The pro-life students who were assaulted by University of California Santa Barbara Professor of Feminist Studies, Mireille Miller-Young have filed sit against her. In August Miller-Young was sentenced in a criminal case in connection with an assault on pro-life young people who took the pro-life message to the UCSB campus.
Miller-Young was sentenced to 108 hours of community service, 10 hours of anger management, and three years probation for her assault on a group of pro-life students in early March. She was also ordered to pay a small fine and restitution of almost $500.
The incident took place on the Santa Barbara campus, where Miller-Young attacked and forcibly took property from teenagers who were exercising their free speech rights in the public square to educate about abortion and promote its alternatives. As a result, Miller-Young was convicted of grand theft, vandalism, and battery in July.
Now, the pro-life legal organization Life Legal Defense Foundation filed a civil suit in Santa Barbara County Superior Court on behalf of a group of pro-life students against Miller-Young and the University of California. The civil suit seeks compensation for physical battery, property theft and civil rights violations.
As the pro-life legal group told LifeNews, despite Miller-Young’s conviction and clear evidence supporting it, the university did not publicly censure or reprimand her for the criminal actions. In fact, communications from university officials implied that the youth who had been peacefully engaged in advocating a pro-life worldview caused the incident.
Miller-Young’s assault on the group took place in early March on the Santa Barbara campus. The professor first verbally attacked and then forcibly took a sign from the young people who were in a free speech area exercising their right to educate the campus community about abortion and promote its alternatives.
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Life Legal said that, when some of the group tried to follow her, Miller-Young violently scratched the arms of one of them, 16-year-old Thrin Short. Now Short and ten others are seeking compensatory and punitive damages against Miller-Young and the University of California Santa Barbara. Also named as defendants in the suit are several students who assisted Miller-Young in the theft and destruction of the sign.
“This is a mature, supposedly educated woman charged by the University of California to convey knowledge, and instead she conveyed discrimination and intolerance. Not only was she out of line in attacking students, but she literally drew blood from a minor,” said Dana Cody, President and Executive Director, Life Legal Defense Foundation.
Miller-Young issued a half-hearted apology that cited her supposed pregnancy as the reason for the attack but she and her professor colleagues attempted to blame the pro-life students for their assaults.
“While Miller-Young submitted a written apology to the court for taking and destroying the sign, the sincerity of that apology is undercut by other letters she submitted from colleagues, several of which attempt to shift the blame onto the pro-lifers,” Katie Short said.
“Regardless of the actual level of her remorse, her conviction on three misdemeanor charges will undoubtedly be sufficient to dissuade her from any repetition of her outrageous conduct. The prosecution itself should have disabused her of the notion that she could victimize pro-lifers with impunity, an attitude clearly on display in the video,” she said. “We hope that anyone else who might consider violence or vandalism against pro-life advocates will take note.”
The incident, which took place on March 4, saw two pro-life students Thrin and Joan Short, lead the peaceful pro-life outreach event with 11 friends, most of whom were students from Thomas Aquinas College. They used signs displaying images of abortion victims to begin conversations with students before a confrontation by Professor of Feminist Studies, Mireille Miller-Young turned violent.
The angry professor interrupted the students’ calm interaction with the activists by grabbing a pro-life sign out of the hands of one of them, carrying the sign off through the campus flanked by her students, and then assaulting Thrin Short while trying to hide from police, who were on their way, the group said. Police officers later found the remains of the sign, which had been destroyed. UC Santa Barbara police are completing their report to be submitted for prosecution.
The professor’s tired left scratches on the arms of one pro-lifer.
