kristanhawkins
When Norvilia Etiene sought to start a Students for Life group at Queens College last Fall, she faced an uphill battle from a hostile administration. As we wrote in January, “The college gave unlimited power to the Campus Affairs Committee to decide whether a group should be granted official recognition and whether it may receive funding. Because of Queens College’s discriminatory practices, Students for Life members must continue to fund, through the college’s mandatory student activity fees, groups that support abortion but cannot access funds from those fees, which exceed $1,200 per student over eight semesters, for themselves.”
The school has since settled the matter and granted Students for Life the full rights afforded to other groups. The group can now move forward with plans for the Spring semester.
Last May, the Students for Life group at Fresno State was chalking pro-life messages of hope and support around campus. A professor, Gregory Thatcher, instructed his students to destroy the chalkings. He was caught on camera openly bragging about it, and even claimed that his free speech right included the right to erase the chalking. After intervention from Alliance Defending Freedom, Thatcher settled the case for thousands of dollars and must undergo First Amendment training with ADF.
For at least the past 11 years, the Students for Life group at Northern Kentucky University have put up a Cemetery of the Innocents display on campus. And for at least the past 11 years, vandals have destroyed and ruined the display. The school condemns the actions every year, but has yet to put an end to it. Let’s hope in 2018 that the school makes a resolution to stop this from happening again.
In October, Miami Students for Life, led by sophomore Ellen Wittman, wanted to set up a Cemetery of the Innocents display at Miami University-Hamilton. However, the school wanted to impose a special burden on her group; it would have to put up warning signs in front of the display and would direct students to complain to Wittman if they were offended by the display. In response, the Students for Life group filed a lawsuit against the university with the help of Alliance Defending Freedom. The lawsuit is still pending.
