CU-Boulder Agrees To Grant Campus Pro-Life Group's Exhibit Request
by Jim Brown
October 7, 2005
(AgapePress) - A pro-life student group at the University of Colorado in Boulder has reached a settlement in its free speech lawsuit against the school. In April, CU-Boulder denied a request from the registered student group Justice for All (JFA) to set up a temporary pro-life exhibit on a heavily trafficked area of campus called Hellem's Lawn, arguing that JFA's speech was too controversial and potentially disruptive. But with help from the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), the student group sued the university, alleging unconstitutional discrimination.
JFA's federal civil rights lawsuit was filed April 25 after the university obstructed the club's efforts to erect its pro-life exhibit in the requested area. Instead of granting the group's request to erect their exhibit on Hellem's Lawn, school officials had relegated the pro-life display to an area that had less pedestrian traffic and was not large enough for the exhibit.
However, according to ADF attorney Jeremy Tedesco, both sides in the dispute have now reached a satisfactory settlement agreement. "The university agreed to permit JFA to have access to their preferred site on campus -- a high traffic, high visibility spot that every other student group has access to -- in the future,' he explains, 'and with that agreement, we felt like we had reached what we needed in order to settle the case."Although the school did not revise any of its policies as a result of the settlement, Tedesco believes the free speech rights of pro-life students on campus have been vindicated. "The university certainly did wrong,' he says. 'Pro-life students should not be treated as second-class citizens. The university did the right thing by recognizing that it can't censor pro-life speech."
Still, the ADF attorney points out, 'It's unfortunate that we had to file a lawsuit and come to a settlement for the university to agree to do what they should have done from the beginning, which was not discriminate against speech just because it's controversial to the government officials who are reviewing the speech.'
Tedesco adds, 'The standard for free speech is not what speech government officials like, but what the First Amendment protects. The First Amendment applies to everyone." Also, he notes that, to his knowledge, no pro-abortion student group has ever been denied access to campus space at CU-Boulder.
Jim Brown, a regular contributor to AgapePress, is a reporter for American Family Radio News, which can be heard online.
