Group sues college for restricting location of anti-abortion display

By The Associated Press

09.15.00

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INDIANAPOLIS — An anti-abortion group has filed a civil rights lawsuit against Indiana University for its decision to restrict the location of a display containing images of aborted fetuses.

The Center for Bio-Ethical Reform, based in Mission Hills, Calif., filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Indianapolis.

Kiply Drew, associate university counsel, said the school had not received notice of the lawsuit by yesterday afternoon.

The group had wanted to feature its Genocide Awareness Project in April in an area on campus behind Woodburn Hall that receives heavy foot traffic and is often used by preachers and other groups.

Instead, the university offered the group the use of another outdoor area, Dunn Meadow, on the edge of campus.

"Dunn Meadow is the designated public forum," Drew said.

The traveling exhibit, which has appeared on about 25 college campuses, features about 30 signs, each standing 6 feet tall and 13 feet wide, depicting side-by-side images of fetuses aborted during the first trimester of pregnancy and victims of genocide.

"We have never, ever had to file a lawsuit," said center director Gregg Cunningham on Sept. 13. "This is the only school in the country that has responded in this way, and we find that extraordinary."

Dick McKaig, IU's dean of students, said in April that the school's main concern with the exhibit was its proposed size. But Cunningham had said there appears to be just as much room in the area behind Woodburn Hall as there is in Dunn Meadow.

The lawsuit claims that IU permits free speech at locations other than Dunn Meadow, as long as the events do not disturb classes or traffic, so IU is in violation of its own policy.

While preaching and pamphleting take place in the area desired by the anti-abortion group, such activity is "not approved to be there," McKaig has said.

In hopes of resolving the issue, the center has tentatively scheduled a return to IU on Oct. 2-3, Cunningham said.

But if the issue is not resolved, the group said Sept. 13 that it will put the images of aborted fetuses on the sides of trucks and drive them through Bloomington and Indianapolis.

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