Education

Charges for prof who claimed ‘MORAL RIGHT’ to censor, batter 16-year-old abortion foe

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The district attorney in Santa Barbara, Calif. has formally filed charges against the University of California, Santa Barbara professor accused of stealing a graphic anti-abortion sign from two abortion protesters, then assaulting one of the protesters (a 16-year-old girl) and destroying the sign.

The professor, Mireille Miller-Young, faces counts of theft, battery and vandalism, reports the Santa Barbara Independent. All of the charges are misdemeanors.

Miller-Young, a several-months pregnant feminist studies professor who specializes in queer theory and pornography, is scheduled to appear at an arraignment on April 4.

The incident leading to the charges occurred on March 4 in a designated “free speech zone” on the UC Santa Barbara campus.

Earlier this week, the UCSB police department released its official crime report concerning the incident. (RELATED: Read the full police report here)

“In essence, Miller-Young told me that she felt ‘triggered'” “in a negative way” by graphic images on the anti-abortion poster and on anti-abortion literature demonstrators Thrin Short, 16, and her 21-year-old sister, Joan, were handing out. (RELATED: Feminist prof now claims ‘MORAL RIGHT’ to attack 16-year-old abortion foe, destroy sign)

The two sisters are members of a Riverside, Calif.-based pro-life group called Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust.

Miller-Young said she felt the protesters had no right to be on the UC Santa Barbara campus “because the poster was upsetting to her and other students.”

The professor and a small army of female vigilantes “began demanding that the images be taken down.” When that tactic failed, Miller-Young said, she “just grabbed” the sign “from this girl’s hands.”

“Asked if there had been a struggle, Miller-Young stated, ‘I’m stronger so I was able to take the poster.'”

The two protesters used a cellphone to capture video of the incident once Miller-Young and her posse had waddled away with the poster, then into a building and then into an elevator. (RELATED: Here’s video of the feminist studies prof facing assault charges for attacking 16-year-old abortion foe)

“Try and stop us,” Miller-Young turns around and taunts to the camera at one point.

After an alleged pushing-and-scratching altercation with the 16-year-old protester, their destination was Miller-Young’s office, which the professor deemed a “safe space.” In that “safe space,” the Ph.D.-holding associate professor admitted, she destroyed the poster with scissors.

The pro-abortion zealot “stated that she believed she had the ‘moral’ right to act the way she did” (quotes around “moral” in police report).

Miller-Young also proclaimed that her “right to go to work and not be in harm” had been violated. “I work here,” she declared. “Why do they get to intervene in that?”

The professor also wouldn’t name any of the students who followed her and said she hopes to resolve the charges against her outside of court and would be willing to pay for the cost of the sign she cut up but would “hate it.”

She likened her actions to that of a “conscientious objector”— who violently steals and tears up things she doesn’t like, and allegedly pushes and scratches 16-year-old girls.

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