The Northern Kentucky University professor who participated in an act of vandalism of a pro-life display has reversed her prior unrepentant position:
"I deeply regret my impulsive action in dismantling that display."Yesterday she was put on leave until her retirement - she will not return to school. Jacobsen drew fire from even those sympathetic with her pro-abortion views and recieved a formal reprimand from NKU President James Votruba:
"This was a very serious lapse in judgment. You don't invite students to participate in breaking the law or inhibiting other's free speech. You just don't do that if you're a faculty member. And I think the university has responded appropriately but I also think you have to look at a career over 27 years..not just in terms of a single act."Free speech certainly won a victory in this case and NKU should be congratulated for acting quickly and with integrity. We can appreciate and respond gracefully to Jacobsen's apology - hopefully it will also be made to the students with more than a simple statement of regret.
Updates:
Photo: the cemetery of the innocent courtesy Northern Right to Life
Generations for Life explains that the act of destroying such displays, which consist of white wooden crosses that symbolize victims of abortion, is nothing new.
In an e-mail dated April 18, Jacobsen wrote to her students:
"I want to do everything I can to keep any of you from being specifically named," she said. "And I am very sorry I got you involved in this."Given her initial public statement that her students were responsible for the vandalism (while not admitting to her own participation), Im not sure I would trust her apology. And, since it was her advice that led to this ridiculous situation, perhaps her students should think twice about listening to the legal counsel she provides in the email:
"In the meantime, the campus police continue their investigation," she said. "If you have not yet been interrogated, you do not have to talk to them without an attorney. You can make it hard to find you. Again, I am so sorry."
Related:
Pro-Life Display Vandalized at Northern Kentucky University
Gosh, she gets real sorry as soon as she loses her job and finds out that nobody wants to defend her actions.
"Free speech certainly won a victory in this case..."
Freedom of speech is nothing if women don't have freedom of choice. I hate how this article makes it sound like a huge victory for our rights was won, when really this whole site it taking away womens rights and the freedom that women worked so hard for. Shame on you ignorant people.
Sophie, care to show me what amendment in the Constitution the "Right to Abortion" comes under? Perhaps you could look it up in the Federalist Papers for me?
How about showing me where vandalism is listed as an acceptable method of expressing political disagreement?
Since you feel that physical violence is an acceptable way to express difference of opinion, would YOU mind listing a number of your opinions that YOU would accept getting YOUR personal property trashed for...since that's what you're defending? Or do you think that violence is only allowed on YOUR side of the debate?
Shame on you, you ignorant person.
She should still be charged with what is clearly vandalism.
I say this as someone who once WAS charged for vandalism. About a decade ago, I was a young man upset that a man had stolen some money from me and I broke his living room window in anger.
I was charged, which was right, and sentenced to a conditional sentence with probation. While many people escalate and do worse crimes, I stepped back, analyzed that having $20 stolen was not worth a criminal record (boy, did that turn out to be true), and reformed, essentially.
Violence and destruction are serious things and should only be meted out for ultra serious reasons - defense, justice, war. Not $20 or because you disagree with someone.
She should be charged, covicted, and her immediate apology (yes, after she received criticism and some non-criminal consequences) should be taken into consideration for her sentence.
Sophie said:
"Freedom of speech is nothing if women don't have freedom of choice. I hate how this article makes it sound like a huge victory for our rights was won, when really this whole site it taking away womens rights and the freedom that women worked so hard for. Shame on you ignorant people."
Sophie, exactly which rights did these crosses cause you lose?
Sophie -
What about the rights of unborn women? What about their right to not be murdered?
"Pro-choice before conception, pro-life afterwards"
Sophie must be another of those people who thinks that there was absolutely no freedom in the United States before 1973. In 1972, we must have been a Communist country, or maybe we were all Nazis?
I wonder if Sophie knows that the original women's rights advocates like Susan B. Anthony were anti-abortion? I guess SBA hated women...?
prochoice is a misnomer, there is no such animal. Everybody I know is either Pro Life or Pro Death.
Perhaps she should also be brought up on obstruction of justice charges as well:
"In the meantime, the campus police continue their investigation . . . You can make it hard to find you."
Basically, she's telling her students to hide from the police and hamper an ongoing investigation. This woman's remaining brain cell must be getting lonely.
Sophie sums up the pro-choice attitude perfectly: "I hate...you ignorant people." Everything else she says is just justification for that hate.
Sophie and the rest of the prochoice advocates think that their rights supercede the rights of all others, including unborn children. It's always "Woman's Choice', not men's or children's. Men and children have no rights in Sophie's world. I guess we're second class citizens undeserving of equality.