Reversal Follows Intense Criticism Law School Student Government Agrees to Recognize Law Students Pro-Life.(Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri)

Bowing to a wave of criticism, the Student Bar Association (SBA) at Washington University in St. Louis has reversed itself and agreed to recognize Law Students Pro-Life. The October 15 turnabout followed on the heels of a sharply worded editorial that appeared the day before in the adamantly pro-abortion St. Louis Post-Dispatch, support from the American Civil Liberties Union of Eastern Missouri, and patient work by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Following two hours of hot debate, the law school's student government changed course, voting to recognize Law Students Pro-Life on a vote of 27-6 with four abstentions. "I'll be the first to admit that my argument had more holes in it than Swiss cheese," said Jeff Wax, an SBA member, according to the Post-Dispatch.

The SBA refusal to recognize Law Students Pro-Life, not once but three times, was based on grounds so flimsy it sparked intense resistance for its blatant assault on academic freedom.

Originally, SBA President Elliott Friedman archly informed Law Students Pro-Life that "the catching issue" was what he labeled "the narrowness of your group's interests and goals." The SBA, he wrote, "felt that the organization was not touching on all possible Pro Life issues" because it did not have an "anti-death penalty" position in its ...