Catholic University Administrator: Cross Imagery Creates Harm:   Students for Life is no stranger to having our Cemetery of the Innocents displays stolen, vandalized, or torn down. We get it—there's angry pro-choicers who have been indoctrinated by their professors to hate other points of views, so this is the only way they know how to deal with their frustration.  But, it’s another issue when university administrators at Catholic universities order the removal of pro-life displays and says crosses could “create harm.” And that’s exactly what happened recently at Dominican University, a Catholic university in the suburbs of Chicago.   Around 10 AM on Wednesday, March 27th, Stars for Life, the Students for Life group at Dominican University, set up over 900 crosses in the Lewis Alcove. Soon after, Barrington Price, the VP of Student Success, approached a Students for Life leader said he liked our display but questioned if anyone had vetted our display. The administrator asked the student leader to join him in his office. Students for Life Regional Coordinator Sarah Minnich, along with Price, the student, and a campus ministry administrator all were in the office.  After the conversation, Minnich was pulled into another conversation by the Chief Diversity Officer/Title IX Coordinator Sheild Radford-Hill, and another woman.  According to an e-mail obtained by Students for Life of America, the school did indeed approve the application for the display. Kate Schmidt, an administrator at the university wrote, “...the event is approved. However, can you please use a different logo as we don't want to violate copy right laws with the use of it without their permission. Thanks.”  Sarah Minnich, Illinois Regional Coordinator for Students for Life of America condemned the school’s actions. She stated, “Catholic universities should be the first place trumpeting pro-life values and supporting the rights of students to talk about the issue of abortion. It’s Catholics like the administrators at Dominican who give Catholics a bad name, by being too afraid to even let other people talk about abortion on campus.”  In the meeting, in a conversation captured with audio, Price tells Minnich,   “I think the crosses are a message, that could be more, would evoke more of an emotional cross, than is what we are looking for. I am all about folks sharing different perspectives, I believe in what you’re doing....where we start to do other catchy things, to really characterize the message that we’re selling, if that creates unnecessary harm...that’s where I start to get worried.”  He also tells Sarah that the crosses could “create harm.”  Outside at the display, another person, believed to be a staffer or administrator, said she is ‘pro-life’ but she is also pro-choice, which includes ending a human life. Following this, there is a back and forth where a pro-choice staffer/administrator says that it is better that babies be aborted than growing up in an abusive environment or in an area where there is gang crime [Dominican University is roughly 15 miles from the South Side of Chicago].  She also claimed that her support for abortion was okay, because the ends do not justify the means. But, her argument was that abortion is justified because it will help people, which is literally what the ends justifying the means, means.  To summarize, pro-life students obtained permission to set up a pro-life display on campus. Officials at the Catholic university ordered that it be taken down, because imagery likes crosses could “create harm.” Yeesh.  If you wish to share this blog in its entirety please e-mail Matt Lamb at [email protected] for permission.           
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February 11, 2019