Professor Issues Apology and Excuses

At her sentencing hearing yesterday, Mireille Miller-Young, the violent pro-abortion professor of feminist studies, submitted a written apology and letters of character reference from her teaching colleagues as part of her request to be sentenced to only a few hours of community service. Is she really sorry, or is she just shifting blame?

Her apology and several of the letters describe the image on the sign she destroyed as “offensive and distressing,” and describe her actions as in “self-defense” or in defense of her students. What was offensive? What was she trying to defend her students from? The writings insinuate that Miller-Young was so shocked by the extremism of the pro-life activists that she acted to protect her students from harm before considering the legality of her actions. In fact, she has attempted to shut down pro-life speech on the UCSB campus before, including during a visit by Justice for All in 2008.

The authors of the letters also emphasize that Miller-Young values the free exchange of ideas and does everything she can to accommodate opinions differing from her own. This is obviously false, shown not only by her criminal actions, but by her belligerent behavior toward other pro-life groups on the UCSB campus and by her divisive and agenda-driven tweets. It makes one wonder what world these people live in. The answer is in their letterhead: they live in the world of academia. Mainly in the Feminist Studies and Gender Studies departments. They don’t know what an opposing view looks like until an outside group shows up on their campus with a sign. Of course she was shocked.

Before she committed the theft, battery, and vandalism back in early March (see video of the attack here), she took the time to run from group to group to interrupt the conversations between the pro-lifers and the UCSB students, telling the students, “Don’t let them separate us!” and gathered a group of students to chant “Tear down the sign, tear down the sign!” In common parlance, she tried to shut down civil conversation and incite a mob instead. When the mob failed to commit violence, she had to do it herself. She was desperate to “defend” her students from new ideas and remained defiant about the example she had set when the police questioned her. See her statement here.

Katie Short, mother of two of the pro-life students, summed up Miller-Young’s blame-shifting in her statement to the court during the sentencing hearing:

“If Miller-Young is sincere in her apology, why did she nonetheless let her colleagues tell this court things she knows are not true? A letter from Kayla Martin says that Miller-Young was “triggered” by the loud chants of the pro-lifers that disrupted a nearby classroom. Miller-Young knows very well that the only chanting that went on was when she herself led students in a chant of “Tear down the sign.”  A letter from Jennifer Morgan praised Miller-Young’s efforts to create productive and useful dialogue, and accused the pro-lifers that day of using “shocking and violent images to shut down dialogue.” Miller-Young knows very well that she was the one shutting down dialogue; she was the one breaking up conversations between students and the pro-life group, she was the one who refused to engage in rational discourse. Ms. Miller-Young often decries stereotyping, but she is perfectly willing to let her supporters defend her by deploying the false stereotype of the loud, threatening, belligerent, anti-choice protester, when she knows very well that is not what she encountered that day, and that, indeed, she was the threatening and belligerent one.”

This is academia today.

Miller-Young’s apology did not include an apology for her physical attack on Thrin Short, nor has the university condemned the criminal actions of its employee, who remains listed in the faculty directory.

Miller-Young was sentenced to 108 hours of community service, 10 hours of anger management classes, and three years probation. She was also ordered to pay a small fine and restitution of almost $500.