College campuses are becoming a more hostile environment toward pro-lifers. Their displays have been vandalized, speakers shouted down, and projects harassed.
Now, a Colorado student says a professor threatened to give her a bad grade for making her pro-life advocacy the center of her photography project.
Rebecca Gonsalves attends college in Florida. This year, she took a film photography class, and her professor told her to base her final project on a subject she is passionate about. She chose to focus on being pro-life. Her project is a panel of black-and-white photos showing her holding pro-life signs, but her professor was not happy with it.
Lauren Castillo, the Rocky Mountains Regional Director for Students for Life, shared Gonsalves’s story on her Facebook page:
My story line to go with the project: I AM more than what you see….I AM the prolife generation. I AM a prolife feminist. And I WILL NOT be silenced.
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I’m in a film photography class and our final is a creative self expression portrait. So before we do our portrait we have to get the idea approved by my professor so I went to him and told him I was having trouble coming up with an idea and he told me to do something I’m passionate about.
I told him I was passionate about abolishing abortion and that I’m very prolife and he told me not to do that as my final and I asked why and he said “because I I don’t agree with your opinion and you are wrong” and I said “well the basis of our project is to do it on something you are passionate about it and this is what I am passionate about” and he said “well I don’t care. I won’t give you a good grade if you do it on that” and I told him that’s discrimination and he said “call it what you want but I’m warning you” soooo naturally I based my entire project and story line around my photos on being prolife.
I went to the department head and told him about this and he apologized and reassured me that there will be extreme repercussions and to do the project on what I believe and he will make sure I don’t get discriminated against. I will never compromise my beliefs for a grade. This fight is bigger than that
Castillo praised Gonsalves for not backing down in the face of her professor’s threats.
“I am so proud of her for standing up to her awful professor who threatened to give her a bad grade for doing her project on being pro life! You go girl!” Castillo wrote.
LifeNews has reported numerous instances where pro-life college students faced harassment or discrimination because of their position. In the spring of 2015, six pro-life student groups with Students for Life had their projects vandalized or censored; but it did not stop them from continuing to spread the truth about unborn babies and abortion.
And that’s what is so encouraging about the next generation. Despite the growing hostility, more students like Gonsalves are taking a courageous stand for the right to life for unborn babies. Even a poll from the pro-abortion group NARAL found that young pro-lifers are more enthusiastic and active in the cause than young pro-abortion activists. A 2013 poll from the National Opinion Research Center similarly found that young people under age 35 also are very pro-life.
Gonsalves told Live Action News that she was not discouraged by the experience. She said she wants to dedicate her life and career to the pro-life movement.
“… I won’t back down from this fight,” she said. “Not for [my professor], not for a grade, not for anyone. I think anyone would do the same for me.”
