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Anti-abortion protestors close to settlement with Colorado school
© 2006 Student Press Law Center
June 22, 2006
COLORADO — Two
anti-abortion protestors have decided to settle with a Colorado school after
what one protestor called “a topsy-turvy case from start to
finish.”
Keith Mason and Jonathan O’Toole, members of
Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, are close to reaching a settlement
agreement with the Colorado School of Mines, O’Toole said.
In
July of 2004 O’Toole and Mason filed a lawsuit claiming their First
Amendment rights were violated after they were arrested for protesting on the
sidewalk of a public street on the engineering university’s campus without
a permit in March of that same year.
They sued the school claiming
their First, Fourth and 14th Amendment rights had been violated. They also
claimed false arrest and that the school’s permit policy was
unconstitutional, O’Toole said.
In March a federal district
court dismissed all claims except those concerning the school’s permit
policy, O’Toole said.
The case is being settled in an effort to
avoid additional time and money, according to both O’Toole and school
spokeswoman Marsha Williams.
According to a draft of the settlement
provided to the Student Press Law Center by O’Toole, he would get $25,000
if the settlement is finalized.
“I’m fairly disappointed
in the settlement, but I was/am involved in too many other similar free speech
cases at the moment...to even think about appealing this judgment,”
O’Toole said in an email. “In any case, the criminal charges were
dismissed and I only spent a couple of hours in jail.”
During
the litigation process the school reviewed and updated its facilities use
policy, including a section that deals with public speech on campus, Williams
said.
Williams said the new policy provides greater clarification in
regard to the use of university facilities and outlines the process for
appealing facilities use decisions.
However, O’Toole said he is
not happy with the new policy because he said the school still claims
jurisdiction over the sidewalks, which he considers to be public
land.
“I can’t control who stands on the sidewalk in
front of my own home or what they say as long as they don’t break any
laws,” O’Toole said.
—by Suzanne Bell, SPLC staff
writer
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