SANTA BARBARA, Calif. — A California professor who was recently caught on camera stealing a pro-life sign from a Christian group on campus, and then later destroyed the sign with scissors has been formally charged for her actions.
As previously reported, on March 4th, the pro-life organization Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust held a peaceful abortion awareness campaign on the University of California-Santa Barbara (UCSB) campus. Over a dozen students with the group distributed 900 pro-life informational pamphlets to UCSB students and displayed several large, handheld signs with graphic images of abortion victims.
Although several UCSB students expressed gratitude for the pro-life messages, Mireille Miller-Young, a professor in feminist studies, whose areas of study include Black Film, Feminist and Queer Theory, Sex Work, and Pornography, approached the group and threatened to forcibly remove their anti-abortion materials.
“We don’t need to listen to these people!” Miller-Young shouted, according to witnesses. “They don’t have our permission to be here. Should we tear down their sign?”
Miller-Young then incited several pro-abortion students to chant, “Tear down this sign! Tear down this sign!”
Then, as captured on a cell phone video published by the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, Miller-Young grabbed a sign from one of the members of the group and carried it into a nearby building.
“I may be a thief, but you’re terrorists!” Miller-Young yelled as she and two pro-abortion students walked away with the sign.
Students with the Christian pro-life group were shocked.
“She’s a professor and she’s stealing a sign!” one of the youth can be heard exclaiming in the video. “She’s a thief!”
Two of the pro-life students—16-year-old Thrin Short and her 21-year-old sister Joan—followed Miller-Young into the building. However, the professor entered an elevator and then pushed the students away when they tried to follow her. Thrin was left with scratches on her arms from the professor’s shoves.
According to a report filed by the UCSB Police Department, Miller-Young destroyed the pro-life poster with scissors in her office. When asked by a police officer if there had been a struggle for the sign, the professor simply said, “I’m stronger so I was able to take the poster.”
“Miller-Young said that she found this material offensive because she teaches about women’s ‘reproductive rights’ and is pregnant,” the police report also outlined. “Miller-Young … stated that she had the ‘moral’ right to act the way she did.”
But this week, the Santa Barbara district attorney’s office agreed with the students that the professor’s actions were unlawful. It proceeded with formal charges against Miller-Young: one count each of theft, battery and vandalism.
“Nothing like this has ever happened to me before and I hope it will never happen again,” a member of Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust told reporters. “But it did not destroy the work that we did. We were able to handle individuals. What we did not expect to encounter was a professor inciting a mob.”
Miller-Young is scheduled to appear in court for an arraignment on April 4th.
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