UNC Women's Center Discriminates Against Pro-Life Viewpoint · 15 March 2004
To: The Directors of the Carolina Women's Center
Cc: Mr. Michael B. McFarland, Director of University Communications
Mr. James C. Moeser, Chancellor
Mr. Joseph Stansbury, The John William Pope Center for Higher Education
Ms. Sara Dogan, National Campus Director, Students for Academic Freedom
Rep. Walter B. Jones, 3rd District, North Carolina
March 15, 2004
Dear Carolina Women's Center Directors,
When Carolina Students for Life, the student-led pro life and women's health organization on campus, began correspondence with you in November of last year, we fully hoped to form a cooperative and helpful relationship between our two organizations that would benefit the women of the University. Unfortunately, CSFL's attempts were met with nothing but false promises and assurances that the Carolina Women's Center would be fair and unbiased in educating the women of Carolina.
While the CWC claims to promote the admirable tenets of "diversity of thought" and "equality," as your leadership shared with Carolina Students for Life in our March 5, 2004 meeting, nothing could be further from the truth. In the last five months, your attempts to silence our organization, outright refusals to entertain discussions offering an alternative view to abortion, and your support and promotion of pro abortion thought on this campus have been shameful, hypocritical, and illegal. Time after time, the Women's Center has shown that it is intent on pursuing its own agenda while trying to placate our group as you ignore our concerns.
First, as traditionally done in past years, on the official CWC website, you asked for proposals regarding Women's Week 2004. When CSFL responded to this request, offering two speakers, CWC encouraged us for three months to submit applications and information and to pursue plans to bring in national speakers. We met all your requests, in a very timely manner (your responses, however, were not so timely) and secured two highly regarded, prominent speakers to address the campus on health issues related to women's reproductive rights that would be tied into the official Women's Week theme of "Oppression." Despite full compliance with your requests, in late February you informed us that you WOULD NOT be seeking proposals from outside groups. CSFL was very confused by your new position on Women's Week guests since on your website you requested contributions and then encouraged CSFL to submit proposals. If this was your stance, why did your website stand in contradiction to your policy? Why did you waste our time for three months by encouraging us to submit applications and secure speakers? Did your policy suddenly change during the course of planning Women's Week so our group could be excluded from your events? Even though we suspected that this was an attempt to silence our group, CSFL said nothing because we trusted that even though we could not share speakers at Women's Week, we were not being discriminated against because, according to the letter we received from Asst. Director Chimi Boyd on February 16, 2004, the Women's Center decided not to accept any proposals from outside organizations.
After your promise to us that you would not be seeking outside proposals for Women's Week, you can understand why we were very surprised to learn that other campus organizations would be co-sponsoring Women's Week events this year. Your list of Women's Week 2004 events show that student organizations such as the Campus Y, the Carolina Union Activities Board, The Lambda Pi Chi Sorority, the Ebony Readers Onyx sub-group of the Black Student Movement, the UNC chapter of the NAACP, the Mu Zeta Chapter of the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, the Women Affairs Committee of Student Government, the Celebration of Black Womanhood Committee of the Black Student Movement, and the Advocates for the Empowerment of Women of Color of the Campus Y are all co-sponsoring events with the Women's Center this year for Women's Week 2004. When we asked why these organizations were allowed to include speakers and we were not, you replied because YOU solicited THEIR help, and that they did not even offer proposals. Well, what exactly does it take to be chosen by the Carolina Women's Center to be a part of Women's Week? Clearly, it is not an expressed interest or a concern for women's health; because if this was the case, CSFL would have been asked to participate. Clearly, it is not a unique or diverse view of feminism; because if it was, then surely, CSFL would have been asked to participate. As CSFL learns more about the Carolina Women's Center, we are coming to the firm belief that to be recognized by this organization a concern for women, diversity, and equality are not the top criterion, but rather you must first be willing to uphold their pro abortion beliefs and sentiments in order to be heard.
