SBA President Elliott Friedman’s Letter to Law Students Pro-Life

September 10, 2002

-----Original Message-----
From: Elliott Friedman [mailto:emfriedm@wulaw.wustl.edu]
Sent: Tuesday, September 10, 2002 12:06 AM
To: Jordan Siverd
Subject: Law Students ProLife

Jordan,

By a vote of 27-10-1, Law Students ProLife did not pass approval of the Student Bar Association at Washington University School of Law to be considered an active student organization.

The representatives of SBA voiced their concern as follows:

1) The title of your organization did not represent adequately the goals and initiatives of the organization. By taking away the "anti-death penalty" issue from your Constitution, several students felt that the organization was not touching on all possible Pro Life issues.

2) If your group truly has the purpose they claim, they need to consider revamping the organization to encourage and facilitate discussion of the issues as a whole, and not simply the pro-life side of certain issues.

3) The membership of the organization should be open to those students both subscribing to and disagreeing with the political viewpoint.

To be honest, I truly believe that the catching issue was the narrowness of your group's interests and goals. SBA members felt, after a lengthy discussion, that your organization was very one-sided and did not address all issues involving pro-life.

I think that SBA members would be open to the idea of an organization which dealt with the issues you raised tonight. However, you have to understand that if SBA approves an organization with issues as narrow as the ones you presented tonight, there will be no line to be drawn down the road with other potential organizations.

The vote tonight does not reflect the "ideological" viewpoints of members of SBA in any way. However, in order to be approved as a student organization which can receive funding, I think the best bet is to broaden the scope of your issue, and allow students with diverse viewpoints to become members of your group.

I would be happy to sit down with you and/or David at any time to discuss methods for another attempt to get your organization passed. In addition, I think that several SBA students would also be happy to discuss future opportunities. If you would like, you are more than welcome to re-apply for organization status in the future at any time.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Elliott