In at least three recent cases, university administrators have hindered or denied free speech and assembly rights to pro-life student groups based largely on the groups’ organizing principles against abortion and euthanasia. The groups were denied their fundamental rights while at the same time pro-abortion and other student organizations were regularly allowed to go ahead with their demonstrations and speeches.

At Washington University in St. Louis, the Student Bar Association (SBA) twice refused to officially recognize the Law Students Pro-Life organization. This denial meant that the pro-life student group was ineligible for funding, student office space, a campus mailing address and a listing in the admissions brochure.

The SBA, vested with authority from the chancellor’s office to act in these matters, overwhelmingly rejected the pro-life group’s application for official recognition because of “the narrowness of your group’s interests and goals” — specifically, failing to include “anti-death penalty” in its forming constitution. So went the official explanation, anyway. “Narrowness” didn’t seem to be a problem for other groups; the SBA recognized law student organizations aimed at promoting minority students, the environment and even golf.

Yet even after two rejections, the pro-life students did not quit. They contacted the Philadelphia-based Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) which quickly put together a national petition on behalf of the students’ rights. Within 48 hours, 200 professors, law students, undergraduates and private citizens from around the country signed the petition, which called on the chancellor’s office to recognize the pro-life law group and preserve “freedom of conscience, freedom of association, and freedom of speech.” FIRE President Alan Charles Kors said the university’s stance “reflects both dreary intolerance and a breathtaking double standard.”

In an unusual alliance, the eastern Missouri chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union joined with FIRE in an open letter urging the SBA to “recognize the right of your fellow students to organize in accordance with their own beliefs, even if you disagree with those beliefs.” A little more than a month after the SBA originally denied the group’s application, it reversed course and voted overwhelmingly to officially recognize Law Students Pro-Life.

As with most cases where FIRE has been involved, this one never reached the level of the courts. But things don’t always work out that way.

At the University of Houston, school officials denied a group called Pro-Life Cougars the opportunity to put on a display at high-profile Butler Plaza, next to the library. The display was to include a 15-foot tall graphic picture of an aborted baby as part of a traveling exhibit put on by the Wichita, Kan.-based pro-life group Justice for All. Campus administrators tried for more than a year to block the display and allow it at one of four low-visibility locations that the university has selected as “free speech zones.”

That’s when the pro-lifers called in the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), a legal group that specializes in defending Christians who’ve been denied their rights — and a group whose attorneys will often take on their cases for free.

At the hands of ADF attorneys, the university suffered a series of legal defeats, leading it finally to allow the pro-life display. (Although it was too late for the large graphic, a series of 8-foot photos of aborted babies was shown instead over three days — a peaceful display, met by an also-peaceful protest from the National Organization for Women.) But Houston officials haven’t exactly seen the light. Now they’ve come up with a new policy banning "expressive activity" practically everywhere on campus.

 Whether the policy will last is an open question; ADF has filed for an injunction to block it, and maintains that it’s selectively enforced against certain groups. “The university enforces it only against speech they don’t like,” said Benjamin Bull, chief counsel for the Alliance Defense Fund Law Center. “It’s a classic violation of the First Amendment.”

Although the policy battle continues, the peaceful display and protest were exemplary for how things can be conducted. The same cannot be said for the University of Texas case, where things have gotten decidedly ugly.

There, ADF went to bat for a student group at the UT known as Justice for All, wanting to put up the same display as the one in Houston. Although the university relented under heavy pressure and allowed the display, it censored all of the contact information for crisis pregnancy centers because (officials claimed) they were “solicitors.” (This, even though crisis pregnancy center services are free, while Planned Parenthood and other such groups — which typically charge for many of their services — are allowed to disseminate their contact information on campus.) The university also knowingly let hecklers invade and shut down the display and the group’s speech, in direct violation of the university’s own policy against disruptive behavior which blocks free speech.

In fact, far from stopping the protesters, the university official at the site who was supposed to enforce the campus rules actually let the protesters into the fenced area containing the exhibit and Justice for All students. There was screaming and threats. “They had to abandon the exhibit for fear of their safety,” Bull said. “It was an angry and hostile group of students that took over the exhibit.”

So the pro-life group has sued the university for unlawfully censoring the display. “This is a case of political correctness run amok,” Bull said. And he thinks it’s part of something much bigger. “The far left has taken over universities around the country. They are doing everything in their power to banish politically incorrect speech, which they define as conservative and Christian.”

It’s not new that universities are tracking radically leftward. It’s not even new (though it is alarming) that administrators of these universities would deny some of our country’s most hallowed rights to suppress opposing or politically incorrect views.

But there’s also ample reason for hope. The Washington University case showed the power of creative alliances and public pressure. The two Texas cases show that when their feet are held to the judicial fire, university administrators relent, albeit grudgingly and with their prejudices intact.

Maybe most important, the cases show that dedicated, courageous students, with a firm foundation for their beliefs, can make an impact on other students who may not have had much exposure to opposing ideas. You can see signs of that in Michael Oseguera, a University of Houston student who says he’s pro-choice but appreciated being able to see the Pro-Life Cougars display. “It’s good to have the information distributed to people,” says Michael, “and it’s cool that it’s not coming from anybody who’s in your face.”

Michael's a ways from a being a pro-life convert, but his are the words of someone who may well be open to a pro-life message. With the prospect of saving lives — and souls — the tribulations that come with fighting for free speech are well worth it.