A student group at Rocky Mountain College feels under fire from the college after being denied the ability to set up their campus display for pro-life week in September, a week long anti-abortion awareness campaign. Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), a conservative college student organization, believes that their first amendment right to free speech is being violated and that RMC was violating their own Code of Conduct by not allowing students to challenge each other intellectually or ethically.
The issue involves YAF’s desire to put up crosses in the ground along campus walkways to act as a memorial for aborted fetuses along with signs explaining what the crosses are for. They compare it to the 9/11 remembrance they were allowed to do where they lined the campus with flags as a memorial for those who died in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Brad Nason, Executive Vice President and Dean of Student Life, responded in an email saying, “I’m sorry Emily (Emily Kokot, treasurer of YAF) but that is not a program that would be allowed at RMC. The College has no objection to discourse and dialog about/around the pro-life movement, but we draw the line at public displays of divisive topics. A physical “memorial for abortion victims” falls into that category. You and the YAF group are welcome to table around the issues, engage students in discussions, provide guest lecturers, films, programs, etc., but we cannot approve this specific request.” Trying to assure the YAF members that the college doesn’t take stances one way or another, he goes on to say that the College President’s Cabinet had recently rejected a similar request for an on-campus marketing campaign which most people “would interpret as liberal messaging” about immigrant rights, climate change, science, and racism. Nason then invites both of these groups to engage through alternate means about their issues, but was firm that RMC would not condone public displays they felt fell into the category of overtly confrontational.
