Three ASU students are appealing a U.S. District Court decision that said their First Amendment rights were not violated when the University forced them to get insurance for two anti-abortion events in 2006.
The district court held that ASU was within its rights when it required Students for Life to get liability coverage before setting up the graphic exhibit "Justice for All" that year — which showed pictures of aborted fetuses.
In the appeal of the Students for Life v. Crow case, filed April 8, the Scottsdale-based Alliance Defense Fund will represent the group's president Katie Brind'Amour and two other members before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.
Alliance Defense Fund attorney Heather Hacker said she filed the appeal on behalf of Students for Life because she believes the University's policy, which prohibits student organizations from staging events without insurance, is unconstitutional. Hacker was Students for Life's attorney in the district court case, which was decided in ASU's favor on March 10.
"It's an essential principle of the First Amendment that free speech shouldn't have a price tag," Hacker said.
In 2006, the University forced Students for Life to get insurance not only for their exhibit — which returned to campus this March — but also for their "Dignity of Life" event, which involved little more than tabling, Hacker said.
"What kind of risk is involved with an event like this, except for a paper cut?" she said.
Before the district court, ASU argued that the insurance requirement was an unwritten University policy that has since been codified.
Paul Ward, vice president for University administration and general counsel, directed interview requests to ASU spokeswoman Terri Shafer, who said the University would not comment on pending litigation.
After Students for Life originally sued the University on July 21, 2006, then-ASU General Counsel Nancy Tribbensee said the group was treated no differently than others.
"We routinely impose that insurance requirement, and we're required by the state to require insurance," she told The State Press in August 2006.
Biology and society senior Brind'Amour said she thinks the University discriminated against her group.
"They had kind of enforced a stance on us that they hadn't enforced on other groups," Brind'Amour said.
She said, while she feels passionate about her anti-abortion views, it can be hard for her and others to voice them on a campus with a vocal abortion-rights crowd.
"I think because, right now, the law is not in our favor, that makes it more of a taboo issue," she said.
Brind'Amour said the Students for Life — which has about two dozen active members — is glad to receive free counsel from the Alliance Defense Fund, which defines itself as a Christian legal alliance and mostly litigates First Amendment, anti-gay marriage and anti-abortion cases.
But Students for Life is not exclusively Christian, Brind'Amour said.
The fund's spokesman Burke Wilson said his organization wants Christian students to be treated in the same way as other students on campus.
"A lot of our cases indicate that there definitely is kind of a hostility toward Christian students," Wilson said.
Brind'Amour and Hacker said their fight is not just about principle, but about making sure all student organizations get to express their views on campus — no matter how unpopular they may be.
Hacker said ASU's insurance requirement is just too much for cash-strapped students — Students for Life were given insurance quotes of up to $1,200.
"That's clearly a really big burden for student groups to pass," she said.
In addition to ASU President Michael Crow, then-Senior Associate Vice President for University Student Initiatives Sally Ramage and Program Coordinator Senior for the Memorial Union Judy Schroeder are named as defendants in the case.
Reach the reporter at: andre.f.radzischewski@asu.edu.
