Federal Court Hears Appeal in UT-Austin Pro-Life Case
by Jim Brown
February 4, 2005
(AgapePress) - A federal appeals court will soon decide whether a student pro-life group at the University of Texas at Austin can distribute anonymous leaflets on campus.The case involves a lawsuit filed by the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF) on behalf of the pro-life group "Justice for All," which alleges that UT-Austin violated the group's free-speech rights. Last March, a federal district court judge agreed, ruling that UT-Austin cannot continue to require students and student organizations to list their name on brochures they hand out on campus. As ADF puts it, the judge ruled that "the Constitution does not look kindly upon such unlawful restrictions."
The school appealed, arguing that disallowing anonymous passing out leaflets on campus does not violate constitutional standards. That appeal in Justice for All v. Faulkner is currently pending before the Fifth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans. ADF attorney Jordan Lorence says the university's leaflet ban is unconstitutional.
"Now this may seem like a simple matter," the attorney explains, "but the Supreme Court has said for many years that [such a ban] is a form of viewpoint discrimination." He also says the prohibition constitutes "intimidation of those who want to get a point of view out, but are concerned that if their identity is revealed that it would somehow compromise them or make them vulnerable to violence or something [of that nature]."
According to Lorence, the pro-life viewpoint is unpopular on campus and that authorities at UT-Austin want to suppress it. Similar incidents of censorship, he says, are nothing new for American higher education.
"There is a tendency for those in power -- like the liberals on these campuses -- to try to sustain their power by suppressing alternate viewpoints, [especially] viewpoints that are against the prevailing orthodoxy at these campuses," he says.
Lorence says he is hopeful this "final barrier" to the First Amendment rights of students and pro-life groups will fall at UT-Austin.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
