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

-----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