional comment beyond the post on Binghamton's Facebook page. While representatives from Binghamton's progressive student group did not return a request for comment, the College Democrats said in a statement that they "extend our support to those who exercised their First Amendment right to non-violently protest, although we do not support the attempts by the protesters to block the College Republicans' event."

As for Thursday's altercation, the College Democrats said the conservative student organizations' decision to table in the campus quad was "distasteful," especially as their calls for gun rights came shortly after news broke of a school shooting in California. The Democrats called on the student government to ban the College Republicans and Turning Point from tabling in the future because they contend they had broken the Student Association's rules.

Kestecher said the rules are enforced inconsistently, and her organization had tabled in the campus courtyard three weeks ago without permission.