The following comes from a Nov. 6 email sent by Life Legal Defense Foundation.
Today, Life Legal Defense Foundation filed a civil suit in Santa Barbara County Superior Court on behalf of a group of pro-life students against the University of California and professor Mireille Miller-Young. In July, Miller-Young was criminally convicted of stealing and destroying the students’ property and assaulting one member of the group. The civil suit seeks compensation for physical battery, property theft and civil rights violations.
Despite Miller-Young’s conviction and clear evidence supporting it, the university did not publicly censure or reprimand her for the criminal actions. In fact, communications from university officials implied that the youth who had been peacefully engaged in advocating a pro-life worldview caused the incident.
Miller-Young’s assault on the group took place in early March on the Santa Barbara campus. The professor first verbally attacked and then forcibly took a sign from the young people who were in a free speech area exercising their right to educate the campus community about abortion and promote its alternatives. When some of the group tried to follow her, Miller-Young violently scratched the arms of one of them, 16-year-old Thrin Short. Now Short and ten others are seeking compensatory and punitive damages against Miller-Young and the University of California Santa Barbara. Also named as defendants in the suit are several students who assisted Miller-Young in the theft and destruction of the sign.
“This is a mature, supposedly educated woman charged by the University of California to convey knowledge, and instead she conveyed discrimination and intolerance. Not only was she out of line in attacking students, but she literally drew blood from a minor,” said Dana Cody, president and executive director, Life Legal Defense Foundation.
Read the Life Legal Defense Foundation civil complaint here.
This is wonderful news, glorious, in fact. Sadly, litigation becomes one of the purest “neutral” venues within which truth can be sought, and lies exposed. It is anticipated that the good and excellent Short Sisters are not out to bankrupt poor Professor Miller-Young (although please do go to town on the deep pockets of the U C Regents).
Rather — again anticipated — the law suit is likely aimed at (1) exposing the interior ways that the UC Regents/Others understood and responded to the assault; (2) why the UC Regents never apologized for the assault (guess: upon the very poor advice of the UC legal counsel); (3) re-establishing the rule of law within the UC System, where it is largely lacking, except for Liberal whining; and (4) getting enough punitives so that neither the professor, or the UC System will feel free to disregard the constitution, and other rights established by law, and by common decency.
Friendly advice: competent counsel that will be hired to handle this litigation will want to settle, and fast, and quietly. Please do not do so, unless (1) the terms of the settlement can be made fully public (the UC will want confidentially), (2) any settlement includes issuance of a public statement apologizing to the Short Sisters, and agreeing to implement a University-wide shut-down and discussion of the First Amendment, and (3) establishment and continuous implementation of a new UC-wide (and hopefully State-wide) policy on political and religious tolerance, with monitoring and periodical reporting to the Court.
The behavior here is nothing less than that experienced in the early times of Hitler. Attacking the few brave souls that dared to stand up and confront tyranny was standard fare then (and then things got worse, much worse). Great praise and thanksgiving for the courage and fortitude of the Short Sisters. If only Catholic bishops attending the Synod were as brave. Just look at the voting of the simple majority, who were quite willing to trust in the betterment of their careers by agreeing to principles that were expressly anti-Catholic. Perhaps the Short Sisters can be engaged to picket the 2015 Synod; they would teach the now-political Church a thing about Faith, and about personal courage.
These two girls are modern equivalents of the early saints who stood up for the Faith and who were beheaded or otherwise killed by savage pagans. We have a great many savage pagans around today, many of them educated at our “finest” institutions. There will be more assaults on pro-life advocates and Christians as this country descends further into the chaos of the Culture of Death.
Yes, and you are not overstating with the comparison. Buckle up Catholics, the persecutions are just gearing up.
Mireille Miller-Young was expecting a baby last August. Was it a boy, girl, LGBT, or choice? Regardless, the UCSB Professor of Feminist Black Pornography better not mess with Shorts again. Janet Napolitano, University of California President, will find herself in the horns of a sexual politica dilemma.