Aberdeen, Scotland, Nov 27, 2018 / 03:10 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Student associations at both the University of Aberdeen and the University of Glasgow have recently blocked pro-life student groups from affiliating, limiting their access to funds and venues.
The Herald, a Glaswegian daily, reported Nov. 26 that the Aberdeen University Students’ Association prevented the affiliation of the Aberdeen Life Ethics Society, citing its own pro-choice policy.
The week prior, it was found that Glasgow University’s Students’ Representative Council had barred affiliation from Glasgow Students for Life.
In October, the University of Strathclyde (in Glasgow) lifted a similar ban on pro-life groups, following legal pressure. Strathclyde Sudents for Life argued that the student associaton’s no platforming policy violated the Equality Act 2010 “by directly discriminating against a group of students based on their beliefs.”
The Aberdeen Life Ethics Society had announced the rejection of its application Oct. 19, saying, “We were rejected because the Student Council passed a policy in November 2017 declaring AUSA to be ‘pro-choice’ and pledging to ‘no-platform’ any society that opposes abortion. Since our proposed society is unashamedly pro-life, we have been banned from affiliating.”
The pro-life group said that the pro-choice policy is “being used as political cover to ban student speech on campus, it also treats the student body as undivided on the issue of abortion.”
“Censorship is a growing epidemic on many university campuses in this country, and AUSA has now chosen to be the latest in a long line of students’ associations which selectively repress the freedom of speech of certain students and societies,” Aberdeen Life Ethics Society wrote on its Facebook page. “AUSA’s willingness to censor dissenting speech, regardless of the fact that such speech is protected by UK and EU laws, should be chilling to any fair-minded student who believes that the free exchange of ideas is vital to a university community.”
The pro-lifers noted that Ausa “prides itself on being radically tolerant, but its decision to block the formation of a minority-view society only serves to illuminate the lopsided nature of how tolerance is actually practised on our campus … for a students’ association which touts its supposed liberality, this outcome is an illiberal travesty.”
Ausa has cited its pro-choice policy, adopted in November 2017, as the basis for its decision. The policy says, in part, that “Ausa should oppose the unreasonable display of pro-life material within campus and at Ausa events.”
Lawson Ogubie, Ausa president, said that “students are encouraged to challenge or submit policy changes as is their democratic right as members of our students’ association.”
The SRC at Glasgow University made a similar decision. SRC president Lauren McDougall told the Herald that the council views affiliation “as a form of endorsement … Given the SRC’s campaigning on a number of related social issues over the years, including support for the recent Repeal the 8th campaign in Ireland, it would be contrary to our ethos to endorse a society which calls for limited rights for women.”
Glasgow Students for Life has called the decision “an assault on freedom of speech” and said the university “is legally obliged to foster an environment of academic freedom.”
The joint committee on human rights of the UK parliament has noted troubling barriers to free speech at the nation’s universities.
In a March report, the committee said that “whilst the original intention behind safe space policies may have been to ensure that minority or vulnerable groups can feel secure, in practice the concept of safe spaces has proved problematic, often marginalising the views of minority groups.”
“Minority groups or individuals holding unpopular opinions which are within the law should not be shut down nor be subject to undue additional scrutiny by student unions or universities,” the committee continued.
It added that “unless it is clearly understood that those exercising their rights to free speech within the law will not be shut down, there will be no incentive for their opponents to engage them in the debate and challenge needed to bring mutual understanding and maybe even to change attitudes.”
The committee’s point was echoed in a Nov. 23 post at The Spectator by Stephen Daisley, an alumnus of Glasgow University.
He called barring Glasgow Students for Life “an act of pettiness — and cowardice. Abortion advocates are not keen on debate because abortion is a practice that relies on hushed tones and closed doors. ‘Abortifacient’ and ‘dilatation and evacuation’ are not-nice terms for not-nice procedures.”
“What Glasgow University’s ethos-enforcers fear is not criticism of abortion by Glasgow Students for Life but the defence of abortion they would have to mount in response. Keep out the pro-lifers and your viewpoint enjoys a monopoly; let them in and you’ve got a dialogue on your hands,” Daisley wrote.
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Shape of things to come.
Have they tried the TLM? Rumour has it that may bring in the younger set.
Gilberta: This is a common illogical and misleading falsehood that you should get rid of and deceptively advanced by promoters of the old pre-Vatican II Mass, that the Vatican II Mass attendance declines whereas with the Tridentine Mass attendance increases. There is totally no connection. Decrease in mass attendance is a result of a complex of social factors and can never be singularly attributed to the Vatican II Mass. Just take a look at the surging numbers and faith of emerging Catholic communities in Africa and Asia, they are nourished and sustained by the Vatican II Mass.
You shouldn’t comment on the subject if you are so devoid of knowledge as to believe there are such things as a “pre-Vatican II Mass” and a “Vatican II Mass.” They don’t exist. As far as your condescension goes, the prior suggestion was valid. Many Catholics do perfer to worship God instead of themselves.
DD;
You have no idea what you’re talking about. Have you ever even been to a Latin Mass? I have. There are people there who come 100 miles each way for the Mass, NOT wanting to go to the NO Mass a few miles away.
Deacon Dom,
I think the point is more about demographics. Traditional/Conservative Catholics are the only Catholic population in the West increasing demographically. Have you attended a TLM recently? They are full to overflowing with young families & numerous children in a similar way that Amish & Mennonite churches are. Hasidic communities also.
Western cultural Catholics are contracepting themselves into a virtual oblivion just like the popular culture that surrounds them.
Africa & Asia are different from the West & what works in those regions may look different also. But their surging numbers are fueled by people actually choosing to reproduce themselves. That’s what’s lacking in Holland & the West.
Good point Gilberta.
🙂
I offered the TLM for the first time on my ordination date in 2020. Such a relief to have full focus on whom I’m offering and not to play with the congregation with the banality of music that is so soul destroying! Great thing about the TLM is this focus on Christ and not the lame inaudible response to the prayers!
Interesting to see the response to my comment.
Today’s article (Sept. 7) in The Catholic Thing would seem to bolster the theory that the ditching of the TLM, in which Holland apparently played a role, wasn’t exactly a brilliant (or VII-mandated) move.