Student government wanted a university employee to fact-check advertisements from a pro-life nonprofit
Colorado State University does not appear to want to restrict a pro-life group’s access to campus, despite demands from student government.
The leader of a pro-life pregnancy resource center said that university officials have been helpful and supportive of allowing her nonprofit to have access to campus.
“We have been so appreciative to the ongoing conversations about involvement and continued presence on the campus,” Jen McClain, executive director of the Alpha Center, told The College Fix in a recent Zoom interview.
“We are so grateful for that. Maybe not every organization gets that opportunity to have that open relationship with a university and I think it’s so valuable,” McClain said.
She first found out about Resolution 5008 through a donor who is on the student government email list. “She gets the email on what’s on their agenda and notified us that there was a resolution that involved the Alpha Center and that we should be present at the hearing.”
McClain did not hear from representatives of the Associated Students of Colorado State University.
McLain made it clear on the Zoom call with The Fix that the resolution is “not a reflection of the university” rather it was a “senator’s statement.”
The Fix emailed university spokespersons Mike Hooker and Yolanda Bevill on July 6 and July 7 but did not receive a response. The College Fix asked if the university planned to implement the resolution.
Kyle Hill, the speaker of the senate, said that the resolution aimed “merely to hold the Alpha Center accountable.”
He told The College Fix on June 22 that he had not heard anything else from university officials.
He said that “minor concerns” from the pregnancy resource center were addressed and he thought the situation has concluded in a “positive ending.”
Resolution called on officials to take ‘affirmative action’ to stop spread of ‘stigma’
The resolution demanded “accurate, unbiased, and stigma free healthcare.” It asked CSU officials to “take affirmative action to ensure organizations that partner with CSU and market resources to to CSU students provide accurate and credible resources.”
It specifically listed the Alpha Center but also listed the more than 50 other pregnancy resource centers in the state.
The information provided should be “free from shame and stigma.”
The sponsor of the legislation, Jaquikeyah Fields, said the Alpha Center harmed people of color.
However, McClain told the student government that half of the center’s clients are racial minorities, and 97 percent of the people it help said they had a positive experience.
Students fought back with information
Pro-life students fought back against the resolution by hosting an informational session.
The CSU Students for Life group held a May information session to ‘detail the many ways [pro-life resource centers] serve communities and address common falsehoods about their services,” the Denver Catholic reported.
Students for Life of America urged the university to make a statement on the resolution.
The university “has a duty to protect the free speech rights of its students,” Lauren Enriquez, a spokesperson for SFLA, told The Fix in an email on July 6.
College officials should protect “access to free health resources available to students in need by reversing the CSU student government’s illicit attempt to silence pro-life outreach.”
The public university “does not have license to block access to healthcare or silence speech” just because abortion activists on campus “are personally opposed to the pro-life message,” Enriquez said.
MORE: Catholic university professor undertakes pro-life COVID research
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