Submitted by Amy De Rosa, May 3, 2007 11:32

Dear Mr. Leo: Your article is great, but I'd like to bring a slightly different perspective to your second point about making sponsors pay for security fees as a way for liberal academia to censor their opposition. In February of 2007, several Barnard and Columbia alumni, myself included, worked with a Columbia University pro-life student group (one does exist!) and organized a pro-life talk on Barnard's campus.

Due to the repeated urgings of one of our alumna, our group actually requested that Barnard security be present at the talk. We were intent on getting a pro-life message out to a decidedly pro-abortion and potentially hostile campus, we had spent time raising money to cover the speaker fee (Serrin Foster of Feminists for Life), and we didn't want the kind of disruption that had dissolved the Minutemen talk at Columbia just a few months earlier.

The fee for two security guards was reasonable (about $400 and we had about 120-150 in the audience) though an expense we hadn't planned on. In addition, the Assistant Director of security was there monitoring the crowd before the event, and the Director of Barnard security opened the talk for us stating in no uncertain terms how agitators would be handled (a former NYPD Captain, he was extremely effective). Overall, the event went smoothly.

Believe me, I have no illusions about pro-lifers or any other so-called conservative groups being welcomed with open arms at colleges like Barnard and Columbia. In fact, I sometimes feel that, in order to deflect charges of liberal bias, college presidents and administrators are now 'allowing' conservatives to have a token voice. Nonetheless, I feel it is worth mentioning the success our group had. Please follow the progress of the pro-life message on the Barnard campus with our speaker in October of 2007.

Thanks for your work in the area of college censorship.

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