Professors at the University of Buffalo, New York’s flagship university, not only compared a pro-life student organization to groups who “supported lynching,” but one professor was even arrested for dishing out obscenities at the students.
The professors’s lynching comparison was sparked when Students for Life, the pro-life student group at the university, placed pictures of abortion victims next to Holocaust and lynching victims in a display on campus. The display was part of the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).
Six professors, infuriated by the display, penned a letter in direct response to the pro-life demonstration.
“Anti-abortion protesters appear to have a lot in common with those who supported lynching,” they wrote in the letter. “We feel it is imperative to speak out against this crass, uninformed and dangerous misuse of history.”
But one professor, who didn’t collaborate on the letter, took a different approach to get her point across.
“Where does it say I can’t use the f**k word in public,” Laura Curry, an adjunct professor of media study, spat at pro-life students. “I can swear because that’s part of my vocabulary. That’s part of my First Amendment rights.”
One bystander caught the entire scene on video. When police officers came to arrest Curry for disorderly conduct, she yelled,”That image is not profane,” pointing towards the pro-life exhibit, “but the word f*** is?”
“Would you let my class know I’m under arrest,” she asked the policemen before they took her away to jail. She repeatedly screams, “That image is f***ing profane,” as the police handcuff her.
UB students also targeted pro-life students, with some pro-abortion protestors even carrying signs with the words “Indecency. Ignorance. Intolerance.” pasted across a picture of the UB Students for Life President Christian Andzel.
Not all students, however, are hostile to their pro-life peers. “I’ve heard some of people say the group shouldn’t have been allowed to come to school in the first place, but I tend to think people have the right to say what they want to in this country,” John Hugar, a senior at UB, told Red Alert Politics. “So, if you want to compare abortion to slavery and the holocaust, you can do that.”
John DellaContrada, the assistant vice president for media relations at the University of Buffalo, told Creative Minority Report that protesters can “oppose the views or opinions of others, but not in such a way as to limit or prevent the speaker’s freedom of expression or interfere with university operations.”
University of Buffalo professors and students have a history of acting out against pro-life demonstrations. Last year, UB students destroyed crosses that Students for Life members placed in the ground as part of a pro-life exhibit and pro-lifers reportedly had feces and eggs thrown at them.
“Sadly, we have seen an increase in this type of behavior nationwide this year where abortion advocates have become desperate, refusing to address any issues of abortion but personally attacking the students forcing the discussion,” Students for Life President Kristan Hawkins said in a statement.
“Universities across the country need to invest in some dictionaries so their students and faculty can begin to understand what terrorism really is – that forcing you to think about something unpleasant isn’t aggression, hate speech, or terrorism,” she added.
