David QuinnUniversities are becoming cold places for pro-life students, writes David Quinn
Earlier this year, there was a squabble at NUI Maynooth when a Catholic group began handing out leaflets to students promoting chastity. The Feminist Society at the university protested loudly and accused the group of being ‘anti-woman’, which is a mighty stretch. How do you conclude that being pro-chastity makes you anti-woman?
No group at the university was trying to stop the feminist group handing out its leaflets, even though it could be argued that favouring legalised abortion makes you ‘anti-baby’, but the Feminist Society (FemSoc) was in no mood to return the favour. It didn’t want the Catholic group in question handing out its leaflets at all.
What happened at NUI Maynooth is simply a small taste of the growing atmosphere of intolerance that is being displayed in Irish universities towards Christian and other groups that clash with modern liberal ideology on matters like abortion and the family.
Something similar (but worse) happened at the University of Limerick in March when a student pro-life society was refused recognition there.
This newspaper reported at the time: “In an ‘unprecedented’ development, a proposed pro-life society for students at the University of Limerick (UL) has been blocked by a vote against approving its establishment.
“The UL Life Society, which has operated on campus since March 2013, though not as a funded and recognised society by the university’s Council of Clubs and Societies, submitted an application for ‘trial status’ in February. However, in a first for the council, a vote washeld following protests by some council members against the pro-life group, resulting in a 22–21 vote against funding the new body.”
No proper reason was given for the refusal to grant recognition to the group.
Now we learn that something of a similar nature has happened at University College Cork.
The Irish Catholic reported last week: “‘Love Life’, a student-led pro-life organisation, has been repeatedly denied recognition by the UCC Societies Guild as an official college society.”
Opinions
Commenting on this development, Fr David Barrins, a former chaplain at the college, said UCC “does not wish to have a plurality of opinions properly represented on campus”.
He added: “There is growing intolerance in the Students Union and the student body to student views that are pro-life or Catholic. If you dissent from the prevailing liberal orthodoxy, then there is no place for you to be represented on campus. Indeed you are met with derision and intolerance.”
The UCC authorities have said the question of whether or not ‘Love Life’ should be given official recognition is a matter for “student governance”.
We need to make a clear distinction at this point between the governing body of a university and the student body itself.
The governing body, including the provost or president of any given university, might not even know that particular student societies are being denied official recognition by the student bodies that decide these things.
The provost may be perfectly friendly towards local Church leaders. But that does not mean the lived experience of Christian and pro-life students on the campus itself is friendly.
It is certainly that case that students who belong to the university branch of say, the Society of St Vincent de Paul are well received on campus. But this is because they don’t clash with the prevailing liberal ideology. (The word ‘liberal’ is used very advisedly here.)
But pro-life students do, and students who uphold the traditional definition of marriage, or who believe there should be no sex outside marriage, face something completely different.
The fact is that liberal ideology is hardening all the time. It is becoming so convinced of its position that it will brook no rivals. It is becoming more and more inclined to equate all opposition to its point of view with outright bigotry. The fact is that liberal ideology is hardening all the time. It is becoming so convinced of its position that it will brook no rivals
Therefore if you oppose abortion, you must be against women. If you are against same-sex marriage, you are against gays. In both cases, you are being ‘irrational’ and ‘intolerant’ and such people are being told they have no place on campus, unless they keep their views to themselves.
They certainly cannot be granted official recognition when they set up student societies that are ‘bigoted’.
And so we see that, in the name of ‘tolerance’, a new intolerance is developing in our universities.
The same thing is happening overseas. Recently, the governing body for several hundred universities in California told a Christian body called the Intervarsity Christian Fellowship that it had to allow its leaders to be non-Christian. In other words, a Christian student body could end up being run by people who aren’t Christians. On the basis of this logic, a feminist group should be run by non-feminists.
The Intervarsity Christian Fellowship has, naturally, refused to accede to this completely unreasonable demand and as a result has had its official recognition withdrawn.
In England recently, a pro-life society has run into trouble of the same kind at a university there.
Legal action
The pro-life society in question is going to take legal action. Why should it be refused recognition when student bodies with an opposite point of view are being recognised?
Legal action may be the only route for many of these societies to take. If the university governing bodies couldn’t be bothered to involve themselves, and if the student organisations in charge of giving official recognition are hostile on ideological grounds and refuse to do so, then Christian and pro-life students on campus are going to have to defend their legal rights themselves.
The leadership of the various Churches are also going to have to get involved. It’s not good enough that they won’t go to the help of young Christian students doing their best to give witness to their faith on our university campuses.
