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Free Speech For All!
Dear friends,
Thank you for signing our petition asking Carleton University to protect freedom of speech for all its students. It’s been several days now since the Carleton administration received our petition, with a subsequent hard copy sent to them. Thus far, we have not received a response from them.
If and when we will receive a response, we will let you know. As well, we’ll let you know if the policy changes at Carleton University. Rest assured, we’ll keep working on getting free speech, including free speech for pro-lifers, protected at the university.
Sincerely,
Jose Ruba
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Dear friends,
Attached is a petition asking Carleton University to prevent discrimination on its campus. As friends and alumni of Carleton U, we need supporters of free speech like you to support this petition. You can do that by sending us your name, contact e-mail, address and mailing address to the webmaster at:
Ian Murray ian@provethetruth.com
Your subject should include "I support free speech at Carleton University".
If you have attended or currently attend Carleton, then also include:
- Year(s) of attendance or graduation year
- Program/ Degree
We will include your name, connection with Carleton and e-mail address on the petition and submit it to Carleton University on March 1st, 2007. Once you sign the petition, it would be great if you can also send a short letter to Carleton telling them how displeased you are with their lack of action. The names and addresses of who to contact are at the end of this page.
If you only feel comfortable sending a letter to the university, please notify the webmaster so at least we know how many supporters we have.
Background Information:
The student association (CUSA) has passed a motion discriminating against a group of students, in this case pro-life students, because of their moral position. The motion declares that any group that wants to make abortion illegal should not be recognized as a club. This despite the fact that all students, regardless of their position on abortion are forced to join and pay for CUSA.
Lifeline, the pro-life student club however was recognized as a club but only because other clubs voted to recognize them as “pro-lifers” rather than “anti-choicers”. Of course both terms refer to people who want to make abortion illegal and many don’t understand how anyone make a distinction. More importantly, this means that CUSA has not changed its discriminatory policy. It has already warned Lifeline that the club’s activities will be monitored closely and it will revoke the club’s recognition if it perceives any violation of the policy. In other words, CUSA is still discriminating against pro-lifers.
Rather than taking action against this policy, the university claims it is enough that it provides space for the student club. However, the policy does more than take away space. It also means that if Lifeline’s club status is pulled, the club:
- cannot apply for funding from CUSA
- cannot get a campus mailbox
- cannot be listed in the CUSA calendar, sent to all students every year
- cannot put posters up in prime areas on campus
- does not have legitimacy to be part of the Carleton community
If you believe that the university is a place for free debate and discussion, then please support our petition.
We have made two versions of the petition. The first version is for those who have attended or who have graduated from Carleton University. The second is for anyone else who believes in free speech on campus. Both letters indicate that we will withhold financial support from the school until the school acts to prevent this discrimination.
Your names and contact info will remain confidential. In this case, we will only use the contact info to submit to the University concerning this situation. We will send the petition to the president of CUSA, a representative from the fundraising arm of the university and the university communications office. If you can’t download the PDF documents, refer to the 'HTML' version of the PDF documents.
We are collecting names until March 1st, 2007.
The university needs to hear from members of the community now. This incident has tarnished the name of the school and if it doesn’t act to rectify the situation, it will continue to negatively affect its reputation.
Thank you,
Jose Ruba
P.S. For more info on this motion, please check out this blog:
http://lti-blog.blogspot.com/
For more info on the debate that started this all check out this blog:
http://mcclare.blogspot.com/2006/10/debate-should-elective-abortion-be.html
P.P.S.
We will send the petition to the following people at the university. If you intend to send a letter, please address these three people as well:
Dr. Samy Mahmoud
President & Vice-Chancellor
Carleton University
presidents_office@ carleton. ca
Tel 613 520-3801
Fax: 613 520-4474
Krista Prochazka
Manager, Prospect Development Services
Krista_Prochazka@carleton.ca
Doug Wotherspoon
Director, University Communications
Carleton University
613-520-2600 ext. 1838
613-220-6618 (cellular)
FINAL SUPPORTERS TALLY 149 |
