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U. Albany Prof Arrested for ‘Obstructing Pro-Life Display and Then Resisting Arrest’

U. Albany Prof Arrested for ‘Obstructing Pro-Life Display and Then Resisting Arrest’

“Overdyke unplugged an electric display to prevent students from expressing their opposition to abortion”

The video of this incident, which you can see below, is totally crazy.

Jonathan Turley reported at his blog:

“She’s a … Professor!”: Albany Professor Arrested After Obstructing Pro-Life Display and Resisting Arrest

“She’s a [expletive] professor”! Those four words screamed by pro-choice protesters could well sum up the issue for the State University of New York at Albany after the arrest of sociology professor Renee Overdyke. At a recent pro-life demonstration, Overdyke unplugged an electric display to prevent students from expressing their opposition to abortion. She then resisted arrest. The question, which we have previously discussed, is where the university should draw the line in the conduct of faculty in preventing free speech.

The pro-life display at the university attracted a loud counter-demonstration, which is of course fine and good. Universities are supposed to be a place for debate and both sides were exercising their free speech rights.

As students chanted “my body, my choice” and other messages, Created Equal continued their own demonstration against abortion with the help of a large electronic display. The display showed aborted fetuses to bring home what they called the “reality of abortion” and “what abortion does to preborn babies.”

That is when Professor Overdyke, 57, allegedly unplugged Created Equal’s electronic display.

Overdyke took this action despite the university distributing a pamphlet to students at the event repeating the rules for free speech behavior, including a prohibition on actions to prevent or obstruct someone else’s free speech. This message was all the more important because a conservative speaker had been shouted down two weeks earlier.

Here’s the video:

Featured image via Twitter video.

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Comments

Perfect name.

henrybowman | May 5, 2023 at 5:01 pm

As usual, it’s a crazy white chick.
Sometimes (like Steinbach at Stanford) somewhat less white.

Could a free speech suppression case be made against the university since it was an employee of the university who suppressed the prolife message by unplugging the display? sort of like the the Gibson bakery case. I think the university could argue the professors actions were against university policy. But if the university didn’t discipline the professor their argument would be weak.

    #FJB <-- Disco Stu_ in reply to Dr S. | May 7, 2023 at 3:37 pm

    Public university, taxpayer-subsidized, government employee. So if no negative consequences imposed by her government-employee superiors, I’d say sue away, 1st-Amendment-wise.

Thad Jarvis | May 5, 2023 at 7:14 pm

That name.

Huh…and here I thought is was a twitter handle but that is her name? Is she still employed by the University because she shouldn’t be.