Pro-Lifers File Suit

ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY WEB DEVIL, Aug. 22 — Arizona State University’s Students for Life association has filed suit against the university, alleging their constitutional rights were violated.

Court papers filed in Arizona District Court on July 21 allege that “unprecedented fees and space restrictions” were placed on the pro-life group earlier this year, “stripping them of basic free speech and due process rights.”

The group was required to pay liability insurance for its campaigns — an exhibition of aborted babies in February and a display for “Dignity of Life Week” in April — although “there is no evidence this requirement was ever imposed on any other student expression,” the court papers allege.

University officials contend that no discrimination occurred and that liability fees are levied whenever warranted for campus events, the Web Devil online student newspaper reported.

“Free speech shouldn’t have a price tag,” said Heather Gebelin Hacker, Students for Life’s lead attorney. “These students had to pay to exercise their First Amendment rights, which is unconstitutional.”

The Drive for 5

THE NEW YORK TIMES, Aug. 27 — The Carroll College Fighting Saints have become a surprising powerhouse in NCAA football. The 1,500-student Catholic college in Helena, Mon., has won four consecutive national championships in the NCAA’s Division III, making it one of only two colleges in any division to accomplish that feat.

The New York Times, which described Carroll as “an elite Catholic institution,” profiled coach Mike Van Diest’s successful gridiron program in a lengthy feature article entitled, “The Quiet Dynasty.”

Brain over brawn is a key to Carroll’s success.

“Three years ago in the national title game, a receiver from Northwestern Oklahoma State asked a Carroll defensive back why it seemed like they knew every play before the snap,” the article recounts. “The defender responded, ‘Because we do.’”

Building Boom in Naples

THE NEWS-PRESS, Aug. 24 — Construction cranes still litter the landscape at Ave Maria University’s new Naples, Fla., campus, reported the southwest Florida daily.

And progress is steaming ahead for the university’s planned move there next fall.

The university hosted a media tour Aug. 24. As of that date, project managers said, 48% of all site work and utilities had been completed; six miles of roadways had been built; 13 lakes had been trenched and filled; seven university buildings had been started and seven town center buildings had been constructed, with six more to follow.

The News-Press also noted, “The 100-foot-high steel frame of the oratory dominates the construction site as it will dominate the university and town once complete.”

McCain to Bob Jones?

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Aug. 28 — Presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., was a vocal critic of George W. Bush’s primary campaign stop in 2000 at South Carolina’s Bob Jones University.

But last month McCain told the Columbia, S.C., daily The State he would consider a visit himself, if invited.

The evangelical college is highly critical of Catholicism, and Bush sent a letter after his 2000 appearance to the late Cardinal John O’Connor of New York apologizing for “causing needless offense” by not distancing himself “from anti-Catholic sentiments and racial prejudice.”