University of Calgary Denies Pro-Life Students Club Status After Initial Censorship
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
February 11, 2009
Calgary, Canada (LifeNews.com) — After a quick hearing on Tuesday the University of Calgary student government revoked the club status of a pro-life group that resisted efforts to censor its message. Three students who attend the college were arrested and charged last week with trespassing on their own campus by setting up a pro-life display.
When UC officials warned members of Campus Pro-Life that they had to restrict their own pro-life display, the students refused to comply.
That action led the University of Calgary Students’ Union to revoke its official status.
According to the Calgary Herald, the clubs committee decided to de-sanction the Campus Pro-Life club because its display violated its policies.
Pro-Life club vice-president Cameron Wilson told the newspaper that the action is a "disturbing abuse of power … when the body elected to protect us heaps further oppression upon us."
Without approval of the campus student government, the pro-life group will lose its ability to use college meeting rooms, some funding and use of campus equipment.
During the hearing, Campus Pro-Life secretary Asia Strezynski repeatedly asked committee chairwoman Alex Judd to cite the policy her group allegedly violated. The panel could only come up with a bylaw that gives the student government the right to sanction clubs that violate policies.
“They haven’t even provided us with a specific violation that we’ve committed,” Alanna Campbell, pro-life group treasurer, told the Herald. “We were hoping our Student’s Union would stick up for their student’s rights and freedoms, but they are obviously not going to.”
Campbell said the club plans to appeal to the full student government board.
The decision drew fire from Gerald Gall, a law professor at the University of Alberta, who said the student government should have waited until a hearing in the trespassing charges case later this month.
ACTION: Send your complains to the University of Calgary Students’ Union by going to https://www.su.ucalgary.ca/home/contact.html
Related web sites:
Campus Pro-Life – https://www.myasoftware.com/~cpl
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