An anonymous student at Huntington University (HU) said she tried to create a pro-life group on campus but was never given permission by the administration, despite repeated attempts to get approval.
Writing for Students for Life of America (SFLA), the student said she didn’t foresee any issues with her application. “I submitted my club constitution to the Student Life Office within the first seven business days of the 2023 spring semester,” she said. “At that point, I believed my group would be approved with open arms since HU is ‘Christian’ — but I was very wrong about this process being easy.”
The student said the approval process is supposed to take no more than a month and a half, but by the end of the semester, there was still no word from the administration. Eventually, after a lot of effort to get answers, she found out the group was denied.
“They never responded to any of my emails. They never gave me updates on where the group was at in the approvals process,” the student said.
She added, “When I did finally hear back from the school, their first reason for not approving us was that my group was ‘too political.’ However, before they even told me that, I had told the school that I feel a strong conviction and personal mission within the anti-abortion movement to remove the partisan barriers of being pro-life. This is because many people think that being pro-life is about being a Republican who loves Donald Trump. Likewise, many people also think that to be pro-abortion means you’re a Democrat who loves killing babies.
“Essentially, I want to take the division out of abortion because my mission is to help people think differently because anyone — regardless of political affiliation — can be pro-life since abortion affects all communities.”
The student continued to fight for a pro-life campus group and thought she had made a breakthrough. “HU administration let me meet with the staff in charge of student clubs, and this individual basically told me that they don’t want the group to be a nationally affiliated one (even though the school has other national affiliated clubs),” the student explained. “I agreed and decided to change the name of my group so that I was not associated with SFLA (a real compromise because I really wanted to be affiliated with SFLA).”
Yet despite her efforts to compromise, the group still was not approved. SFLA has since sent a demand letter, insisting that the group be approved and given the same rights and opportunities as other campus groups. But the student already feels that HU has betrayed its “Christian” ethics.
For several years, so-called “Christian” colleges and universities have been found to have ties to Planned Parenthood and other pro-abortion groups — proving that this student’s experience is far from unique.
“The main reason I choose to go to HU is because I thought it was truly a Christian school – because they market it as such,” the student said. “The university is under The Church of the United Brethren in Christ denomination which states, ‘Abortion is a major moral problem in our society. We believe that human life is sacred from the moment of conception, and that abortion must not occur anytime after conception.’ Clearly, the university does not abide by their own beliefs — making them Christian in name only.”
