Update: EMU spokesperson Geoff Larcom said, “Last November, the exhibit in question was granted permission to appear in an outdoors area on the Eastern Michigan University campus on the dates of April 11 and April 12, 2013. This exhibit has appeared on Eastern’s campus before and also has been displayed at many campuses across the country. It is important to understand that the situation noted in the legal complaint arises out of a request to Student Government for funding the appearance of this exhibit. Given the pending litigation, we will not be discussing additional details about this matter at this time.”
This week, a lawsuit was brought against Eastern Michigan University by the Christian legal ministry Alliance Defending Freedom on behalf of campus pro-life group Students for Life.
A press release from ADF said its attorneys filed a federal lawsuit in Detroit on Tuesday. It said EMU officials have denied Students for Life funding for mandatory student activity fees.
Students for Life requested the funding in February for a pro-life display called the Genocide Awareness Project. The display, equipped with photo murals, compares abortion to genocide. Because of this, university officials deemed the display “biased, one-sided and too controversial,” the release said.
EMU officials would not allow this because they said the pro-life group was promoting “political or ideological” ideals. However, the release said EMU has been known to fund other organizations and groups that want to share their views.
The lawsuit, Students for Life at Eastern Michigan University v. Parker, said university officials have been inconsistent with funding of political and ideological speech, and the First Amendment freedom of speech clause “prohibits content and viewpoint discrimination in a public university’s allocation of mandatory student fee funding.”
David Hacker, senior legal counsel for the ADF, said in the release, “The university funded the advocacy of other student organizations, but singled out Students for Life for exclusion based purely on its viewpoint.”
