Back in January, on the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, a group of 13 students destroyed a makeshift memorial for aborted babies on the main campus of DePaul University. The display — 500 pink and blue flags — was set up by DePaul’s chapter of Young Americans for Freedom. (RELATED: Abortion display destroyed on campus)
Senior Kristopher Del Campo, who chairs the DePaul YAF chapter, contacted public safety officials after pro-abortion thugs tore the flags from the ground and threw them in trash cans around campus.
About a week later, as The Daily Caller reported, Kevin Connolly, an investigator for DePaul’s public safety department, produced a brief report listing the names of 13 students who flatly admitted to wrecking the display. The reports said the vandals “had seen anti-abortion posters around campus earlier in the day that they found offensive.” (RELATED: Students admit vandalizing display)
DePaul’s assistant dean of students, Domonic Rollins, provided Del Campo a copy of the report. The national website for Young Americans for Freedom then published it online.
Take a wild guess which student the nation’s largest Catholic school has now singled out for punishment.
Naturally, the student was Del Campo.
DePaul managed to find the Del Campo guilty of multiple violations of the Vincentian institution’s code of student responsibility. One of the charges brands the publication of the names as “disorderly, violent, intimidating or dangerous.” Another charge somehow related to “judicial process compliance.”
The senior is now for on probation for publicizing the names of fellow students who admitted to vandalizing his organization’s pro-life display. He must also write something called a reflection letter.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) has intervened on behalf of Del Campo.
In a February 21 letter to DePaul’s President, Rev. Dennis Holtschneider, FIRE argued that Del Campo had the right to publicly identify the students who had admitted to vandalizing his group’s display. The letter further suggested that DePaul had violated Del Campo’s rights by charging him and then punishing him for speaking up about his own case.
“Students who purposefully vandalize the works of other students,” FIRE wrote, “should not expect to be shielded from the public consequences of their actions.”
“Kristopher Del Campo’s group was the victim of a politically motivated crime, and yet DePaul University is punishing Del Campo for naming the people who committed the crime,” said Robert Shibley, senior vice president at FIRE.
“Punishing a student for naming those who committed a crime against him or her sets a very dangerous precedent,” Shibley added. “For example, would DePaul punish a female student for telling her friends to avoid a person who admitted to sexually assaulting her?”
Holtschneider’s response to FIRE’s letter, if any, is unknown.
It is unclear if the 13 students who vandalized the anti-abortion display have faced or will ever face any sort of punishment.
Last month, Cynthia Lawson, vice president for public relations at DePaul, informed TheDC that the investigation of those students “is complete and the judicial process has commenced.”
Del Campo plans to appeal his punishment.
