It seems that the WSU student government denied WSU Students for Life funding using the rationale that it could not use student fees to finance religious and "spiritual" activities.  Just like "Professor" Sedler, the WSU student government thinks that religious people, and, in particular, Christians (of course), should not be involved in public issues and have therefore crafted a policy to enforce its perverted thinking.

But WSU Students for Life does not even hold itself out as a specifically religious organization, as it is a non-sectarian, non-partisan group.  Surely, most of WSU Students for Life's membership is motivated, at least in part, by religious conviction.  But so what?  

The WSU student government's funding policy is nothing more than a reflection of WSU's institutional bias in favor of the pro-abortion, pro-Culture-of-Death agenda, which the university constantly promotes in an effort to brainwash impressionable students.  

It is apparent that advancing the Culture of Death via the likes of Hodari, Kevorkian, and Sedler is not enough for Wayne State.  The university is so afraid of exposing students to a competing viewpoint (a.k.a. the Truth) that it has come up with a clever little policy of pulling the rug out from beneath tuition-paying students, who, gasp, may hold a differing perspective than the one that is constantly being shoved-down their throats.

The WSU student government's funding policy may be clever, but it is certainly unconstitutional.  Back in March, 2000, the U.S. Supreme Court held in University of Wisconsin v Southworth, 529 US 217 (2000), that the collection of mandatory student fees for the purpose of financing student groups at public universities is constitutional so long as the funding is distributed in a viewpoint neutral manner.  See: http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?navby=CASE&court=US&vol=000&page=98-118 9

Sadly, in addition to being unconstitutional, the WSU student government's funding policy is also nothing new in terms of discrimination against pro-lifers at the university level.  

Back in the fall of 1999, when I was serving as vice president of Students for Life at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, the Michigan Student Assembly (MSA) initially gave us $10 in funding, after we submitted our first-ever application for student government financing.  Meantime, the university's Students for Choice and Medical Students for Choice - surprise - were each awarded hundreds of dollars for their semester's events.  

Although we didn't file a lawsuit against MSA, we did fight back - hard.  First, we addressed the entire MSA at one of their weekly meetings and threatened to picket at future sessions, if we didn't get a rehearing from the budget committee.  As a result, we did get a rehearing, and the budget committee upped our share of funding to $150.  

Of course, that still wasn't good enough because the criteria that MSA was utilizing for funding was the level of activity that a group had on campus.  There was no way that the pro-abortion groups on campus were more active than U of M Students for Life was at this time.  So, I launched a publicity campaign about the injustice done to us.  We made headlines in Tom Monaghan's now-defunct Credo newspaper and then I submitted an editorial piece in the student-run Michigan Daily.  However, the Daily at first refused to print my piece.  I then showed-up at the Daily's offices and followed the editor around until I hounded him into printing it, which he did.  See: http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1999/dec/12-02-99/edit/edit4.html & http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/1999/nov/11-11-99/edit/edit1.html (the latter editorial was written by the Michigan Daily, which was what I was responding to in my own editorial piece).  

The stir we created on campus over the funding issue made a lasting impression on MSA, which granted U of M Students for Life over $1,000 in funding the following semester - a much higher amount than what the two student pro-abortion groups received.  Even that rag-of-a-newspaper, the Michigan Daily, conceded in a March 9, 2000 editorial, entitled, "Issues deserving MSA candidates' focus," that U of M Students for Life had been unfairly discriminated against when it came to MSA's funding allocation for fall, 1999:

"MSA is the chief source of funding for many organizations, including minority groups. Groups should not feel cheated by the process, nor should it take long to fill out paperwork and determine the dispensing of funds. Last fall, a pro-life group initially received significantly less than a pro-choice group. Although this was eventually solved, it shows the flaws in the system. Regardless of personal beliefs, every organization that wishes to express itself according to its First Amendment rights should be able to do so."

See: http://www.pub.umich.edu/daily/2000/mar/03-09-2000/edit/01.html

That acknowledgement, in of itself, was worth all the effort.

Go get `em, WSU Students for Life!

About the author: Andrew Shirvell, Esq., is a pro-life citizen activist who writes a weekly column that is published every Thursday for RightMichigan.com in which he focuses upon Michigan pro-life issues. He is the co-author of "Michigan Law and the Scales of Justice, Life in the Balance," a white paper published by Americans United for Life (2007).  Shirvell attended Ave Maria School of Law - Ann Arbor, where he served as president of the school's Bioethics Society, from 2004-2005.  He also served as president of Students for Life at the University of Michigan - Ann Arbor, from 2000-2002.