Say Anything Blog

So much for welcoming diversity…

Carleton University’s student council has voted to deny funding to campus anti-abortion groups.

A carefully worded policy amendment, passed on Tuesday night during a council meeting, also bars student groups with anti-choice mandates from council-managed spaces. “What we were speaking out against is those anti-choice behaviours that the majority of students feel are very discriminatory towards women,” said Shawn Menard, president of Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA).

“Where we draw the line in terms of anti-choice is that anti-choice is a stance that aims to limit or remove a woman’s right to choose her best option in the case of pregnancy.

“Anti-choice often wishes to use the law to force women to bring unwanted pregnancy to term and they usually advocate for the recriminalization of abortion or a return to the board-granted abortion process,” he said, adding the students’ association did not want to fund that kind of activity.

Mr. Menard denied the amendment targeted specific campus groups, but council was widely criticized last week when Carleton Lifeline, a fledgling student group identifying itself as pro-life, claimed such a policy amendment was discriminatory.

The newly approved policy reads: “CUSA further affirms that actions such as campaigns, distributions, solicitations, lobbying efforts, displays, events, etc. that seek to limit or remove a woman’s options in the event of pregnancy will not be supported.”

The student government is free to make this decision, I suppose, but what is frustrating is the justification behind it.  These kids are basically looking to use government power (student government power, in this instance) to limit the free speech of people they disagree with.  That’s disgusting, and certainly not in keeping with their college’s statements about its own welcoming and “diverse” campus society.

What’s worse is this comment from a law professor, one Martha Jackman, included in the article:

“There are certain forms of speech we constrain because there are other competing interests we think are more important, and this is a case where it is not a radical position on the part of the student government to decide that between freedom of expression for anti-abortion groups and respect for reproductive autonomy and equality rights of women, we come down on the side of women’s equality rights.”

She’s right that no right is absolute.  My right to free speech, for instance, does not extend to slander.  My right to free assembly does not allow me to protest on your front lawn at three in the morning.  But what this law professor is saying is that a group which opposes abortion cannot express that opinion because it doesn’t respect abortion rights for women.

That’s almost like saying that I can’t express my opinion of John Kerry’s statements about our military because it doesn’t respect his free speech rights.

What’s troubling is that this sort of censorship, nearly all of it favoring liberal interests, has become absolutely rampant at universities here in America.