WIN: Judge says Students for Life was unfairly denied student fees for pro-life event

A federal judge in the Golden State has ruled in favor of the Students for Life of America (SFLA) chapter at California State University-San Marcos (San Diego)—in a legal challenge involving the unconstitutional allotment of student fees, which began in May 2017. 

On Tuesday, Federal District Judge James Lorenz struck down the university’s “back room deliberations,” used to fund pro-abortion and other favored views while preventing a pro-life organization from accessing student funding, noted Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF).

According to the judge’s ruling, the Students for Life group was subjected to discriminatory funding policies when they were denied $500 to host University of North Carolina-Wilmington professor Mike Adams, the author of “Letters to a Young Progressive: How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Protesting Things You Don’t Understand.”

READ: Students for Life launches first group at historically Black college

By contrast, the university recently handed nearly $300,000 to preferred student groups, like the Gender Equity Center and the LGBTQA Pride Center, according to ADF. Based in Arizona, ADF, a nonprofit legal organization that advocates for the right of people to freely live out their faith, represented SFLA in the lawsuit. 

Cal State San-Marcos and Nathan Apodaca | ADF Client Story

“Public universities have no right to use their power, including mandatory student fees, to restrict speech they don’t agree with or particularly like,” said Kristan Hawkins, president of Students for Life of America in a press release. “Thankfully, the court agrees that forcing students to pay into a system that treats their peers unfairly is a disservice to the entire Cal State-San Marcos student body and flatly unconstitutional.” 

“Pro-life students should have every opportunity available to them that pro-abortion students have, and anything less is a failure on the part of Cal State-San Marcos to abide by the First Amendment.” 

With groups on more than 1,220 high school and college campuses across the country, SFLA is the nation’s largest pro-life student organization.

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