By Thaddeus M. Baklinski

VICTORIA, British Columbia, February 8, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Youth Protecting Youth (YPY), the embattled pro-life club at the University of Victoria (UVic) which has been fighting for fair treatment from their student union for years, has received a helping hand from an unexpected quarter. The B.C. Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA ) has declared that the University of Victoria Student Society's refusal to give the club official status and funding infringes on the rights of campus clubs to freedom of expression.

"We're pro-choice nuts over at the civil liberties association," said BCCLA Director and former President John Dixon in a Victoria Times Colonist report. However, he said, "We would like to persuade the university students' society to relent - that's the course we're pursuing for now."

Dixon said that the student society's role as defined in the Universities Act is to represent the general interests of the student body and has no authority to arbitrate a student club's right to express their point of view.

"They can't punish, denounce, discipline a group who, in a very civil way ... try to persuade people not to have abortions. It isn't as though the entire Western world has settled all these bioethical questions about the beginning of life and end of life - they're live issues."

Legal action is possible, Dixon added. "This is a public institution and an organ of the government of British Columbia. Students are forced to pay fees to fund the students' society."

"We have always seen academic freedom - freedom from government interference - against the background of the public university as an institution specially devoted to freedom of inquiry and speech,” Dixon said in a BCCLA press release demanding equal treatment for the UVic pro-life club.

“When the university forgets its core identity by preferring censorship over debate it undermines the legitimacy of its claim to independence, and to that extent, its immunity from Charter scrutiny."

Last February when Youth Protecting Youth was finally granted club status by a vote of the Clubs Council, the self-professed pro-abortion UVic Students' Society, which has final say on funding issues, denied the pro-life club the money they were entitled to.

The discrimination against YPY has gone a step further this year when a petition was discovered in UVic’s students' union building that demands suspension of the pro-life groups' club status for “their repeated offensive actions.” However, the petition apparently contains false information about what those offensive actions are.
 
According to Maclean’s Magazine, "These offensive actions, as described in a letter preceding the petition, include: use of GAP (Genocide Awareness Project) materials on campus and hosting the controversial anti-abortion activist Stephanie Gray on campus, who participated in a debate with a philosophy professor."

But Maclean’s writer Erin Millar states that "according to everyone I’ve spoken to about the topic, GAP materials – which typically feature graphic images of abortions next to those of horrific events like the Rwandan Genocide – have never been used on UVic campus. Ever. Not by Stephanie Gray or anyone."

To accusations that YPY is engaging in "moralistic evangelizing" in their promotion of the pro-life ethic on campus, John Dixon responded that this is no reason to shut the group down.

"What posters aren't moralistic? What about 'Save the environment,'" he remarked.

The BC Civil Liberties Association's threatened legal action against the UVic Students' Society and their supporting body, the Canadian Federation of Students (which passed a motion in 2008 encouraging members to deny resources and club status to “anti-choice organizations”), is seen by many as a ray of hope that true freedom of speech on Canadian campuses may still come about.

Dixon said his organization is determined to fight for YPY’s freedom of speech and warned that the UVic Students' Society would be wise to forgo litigation with the BCCLA.

“My strong advice would be not to invite one of the most energetic, able and successful litigators in Canada to court,” he said.

To contact the BC Civil Liberties Association:

Jesse Lobdell
BC Civil Liberties Association
550 - 1188 West Georgia Street
Vancouver, BC V6E 4A2
Phone: 604.630.9754
Fax: 604.687.3045
Email: jesse@bccla.org

To contact the University of Victoria with your concern or opinion:

Dr. David H. Turpin, President, University of Victoria
3800 Finnerty Road
PO Box 1700 STN CSC
Victoria BC V8W 2Y2
Canada
Phone: 250-721-7002
Fax: 250-721-8654

University of Victoria Students' Society (UVSS) Resource Centre
Phone: 250-721-8368
Fax: 250-721-4379


See previous LSN coverage:

University of Victoria Pro-Life Student Club Once Again Denied Funding
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/mar/09031807.html

University of Victoria Abortion Debate Overflows Capacity
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/oct/09102208.html