Responding to 3 incidents of vandalism and theft in two days, Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America, released the following statement, “We are proud of Miami University Students for Life for proudly sharing their pro-life beliefs. It is disgusting that pro-abortion students, reflecting the extremist rhetoric they see from our politicians, attacked our displays multiple times. We are thankful that the university administration and campus police stepped in to condemn the attacks and provide security for the displays. Every administration could learn from them.”
The Miami University-Oxford Students for Life group first put the Cemetery of the Innocents display of 250 crosses on the Academic Quad between 4:30 and 5:30pm EST on Monday, November 12th (each cross represents 10 babies killed in the United States every day by abortion). Around 9:00pm EST, the group discovered the first vandalism. The sign explaining the display had been knocked down along with several crosses. The evening of Tuesday, November 13th, more crosses were broken (but at least the vandals put them in the recycling bin. Stifling free speech is okay as long as you’re Earth-conscious). Finally, even more crosses were broken around 10:00pm EST the same night. In true pro-woman fashion, a banner for the post-abortion healing group Project Rachel was also stolen.
Ellie Wittman, president of Miami University-Oxford Students for Life, and a successful litigant in a free-speech lawsuit against Miami University-Hamilton, added, “Students of all political beliefs should feel free to share their beliefs on their college campus. I am glad to see the university take a good first step in condemning the violence and having campus security guard our display last night as well as offering to meet with us.”
The Students for Life group met with the Dean of Students, Kimberly Moore, today. She suggested that next time the school could pre-emptively make a statement in support of the group’s free-speech rights and also offered to help the group replace its stolen banner. Moore also sent out an e-mail condemning the vandalism this morning.
Wittman was coincidentally in Columbus during the day on Tuesday testifying in support of free-speech legislation along with other student leaders in Ohio as well as Ben Shapiro.
For any questions, please contact Kristi Hamrick at [email protected] .
To read Kristan Hawkins’ op-ed on 9 common free-speech violations, visit the Wall Street Journal here.
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Students for Life of America is the nation’s largest pro-life student organization. They have over 1,200 groups on high school and college campuses.
