A beleaguered pro-life group at the University of Calgary has been found guilty of non-academic misconduct stemming from a graphic display.
The Calgary chapter of Campus Pro Life had been showing the “Genocide Awareness Project” display outside at the U of C campus for “a few years” without encountering any problems, says the group’s president, Alanna Campbell.
Campbell said the university’s administration had been putting up signs explaining that the group had a Charter-protected right to show the display until 2008. In 2008, the signs were covered up and campus security told the group they would have to turn their posters inward so that students could not see them unless they chose to.
“We felt this was censorship of the content of our display,” said Campbell, “so we declined to do that or take our display down.”
The display juxtaposes images of unborn fetuses with pictures from the Holocaust, the Rwandan and Cambodian genocides, and the slave trade in the United States. Campbell said the group puts up signs around the display warning of graphic genocide photos.
As a result of their decision to keep the display up and prominent, the group was charged with trespassing in 2008. The charge was stayed by the Crown in 2009. But when the group again declined to turn its signs inward in fall 2009, the university charged the group with non-academic misconduct.
Campbell stressed that despite the consequences the group faces, it “would be nothing in comparison to the tragic reality that unborn children face in Canada today, who aren’t even given the courtesy of a warning before their lives are violently ended by abortion.”
According to Statistics Canada, 97,254 abortions were performed in Canada in 2005.
Grady Semmens, head of the U of C media team, declined to comment on behalf of the university. Semmens cited the fact that disciplinary and misconduct matters are considered confidential.
If the group chooses to put up its display again, members face repercussions including suspension and expulsion.
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kitten image via Flickr (because anything else would have been weird)