University

Money, not free speech, at issue in Carleton pro-life dispute

Carleton students shouldn’t be forced to pay for a group they don’t support

Critics of the Carleton University Students’ Association’s threat to strip an anti-abortion group’s club status are missing the point.

“Carleton student association bans anti-abortion club,” screams the headline on the National Post’s religion blog. According to a press release from the Campaign Life Coalition: “Carleton University, that bastion of free-thought, has ordered some of its students to accept its pro-abortion policy or leave the University.”

The problem is that this just simply isn’t true.

What’s actually happening at Carleton is that the students’ association–not the university–has decided to suspend a group’s club status. What does this actually mean? It means the group won’t get student money and can’t use student space for their activities. That’s it.

This has nothing to do with freedom of speech and everything to do with a group of self-righteous whiners who feel that they’re entitled to funding from all students and are upset that the gravy train has been stopped.

This group hasn’t been “silenced” or any such nonsense, they’re just being forced to pay their own way.

Students shouldn’t be forced to financially support groups that they disagree with. As Thomas Jefferson said, “to compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.”

Yes, I am aware that students across the country are forced to pay for on-campus groups they may or may not support. I don’t think they should be.

Moreover, Carleton Lifeline’s views are particularly extreme. The group’s most recent protest involved the hosting of something called the “Genocide Awareness Project” a vile campaign which makes a mockery of the suffering of Holocaust victims.

The CUSA is a private corporation run by elected pseudo-politicians, they’re allowed to take stances on issues. One might even say that’s what they’re supposed to do.

If individual Carleton students want to pay for this group they can, and should, do it out of their own pockets.

Related: Carleton student union to enact discriminatory ban

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