KEITH ENRIQUEZ/Daily Bruin Senior Staff Jason
Conrad, a member of a pro-life group called "Survivors,"
is led off Bruin Walk Thursday by a University police officer after
being arrested for failure to comply with a univer-sity
official.
By Robert Salonga
Daily Bruin Staff
University police arrested two non-UCLA students on Bruin Walk
Thursday for failing to leave the campus after officials informed
them their anti-abortion signs exceeded the maximum size allowed
for display.
Future Redlands University students Danielle White and Jason
Conrad, who will attend Redlands next semester, were charged with
failure to adhere to a university official’s instructions,
according to UCPD Sgt. James Vandenberg.
Conrad and White were booked for unlawful entry upon the campus,
then released. They are scheduled to appear at 141 Los Angeles
Municipal Court, Airport Branch, on Oct. 29.
“I have as much a right to be standing there as the other
students,” White said after being released.
Conrad and White are members of Survivors, a Christian
anti-abortion youth ministry that, among other projects, travels to
college campuses advocating against abortion.
White said Survivors will pursue legal action for the
arrests.
Berky Nelson, director for the Center for Student Programming,
said the content of the signs had nothing to do with Conrad and
White’s arrests.
He said he asked the group to remove their signs because they
were larger than the maximum 4-by-3 foot allowable size set by his
office, a rule which applies to all campus organizations.
“We can’t have a non-campus entity defy regulations
that are set for students,” Nelson said. “Otherwise,
any outside group can put up a 10-by-10 sign anywhere they
want.”
Thursday afternoon, Conrad and White were on Bruin Walk with
large signs portraying the title “Choice is Abortion,”
accompanied by a picture of a decapitated baby’s head held by
a pair of silver tongs.
They displayed another sign that contrasted
“Germany’s Holocaust,” in which Jewish victims
were portrayed, with “America’s Holocaust,” with
a picture of an aborted fetus.
“We’re not trying to create a huge fight or
riot,” White said. “People understood that we were
trying to educate students of UCLA about abortion.”
The other six Survivors members complied with Nelson’s
request, surrendering their signs to police. According to White,
she and Conrad were told to leave campus or risk facing arrest.
“We asked for proof of what rule we were breaking, and
they didn’t show us,” she said.
White said to both Nelson and police that until she was
presented with documentation outlining the regulation she violated,
she would not leave, and Conrad concurred. Both were cited at 1:15
p.m.
According to university regulation IV.A.2, “all persons on
University property are required to abide by University policies
and regulations,” and it is a violation to “fail to
comply with the directions of a University official acting in the
performance of his or her duties.”
Survivors Director Dan McCullough said he had cleared the
displays with the CSP and had spoken with a student in the office.
Nelson disputed this claim, saying he is responsible for final
determination of rules and regulations in his office.
McCullough said Survivors has been to as many as 20 college
campuses and never experienced an arrest.
“We’re a free country, supposedly, but it seems
those laws don’t apply on the UCLA campus,” he said.
“The First Amendment today was censored.”