A database funded by the federal government and run by a research group at the University of Maryland, College Park (UMD) recently labeled Students for Life of America (SFLA) as a “terrorist group.”
UMD’s National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) operates the research database known as Profiles of Individual Radicalization in the United States (PIRUS).
According to The College Fix, PIRUS “purportedly tracks ‘ideologically motivated criminal activity’ and known ‘extremists’ through 2021.”
“[T]wo Students for Life of America members who were arrested for writing ‘black pre-born lives matter’ on a sidewalk in 2020 are recorded in PIRUS,” the Fix reported. “This puts them among white supremacists, jihadist groups, and other threats.”
“Moreover, SFLA appears under a ‘Terrorist_Group’ label in the raw dataset,” the Fix added.
SFLA spokeswoman Kristi Hamrick blasted this labeling as “an attempt to smear the reputations of peaceful students who use their free speech right to advocate for mothers and their children, born and preborn.”
“It is a highly offensive and highly suspect organization that can’t tell the difference between students with signs and actual terrorists threatening violence,” Hamrick told The Christian Post last month.
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In addition, a pair of counterterrorism experts slammed START’s categorization of the pro-life students.
In a statement to the Fix, former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo noted that “[r]esearchers of course can create and apply any definition of ‘terrorism’ that they like.”
“But if they want to be taken seriously, they should use something like the U.S. government’s definition,” Yoo continued:
For domestic terrorism, the FBI says it is ‘Violent, criminal acts committed by individuals and/or groups to further ideological goals stemming from domestic influences, such as those of a political, religious, social, racial, or environmental nature.
It seems obvious that writing messages in chalk on the sidewalk does not come close to fitting this definition.
“If so, we have many more terrorists roaming the streets of Berkeley than are known to the FBI,” Yoo said. Yoo served in the administration of George W. Bush.
Former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Department of Homeland Security Elizabeth Neumann agreed.
As the Fix reported, Neumann pointed out that
START’s portrayal of pro-lifers does not resemble how the DHS typically views “radicalization” in any political camp.
…
Neumann said the DHS tracked violent extremism on “both sides” of the abortion issue during her term. START’s study, meanwhile, has “anti-abortion extremism” as a category with no pro-abortion equivalent.
Former Under Secretary of Education Gary Bauer called START’s labeling of SFLA an “attempt to demonize and criminalize normal pro-life, pro-family groups and viewpoints.”
“It is noteworthy that the database, which claims to be a compilation of groups and individuals who have been ‘arrested for committing an ideologically-motivated crime,’ does not mention the militant pro-abortion group Jane’s Revenge,” Bauer wrote in a March 18 article for the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute:
Multiple pregnancy care centers as well as the offices of pro-life members of Congress have been the target of vandals who spray-painted the tag, “Janes Revenge.” College chapters of Students for Life have also been threatened and assaulted during their pro-life activities on multiple campuses.
Bauer served in both the Trump and Reagan administrations.
LifeNews Note: Joshua Mercer writes for CatholicVote, where this column originally appeared.
