Pro-life students have been likened to the BNP after their group was banned by the students’ association at Glasgow’s Strathclyde University.
Students were also told that allowing their group to join the University of Strathclyde Students’ Association (USSA) would be ‘a barrier to freedom and equality’ to all women on campus.
The group has now been banned from joining USSA after previously being advised that they could not receive funding until they had done so.
Free speech
“If a society’s beliefs contradicts association policy then it is not allowed to affiliate,” said Raj Jayaraj, President of the USSA.
“If a society representing the British National Party came on campus then we would not allow them to affiliate.”
Chloe Lindsey, a student at the university strongly criticised the decision saying: “The suppression of freedom of speech has no place in a university which claims to be liberal and forward-thinking.”
Slammed
Minutes from a USSA meeting record the view that allowing pro-life groups would be “a barrier to freedom, equality and body autonomy for those with uteruses on campus and therefore not only violate existing standing policy, but also act against the interests of a large amount of the student population.”
The pro-life students have written to officials at the university asking them to intervene.
The decision to deny funding to the group earlier this year was slammed by John Deighan, the chief executive of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children Scotland.
‘Intolerant censorship’
He said: “It is quite remarkable and incredibly sad that in this day and age our universities, which are supposed to be the bastions of free thinking and liberal mindedness, should be transformed into centres for intolerant censorship.
“Universities should be guardians of debate and challenging ideas, rather than banning people just because they don’t like their views.”