A pro-choice student group at Boston College held a panel to discuss the future of abortion rights in late February, irking administrators and pro-life students at the Catholic college.
Women's Health Initiative, a pro-choice group, planned an event to discuss the effects of Justice Samuel Alito's Supreme Court appointment on the future of Roe v. Wade, but it nearly did not happen because BC administrators tried to cancel the event.
BC senior Esme Deprez, president of WHI, said her group had met with a college dean and went through the appropriate channels to have the event approved. But despite all the preparation, the college withdrew its approval a day before the event, timing that Deprez sarcastically described as "quite convenient."
The panel did occur only with the help of sociology professor Charles Derber, who sponsored it as a sociology event.
BC cancelled the event because WHI had "planned this as a panel on Judge Alito ... (but) it was more talking about pro-choice than about Judge Alito," said sophomore Christine Friedrich, president of BC's Students for Life.
Friedrich said WHI should have made the panel more balanced between pro-choice and pro-life experts. But Deprez said her group was explicit in describing the event as a discussion of Roe v. Wade's future in light of Alito's nomination. It was never meant to be "a debate on whether abortions are valid or not," she said.
BC administrators were upset over the panel discussion. The Jesuit college in Chestnut Hill, Mass., does not recognize student organizations supporting beliefs that contradict Catholicism. WHI has been an unofficial group since its formation late last spring.
"In accordance with university policy, BC does not sponsor events for non-recognized student organizations. So once (the Office of the Dean for Student Development) became aware that the event, originally sponsored by the BC (Democrats) and (BC's student government senate), was in fact, a front for a non-recognized student organization, the event was cancelled," BC spokesman Jack Dunn told the Heights, BC's student newspaper, in a March 2 article.
While 70 percent of BC students identify as Catholic, according to a March 2 article in the Boston Globe, students on both sides of the abortion issue agree there ought to be more dialogue. For Friedrich, the goal is to engage students who, "because they're sexually active, aren't willing to take a stand on the issue."
However, she maintained that the college's Jesuit foundation must remain central, even though it means that certain freedoms of expression are curtailed.
From WHI's standpoint, the group provides a much-needed open environment in which students who want to explore different options and information can go to talk. WHI's present objective is to "provide a voice to students who feel as we do," Deprez said.
Conversation between opposing sides might also be forthcoming. "We've been trying to set up a debate with the pro-choicers all year, but they've wanted certain regulations," Friedrich said.
But Deprez said she has never been contacted by Friedrich.
While WHI has no faculty sponsor, many students and faculty members support the group, Deprez said. Many BC community members have contacted the group in the aftermath of the Feb. 28 panel to express support.
The crux of the issue seems to be student frustration at the college's perceived attempt to stifle certain views because BC is a Jesuit school. WHI incorporates many issues besides abortion, and the college's Catholic basis "shouldn't be an excuse for them to censor the voice they don't want to hear," Deprez said.
Brown will have its own panel on the same topic today at 8 p.m. in Smith-Buonanno 106. The event is co-sponsored by the Brown Democrats, Students for Choice and Planned Parenthood.
