Friday, April 14, 2006

Another blow for tolerance and diversity

HT: Patricia Ann's Pollywog Creek Porch

The Crosses They Can Not Bear

Michelle Malkin quotes a news article:
HIGHLAND HEIGHTS - A professor at Northern Kentucky University said she invited students in one of her classes to destroy an anti-abortion display on campus Wednesday evening.

....

Witnesses reported "a group of females of various ages" committing the vandalism about 5:30 p.m. ....

Sally Jacobsen, a longtime professor in NKU's literature and language department, said the display was dismantled by about nine students in one of her graduate-level classes.

"I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to," Jacobsen said.

....

She said she was infuriated by the display, which she saw as intimidating and a "slap in the face" to women who might be making "the agonizing and very private decision to have an abortion."

....

"Any violence perpetrated against that silly display was minor compared to how I felt when I saw it. Some of my students felt the same way, just outraged," Jacobsen said.

How about the anguish post-abortion women feel when they see people promoting the practice that hurt them so badly? Does Jacobsen think post-abortion women have the right to rip down abortion-advocacy signs, deface prochoice billboards, and throw away pro-abortion reading material in libraries?
NKU President James Votruba said any evidence of criminal conduct in the incident will be turned over to prosecutors. He said he appreciated the emotional nature of the abortion debate and was glad that diverse viewpoints are represented at the school, but he condemned the destruction of the crosses.

"Freedom-of-speech rights end where you infringe on someone else's freedom of speech," Votruba said.

"I don't buy the claim that this is an act of freedom of speech, to destroy property."

He said he was gathering information about the extent of Jacobsen's participation.

"I don't know if she was pulling up the crosses, but I think she was out there with the students. If so, as far as I'm concerned, she went outside the conditions of her employment," Votruba said.

Good for him! Somebody needs to make sure that people Jacobsen disagrees with are just as free to speak as she is.

The prolifers who put up the display are pressing charges.

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