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Student President Faces Removal after Allowing Pro-Life Display

By Patrick B. Craine

SACRAMENTO, California, October 30, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A Christian student government president in California is facing a recall amidst anger from some administration and students after the student government permitted a pro-life demonstration during the college's annual Constitution Day celebrations.

Constitution Day at Sacramento City College, which took place this year on September 16-17, is an annual celebration of the Constitution and free speech, which features external speakers and organizations who request an invitation from the Associated Student Government (ASG).

ASG president Steve Macias, 19, and student affairs commissioner Monica Guzman now risk losing their positions in a recall vote after the ASG welcomed the Genocide Awareness Project (GAP).  Run by the Sanctity of Human Life Network, GAP draws a comparison between abortion and past genocidal atrocities through graphic images.

While the ASG voted unanimously in favour of the GAP display on September 2nd, in response to a request from the pro-life group, some ASG officials have since denounced the event, admitting they were not aware of the nature of the group when they voted.

"The way the voting works is you get a proposal to read it the week before and you have a week to read it over before you vote on it at the board meeting," Macias told WorldNetDaily. "I guess some of them hadn't read it over and voted on it without knowing what it was. I guess they probably saw Genocide Awareness Project and thought, 'That sounds fine.' They didn't really do their research or ask any questions."

Critics say that hosting GAP without inviting an alternate viewpoint manifested a biased position from the ASG, but, in a September 17th statement, Macias insisted that "the ASG has not endorsed any one side of the debate on the constitutionality of abortion."

Rather, they merely accepted the group's request, he said.  "The ASG does not take into consideration the specific viewpoint of those who request to be a part of ASG events," he explained.  "The determining factor in our Constitution Day events was based on whether or not they addressed constitutional issues that were relevant to students and stressed the importance of our nation's founding documents."

On the second day of the event, several pro-abortion groups came out in response to the GAP display.  Planned Parenthood, the Queer-Straight Alliance club, the Sac City Freethinkers club, and SCC Health Services put up their own booths and passed out flyers.

"They set up tables across from their exhibit and harassed them the entire time they were there, throwing condoms at them, yelling at them, putting signs up and saying, 'A woman's choice is a woman's choice,'" Macias told WND.

Macias says that on the day of the event the administration took him out of class to demand that he shut down the GAP display, despite the fact that the campus is open to the public.

"I was in class," he told WND. "The administration tried to call my phone a million times. Eventually, I walked out of the classroom and picked up the phone."

Vice President of Student Services Michael Poindexter and ASG faculty adviser Lee Weathers-Miguel met him outside his classroom and demanded that he have the pro-life group leave right away.

"I said, 'I can't tell them to leave. They have every right to be here'," said Macias, to which they responded, "Go out there and tell them to move their display somewhere off campus or turn their signs around. Tell them this isn't OK."

"I can't tell them to do any of that," Macias said. "They have every right to be here, and it's not my place to tell them what to do with their display."

"After I refused to tell the group to take it down, they said, 'We're pi--sed off about this. This is unacceptable,'" he said.

Poindexter and Weathers-Miguel told him that he should have invited a pro-abortion group as well.  "They said if I had invited people from the other side, this would have been OK," he explained. "If I would have included Planned Parenthood in this, then it would be perfectly fine. But because I hadn't, they needed to go."

Poindexter left, but Weathers-Miguel remained.  "He said he was incredibly mad because I had 'made him look like an a-- in front of the administration'," Macias said. "He also said he wouldn't forget this."

The recall election was called by Weathers-Miguel shortly afterward, through a violation of protocol, according to Macias.  The election took place October 27-28 and the results have not yet been released.

A week after the event, the Queer-Straight Alliance took up a petition for the new election, and then submitted it to Weathers-Miguel, who validated it and chose a date for the election.

The student government constitution, however, says Macias, dictates that the petition is to be submitted to and validated by the student justice board.  The petition is then given to the student affairs board, who establish election rules for the ASG board to vote on.

"The date [Weathers-Miguel] chose was less than six days away," he said, though College President Kathryn E. Jeffery later pushed it back. "They gave us no information, no letters, phone calls or e-mails. I found out about it through the school newspaper."

According to Macias, the university administration and students supported free-speech displays, so long as they as they were not pro-life.  "They are now saying that they don't support this group, so it shouldn't be allowed on campus - which is wrong," he said. "They obviously don't have a firm grasp of what free speech is if they feel that way."

The extreme reaction to GAP at Sacramento City College sharply contrasts their reception (http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09102807.html) at the University of California-Berkeley earlier this week.  Despite strong protest from the campus pro-abortion groups, the university administrators of the strongly pro-abortion campus defended their right to be there.

"We don't regulate content," said Dean of Students Jonathan Poullard.

Contact Information:

Kathryn Jeffery, President
Sacramento City College
Phone:  (916) 558-2100
Email:  jefferk@scc.losrios.edu

Michael Poindexter, Vice President of Student Services
Sacramento City College
Phone: (916) 558-2142
Email:  PoindeM@scc.losrios.edu

Lee Weathers-Miguel, Student Affairs Specialist
Sacramento City College
Phone:  (916) 558-2382
Email:  miguell@scc.losrios.edu

See related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

Graphic Obama-Themed Abortion Display Clashes with Strong Pro-Abortion Presence at UC Berkeley
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09102807.html

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