This story plays out just like the Tea Party vs. Occupy Wall Street.

The pro-life group in the story was forced to hire law enforcement for an event. Does anyone believe a pro-choice student group would have been forced to do the same?

Joshua Rhett Miller of FOX News reports.

University at Buffalo charged pro-life student group $650 in ‘unconstitutional fees,’ lawsuit alleges

How much does free speech cost?

The University at Buffalo charged a pro-life student group nearly $650 in “unconstitutional fees” to exercise its freedom of speech during an event in April, a lawsuit alleges.

UB Students for Life, an official student organization at the school since 2012, held a pro-life abortion debate on April 18 and were instructed by school officials to hire university police to attend the event since it involved “controversial” expression. School officials later charged the group $649.63, or $150 more than the group’s entire annual Student Association funding even though one of the officers sat outside and read the newspaper.

“A public university is commonly known as the ‘marketplace of ideas,’” according to the 33-page lawsuit, which was filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of New York. “That marketplace depends on free and vigorous debate between students — debate that is silenced when university policies regulate speech based on content and viewpoint and vest administrators with unbridled discretion to impose fees for the exercise of speech.”

More than 200 people attended the debate and no major disruptions were reported. At the same time, however, two other student groups — the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and UB Freethinkers — hosted a debate between a Christian and an atheist and were not levied security fees by university officials.


 
 0 
 
 1