VCU policy allows graphic display on campus

Mechelle Hankerson
News Editor

A national anti-abortion organization, the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, visited the VCU campus last week with a controversial display comparing abortion to historical genocides. The group also began a wave of student action against the group and university.

The Genocide Awareness display was first set up in the Commons Plaza last Wednesday. The next day, the group moved their display to the Compass where a group of students met them with signs warning passersby of the graphic display as well as fighting anti-abortion sentiment.

Students also took their frustrations to VCU administration, sending emails questioning whether or not VCU should have allowed the group on campus.

The visit was coordinated by VCU student group, Students for Life at VCU.

Senior Lisa Twigg, president of Students for Life at VCU, said the group started planning the event in November and said she initially had reservations about the display.

“ … The pictures that were brought … (were) obviously disturbing and obviously very horrific,” Twigg said.

She said she was concerned the display would have more of a negative effect than a positive one, but was convinced because, according to Twigg and the CBR, successful social reformers in the past have used a similar strategy of showing graphic images.

Ultimately, Twigg said she thought the demonstration went well and is not opposed to inviting the CBR back to VCU.

I was telling people our goal was not to be out there and have one voice; we really thought it would be a success only if students had an honest reaction and dialogue with us on these images and on this display,” she said. “That’s the point.”

As a public university, there is little room for VCU administration to regulate the content of demonstrations that abide by applicable rules and procedures.

Official VCU event planning policy states  that “peaceful, reasonable, and lawful picketing and other orderly demonstrations in approved areas shall not be subject to interference by the members of the University community,” but also that “those involved in picketing and demonstrations may not engage in conduct that violates the rights of any member of the University community.”

Fletcher Armstrong, the director for the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s southeastern office said counter-demonstrations on college campuses are normal and said despite VCU students’ protests, he still thinks the Genocide Awareness Project was successful at VCU.

“We’re always successful,” Armstrong said. “The goal is to make people see that the unborn child is a human being … so when people see the pictures of unborn children … they look human, they are human.”

Armstrong also said the goal of the display is also to make people see that abortion is an act of violence.

In addition to enrolled students being exposed to the display, tours of prospective students went on during the Center for Bio-Ethical Reform’s visit to VCU’s campus.

This was the first week of most public high schools’ spring breaks and Joanne Jensen, the associate director of marketing and communications at the VCU Welcome Center, estimates there was an average of 500 prospective students and parents visiting campus each day.

While most tours could avoid the display the first day, when the display was moved to the Compass, it was much more difficult.

According to Jensen, student tours go through the inside of the Commons building and the Compass to see Shafer Dining Hall and the James Branch Cabell Library.

She said that the Welcome Center has not received any complaints about the display from touring parents or students.

“We told parents about a demonstration, and it was one that was approved by the university based on the fact that the organization … agreed to all the university policies and procedures and we had VCU Police monitoring it so there was nothing to worry about, but we did want to let them know there would be some graphic images,” Jensen said.

Jensen said the office knew about the display in advance and approached it as anything else they would.

“VCU is a university that is diverse and … the university also welcomes the expression of free speech,” she said. “There‘s always some diverse, interesting thing (happening) on campus… .”