A small Catholic college in Indiana has responded to a complaint lodged by the Catholic League that seems to guarantee that it will pay more attention to its Catholic status in the future.
The league was notified by one of its members that the school newspaper refused to run pro-life ads on the theory that it then felt obliged to accommodate pro-abortion groups as well. Here is the text of the letter sent by Dr. Donohue to the college’s president.
“It has come to my attention that the editor of Shavings has refused to run any future ads by the anti-abortion group, Birthright. The alleged reason for doing so is that to accommodate Birthright, pro-abortion groups like Planned Parenthood must be accommodated.
“Having spent some 16 years as a college professor at a Catholic college, I know how utterly fallacious such reasoning is: private schools are under no obligation to do any such thing. Even public institutions of higher learning may make their own editorial decisions regarding these matters.
“As president of the nation’s largest Catholic civil rights organization, I have just one question: will [school’s name] keep this same policy next year or will it allow Birthright the right to place its ads without extending space to such groups as Planned Parenthood?”
In a letter from the president of the college, he said that it is the policy of his college “to accept advertising from Birthright and not to accept advertising from Planned Parenthood.” He also indicated that “The action of this student editor was purely her own and was called to our attention after the decision had been made and no corrective actions were possible. Our college administration does not condone this action, but at the same time, there was little that could be done about it after the fact.”
The league is satisfied that the college got the message. But it is disturbed to think that no faculty oversight was maintained over the newspaper.
