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Northern Kentucky University Professor Tears Down Right To Life Display
April 16, 2006
 Northern Kentucky University professor Sally Jacobsen invited around nine students from one of her graduate level literature courses to tear down an on-campus anti-abortion display. Jacobsen openly admitted that she invited the students to join her in the destruction of the display.
"I did, outside of class during the break, invite students to express their freedom-of-speech rights to destroy the display if they wished to," Jacobsen said.
The Right to Life display consisted of dozens of crosses surrounding a "Cemetery of Innocents" sign. When police arrived they found the sign removed and torn with the crosses broken and deposited in nearby campus trash cans.
Jacobsen tried to justify the vandalism by saying that pulling up the crosses was similar to citizens taking down Nazi displays on Fountain Square. She said that she was infuriated by the display, which she saw as intimidating and a "slap in the face" to women who might be making "the agonizing and very private decision to have an abortion."
NKU President James Votruba condemned Sally Jacobsen's actions saying, "Freedom-of-speech rights end where you infringe on someone else's freedom of speech. I don't buy the claim that this is an act of freedom of speech, to destroy property."
Members of the Northern Right to Life group camped out the following day to protect their display. They have decided to press charges against the individuals responsible for the destruction of the display. Professor Jacobsen, who has been at Northern Kentucky since 1980, has been placed on leave until the administration decides her fate.
 Forum Talk: Kentucky Professor Tears Down Right To Life Display
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