The following incidents prove our theory. When asked to be included on planning meetings at the Carolina Women's Center, CSFL was told on March 5, 2004 that we were not allowed to attend and that open meeting laws do not apply to the CWC. Whether or not these laws do apply is up for debate - but the fact that the CWC wants closed door meetings and is attempting to exclude student leadership from their gatherings lends the organization to severe credibility issues. Is there something the CWC is trying to hide? If not, what is the threat of allowing concerned student groups to listen in or be a part of the decision processes of this public university funded organization? Another troubling issue concerning the CWC is that you maintain a closed listserv. Why would an organization with the goal of reaching out to the women of the University want to monitor and control who received information about the events it is hosting? These two attempts to exclude concerned persons and students from information regarding CWC does nothing but raise suspicion about your goals and objectives.
An incident that CSFL learned of that is even more distressing is the fact that the organization has actively sought out professors to speak against the recent Partial Birth Abortion Ban. In an email from UNC Law Professor Maxine Eichner, CSFL learned that Chimi Boyd of the Women's Center asked Ms. Eichner to discuss the "Partial Birth Abortion Ban and the pro-choice movement's concerns about it." Not surprisingly, when Ms. Eichner came to speak at the Women's Center on February 18, 2004, there was no other speaker there to defend the Ban, or to give a pro life view of the Ban. This is a blatant example of the Women's Center's attempt to promote ONE pro abortion ideology on this campus, rather than a community of "diverse thought" and "equality."
Next, the Carolina Women's Center has refused to accommodate requests that the link to the CSFL website be posted on their website. Choice USA, the pro abortion group on campus, is linked to the website - but the CWC has put off our request to be added with one excuse after another. First, you claimed in February that our 2003 website was not "updated enough" to be listed as a link (interestingly, your website contains links to the Advocates for Sexual Assault page that has not been updated since 1999, the Carolina V-Day Initiative page - last updated 2003, and the Domestic Violence Action Coalition that is no longer in existence). After we restructured our website and updated it completely, we were told in the March 5, 2004 meeting that you now needed to check our mission statement before you provided us with a link on your website and that this could not be done until April at the very earliest. This is unacceptable. The CWC is well aware that the mission of Carolina Students for Life is to promote a pro life view on campus and to advocate for women's health - there is no reason to not list our website as a place where women of this University can go to find out information on reproductive issues.
And, what concerns CSFL the most about the Carolina Women's Center is the fact that they admitted to our leadership in our March 5, 2004 meeting that "Choice USA is more compatible with CWC because their mission statement promotes the right for women to choose abortion." Taking such a strong stand on such a hotly debated and politicized issue is not the job of this public agent of the University. As a public institution, it is your duty to offer both sides of the debate equal time and opportunity in the name of academic freedom if you discuss the issue at all. The CWC has overstepped its legal bounds as a University Organization by taking a pro abortion stand and excluding pro life sentiments.
Our attempts to work with CWC have been met with a pattern of delay, resistance, and rejection. To put it plainly, Carolina Students for Life is tired of being dismissed and discriminated against by the Carolina Women's Center. We ask that the CWC makes a swift and honest effort to include information about CSFL on their website, make their meetings open to student leadership, operate a listserv open to all members of the University community, involve all women's groups on campus in their Women's Week events, and most importantly, refrain from taking any stand at all on the abortion issue, but rather promote both sides of the argument fairly and equally. Also, CSFL will be contacting the Dean of Students since our membership feels that we have been disregarded by the CWC both as individuals and as an organization. We respectfully request that you contact the Dean of Students as well to inform them of a time that you would be available to meet to discuss these concerns.
Carolina Students for Life has been polite, respectful, and cooperative for the last five months in our attempts to have these concerns addressed. However, if immediate action is not taken by the CWC to promote the qualities you claim to support , Carolina Students for Life is prepared to pursue other avenues to make sure that the women of UNC-Chapel Hill do receive an environment where "diversity of thought" and "equality" thrive.
Sincerely,
Stephanie Evans
President, Carolina Students for Life
sevans@email.unc.edu
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