COURT ORDERS UNIVERSITY TO ALLOW ABORTION DISPLAY

HOUSTON, August 22, 2002 (LSN.ca) – Officials at the University of Houston (UH) officials have dropped their opposition to allowing a large poster display of aborted fetuses in a main campus plaza as part of a pro-life demonstration during the first week of classes.  Last month UH tried to ban the display. But according to the Houston Chronicle, the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals this week refused the university’s request to delay the exhibit. UH wanted a delay until after its appeal of a lower court ruling that the display be allowed.  “It’s about time that the university stopped treating pro-life speech as if it were pornography,” said Benjamin Bull, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, an Arizona-based conservative Christian organization representing Pro-Life Cougars, the UH student group that is putting on the display planned for Sept. 3, 4 and 5.  Lawyer Bull based his claim on the argument that Butler Plaza has historically been used as a “public forum” for student speech. He said this means the university cannot indiscriminately ban all speech on the plaza. The old policy, Bull said, only banned “potentially disruptive” speech from Butler Plaza, but a new UH policy bans all speech from it—which Bull calls “a knowing and willful violation of the Constitution.”  To read local news coverage see:  https://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/metropolitan/1542458