The Anscombe Society retracts claims that Pitt violated its First Amendment right to free speech

A group of students hoping to promote abstinence on campus is backing off previous claims that the University stifled its free speech when an administrator asked its members to stop distributing information in Towers Lobby this week.

A group of students hoping to promote abstinence on campus is backing off previous claims that the University stifled its free speech when an administrator asked its members to stop distributing information in Towers Lobby this week.

Twenty members of the Anscombe Society, a group currently seeking recognition from the University, gathered in the lobby of the freshmen residence halls Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday during the SEXPO, an event that promoted safe sex. Society members handed out fliers and tissue flowers and encouraged their peers to pledge on a poster board that they would stay chaste for the weekend.

“How hard can it be to — for two nights — abstain from sex?” said the group’s president, freshman Joseph Petrich.

On Tuesday, administrators asked the group to leave Towers Lobby, saying that PantherWELL had already reserved the space for its SEXPO and that people standing in the high-traffic area could pose a safety hazard.

The incident quickly became a controversy, causing some students and law professionals to question whether the Anscombe Society’s First Amendment right to free speech had been violated. The incident gained local media coverage.

But since then, Petrich has backed off claims that his group’s rights were violated, saying he wants to work with Pitt officials rather than “attack or try to tear down the University.”

The next steps

Complicating the issue is the fact that the Anscombe Society — which makes secular and religious arguments for chastity — was in the middle of seeking certification from the University’s Student Organization Resource Center, which approves student groups. There are currently 469 certified student organizations on the Oakland campus.

To become certified, an organization must read guidelines, secure 10 currently enrolled Pitt students, secure a full-time faculty or staff member as an adviser and write a constitution following the standards set forth by SORC.

After successful completion of those steps, an online application can be completed. The application and constitution are then reviewed by the SORC office, a process which generally takes about two weeks.

If there are problems with the application or constitution, the organization is contacted by e-mail.

The Anscombe Society was notified by SORC that its constitution didn’t meet requirements. Petrich said that the group members revised the constitution and resubmitted it in mid-January. He said that the group also needed to submit a constitution from its affiliate organization, the Love & Fidelity Network, a nonprofit based in New Jersey.

Petrich said he met Thursday with Vice Provost and Dean of Students Kathy Humphrey and members of PantherWELL, a University-sponsored group of students who promote safe sex. Shortly after, the University released a statement on the issue.

Humphrey said, “Anscombe has agreed to work with us to ensure that its important message and voices are heard. Anscombe has now completed the application process of becoming a certified student organization, and we anticipate certification happening in the near future.”

Petrich said that the Anscombe Society will work with PantherWELL and the University in the future. His group hopes to organize a portion of PantherWELL’s programming that would be pro-abstinence. Members of PantherWELL did not respond to requests for comment.

Interpreting the law, and Pitt’s “law”

There was some disagreement among legal professionals about whether the University, by telling the students not to hand out pamphlets in Towers, presented First Amendment issues for the students.

Vic Walczak, the director of Western Pennsylvania’s American Civil Liberties Union, said that asking the organization to leave might have been an unreasonable restriction on the rights of members of the Anscombe Society. He said that as long as they were not disruptive, the society’s members should have been allowed to be in the lobby.

“If they are there in a way that does not interfere with the tabling, then they are allowed to be there,” he said. “If they are somehow disrupting the event that is permitted there, it would be a different story.”

Tybe Ann Brett, counsel at Stember Feinstein Doyle & Payne, LLC, a Pittsburgh law firm, said she read about the event in yesterday’s edition of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

The adjunct professor at Pitt said that, based on the information in the article, she believed the University might have violated students’ rights.

But a Pitt professor, Arthur Hellman, disagreed.

Hellman, who currently teaches a class about First Amendment law, said that the University’s actions likely did not violate the students’ rights.

“If [students] were asked to leave because they were in violation of a reasonable rule in place that applied to everybody, then that is generally OK,” he said.

Hellman said there might be an issue if the University was targeting the society’s message. But trying to preserve the use of University property is within the rights of the University, as long as such rules are applied to everyone.

The Student Code of Conduct states that Pitt students have the right to “speak, write or print freely on any subject … subject only to the right of the University to make reasonable rules and regulations thereto.”

A statement from Pitt officials said that the University made regulations for the use of Litchfield Towers Lobby by student groups because it is a high-traffic area on campus. But the statement did not mention the rights of students who are not in certified student groups to use the space.

Petrich said that though he disagreed with the University on the issue, he just wants to move forward and maintain a good relationship. Petrich said that the members of the Anscombe Society, when distributing pamphlets, were acting as individuals within their rights under the Student Code of Conduct.