Evangelical College Won’t Allow Pro-Life Display
The images being used in the display are no doubt gruesome but then, so is abortion especially in late term cases. I would think the bigger issue here is free speech and a college that seems out of step with its mission.
Leigh Jones of World on Campus reports.
Inexpressibly horrific
Westmont is an evangelical Christian school, with a mission to serve “God’s kingdom by cultivating thoughtful scholars, grateful servants and faithful leaders for global engagement with the academy, church and world.” It requires trustees, administrators and faculty to confess the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed. Its statement of faith affirms the trinity, the resurrection and the inerrancy of scripture.
But for three years in a row, Westmont’s student government association denied Gruber’s request to bring a pro-life display to campus. The display, known as the Genocide Awareness Project and sponsored by the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform (CBR), contains billboard-sized photos of aborted babies. Some are whole, others in pieces. Gruber admits the display is graphic and horrific, but he believes it’s truth that students need to see.
“I have a professor who once said we should care more about the truth than our own reputations,” he told me. “People who talk about an inconvenient truth will be hated. All cultural reformers have been. But we won’t outlaw an injustice until we stop caring about what people say about us and care more about the lives of unborn children.”
Jane Higa, Westmont’s dean of students, said the school doesn’t disagree with Gruber’s pro-life position, but administrators don’t agree with his methods of communication. Gruber accuses the school of refusing to take a stand against abortion, something Higa didn’t deny. “Within our community, there is a range of perspectives on that,” she said.
Comments
The school would probably not allow other graphic displays either. Being a private school it can enforce whatever standards it wants.
I see a different issue here. There is a particular religious way of thinking, that we’re promised that we’ll be hated and promised that we’ll be persecuted. And it’s true. Following Christ will mean facing persecution.
The thing of it is, that it’s not an if A (truth) then B (hatred) thing that can be turned around to if B (hatred) then A (truth).
But what happens, sometimes, is that in order to prove A… which is that someone is proclaiming the truth, the gospel, or whatever they’re proclaiming, they’ll force B. Be obnoxious enough to get the response.
“See? I am persecuted. Thus, I am doing what is right.”
A girl in one of my classes was in charge of an anti-abortion display (public university, not private church school) and someone put up some graphic stuff, genocide stuff while she was in classes. I’m sure that person felt very self-righteous too. But he made this girl’s life hell. She got raked through the coals, not just on campus but in the city papers and television news, forced to apologize and admit her guilt for offending Native Americans (some genocide reference, I think) for a display attached to teh one she sponsored that she hadn’t seen and had taken down the moment she heard of it.
Take someone who is braving public university while being “out” as a conservative and anti-abortion advocate and send the message that you’ll CRUSH her or anyone like her because they don’t like gruesome genocide displays? That’s the reality of it. Being hated doesn’t mean you’re right about ANYTHING.
The basic questions of free speech on campus are a separate issue. A private school can certainly enforce their own standards.