By Alyssa Allemand and Anna Hansen
During the Christmas tree decorating ceremony Wednesday (Dec. 4), the Edgewood College chamber choir silently protested the removal of a link on the college’s wellness resources page that connected to Planned Parenthood—they put “I Stand With Planned Parenthood” stickers on their music folders.
Meanwhile, Tradition Family Property (TFP) Student Action, a conservative Christian group whose stated mission is to “proudly affirm the positive values of tradition, family and private property,” claimed a victory at Edgewood because Interim President Sister Mary Ellen Gevelinger removed the Planned Parenthood link after a TFP petition signed by 15,746 people.
According to an article posted by College Fix on Dec. 2, TFP targeted Edgewood to remove the link to Planned Parenthood.
Many of TFP’s stances are considered homophobic, racist, transphobic and hateful towards various minority groups. TFP considers its activists “pro-life, pro-marriage, and pro-God.” Its website includes pages such as “Top Reasons to Oppose Transgender Agenda” and “10 Reasons Why Homosexual ‘Marriage’ is Harmful.”
The petition stated that “as a Catholic institution, Edgewood College should have never included Planned Parenthood as a ‘wellness’ option for students in the first place, because the abortion provider is directly responsible for shedding innocent blood, which offends God so much.”
Abortions are only 3.4% of Planned Parenthood’s services, according to their 2019 annual report.
Gevelinger, who cited the decision to remove the Planned Parenthood link as “internal,” was quoted in the College Fix article saying, “the decision to put Planned Parenthood on the website was because the college had reduced the number of on-campus health services in recent years, and was pointing students to other areas for service, such as health care for women and men, and testing for certain diseases.”
“Since Planned Parenthood is a major provider of abortions, I asked that it be removed from the College website,” Gevelinger said. “This has been done without any public notice, and there has been no public response.”
Until today.
The article was circulated among students on social media and word of mouth on Dec. 4, the day of the college’s tree lighting ceremony, where the choir, who performed, knew Gevelinger would be in attendance.
Shawn Padley, a member of the choir and the Edgewood student organization SAFE, said the choir considered not performing as a form of protest but did not want to upset their director.
“And then one of our classmates came in and had the (Planned Parenthood sticker) already put on her binder,” he said. “And we were like, can you go make some photocopies, and we’ll all just put them on our binders and that’ll be that. So then we somehow managed to get everybody in the choir involved. Everybody put them on their folders except for me who forgot my folder, so I put it on my shirt.”
Padley said many people came up to the performers after they sang and thanked them for the silent protest.
Emergency Town Hall
Also in response to the controversy around TFP and Planned Parenthood, the Edgewood College Student Senate hosted an emergency town hall meeting to work on composing a letter to Geveligner on behalf of students.
The letter to the president will include a list of demands from students. Students expressed concern about the president’s lack of research into TFP and the college’s lack of sexual education and resources on campus.
Student Senate Faculty Advisor Ferrinne Spector Wednesday said the “very careful research” done by students that looked into TFP “was not done by the president.”
The president responded to TFP and requested the removal of the Planned Parenthood link from Edgewood’s website without consulting a cabinet or council, said Spector. In fact, the cabinet hasn’t met all semester.
More student voices
Edgewood senior Oliver Soler, chair of Edgewood College Democrats, sent out an email to students with a subject-line saying, “Edgewood Sides With Right Wing Hate Group.”
“We cannot accept this,” Soler said. “We need Edgewood College to support its students … to take a stand against hate, and we need to keep this school a place for anyone to feel safe and healthy while they get an education.”
“That means we cannot stand for outside ideological groups lobbying our institution and regressing our standards.”
10 Comments
Anonymous
December 4, 2019 at 10:45 pmThere are conservatives, and there are extremists. I was surprised by the language and hateful tones used by TFP in the College Fix article. Definitely not a group that one should feel proud of supporting. And I am a bit confused by Edgewood’s Administrations stance on being a college of ‘truth’. The only real truth of God is Love. And the only other real truth is honesty.
Anonymous
December 5, 2019 at 8:33 amThank you for keeping our community informed, Edgewood journalists. You’re doing a great job!
Anonymous
December 5, 2019 at 9:13 amI am disappointed that the president never told anyone about this decision. I am also upset that no one was notified about this emergency town hall and this information was not sent to all students. I think there needs to be some investigation into the lack of communication on this situation. ALL students have the right to know the goings-on at the college and should have the opportunity to voice their opinion and be heard.
Anonymous
December 5, 2019 at 9:45 amI applaud the efforts of OTE, SAFE, Chamber Choir, and Student Senate in making sure the student voice is heard in this matter. It’s issues like this that make me consider transferring elsewhere to finish up my undergrad, but seeing the student body stand up like this is incredibly refreshing. While I understand (but don’t agree with) the reasoning behind the school not offering contraceptives to students via the health clinic, it’s ridiculous to me that this school would allow itself to be bullied into removing any resources for students from its property, especially when they just opened up a Queer Student Center this semester.
Get it together, Administration.
Anonymous
December 5, 2019 at 12:09 pmWhile it doesn’t look good for the College to be bullied by some extreme external group, the removal of a link on a website does not need to get students/faculty/staff to get all in a tizzy. Planned Parenthood still provides their services. Students can still use them. Nothing has changed other than a link on a rarely used website. TFP did not need to get all upset by the link. The students do no need to be all upset by its removal.
Greg
December 5, 2019 at 4:53 pmThe Planned Parenthood “3 percent” claim (which is quite old, not just 2019) has been debunked in multiple mainstream media. The Washington Post did the best fact-check. On the Edge is run by young journalists, but they need to learn to be less credulous.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2015/08/12/for-planned-parenthood-abortion-stats-3-percent-and-94-percent-are-both-misleading/
Anonymous
December 5, 2019 at 9:19 pmDid some reading on the TFP website, definitely not a group that should be supported in my opinion. Only thing I find questionable regarding the students’ response is the demand for a public apology. I don’t know Gevelinger’s side or intentions, but the students requiring what could be considered a public shaming is entitled and petty, especially since it seems they also picked the date and time themselves according to the letter.
Anonymous
December 6, 2019 at 11:39 amThe issue is abortion. Good Catholics don’t support abortion, nor should a Catholic college like Edgewood. End of story.
Helen Myers
December 8, 2019 at 8:45 pmI am a libertarian and a feminist, and I believe women should have the right to choose, painful as such decisions may be. No woman should be forced to wear the issue of a rapist and no man should be forced to pay alimony for a son or daughter he didn’t want or plan for.
What I don’t understand is since when did abortion - rather than safe, legal, regrettable and rare - become a Catholic sacrament. A Christian tenet, in a Christian college.
Mary Ellen Gevelinger did nothing wrong. The way she was and is treated, abused, slandered is unconscionably unfair.
To the students so passionate about the wrong cause: you were singing for a CHRISTMAS concert. Christmas means the birth of a baby. Not a holy baby according to the Catholic doctrine in a Catholic college, but ONE DEFENSELESS BABY.
Christmas, even in our secularized society, is not about the celebration of abortion. It is about a BIRTH.
Dear Mary Ellen, you did nothing wrong. The way you are being pushed to “apologize”, basically to perjure yourself, by some not entirely well educated students and some possibly manipulative faculty. . . . will go into the annals of shame.
To the extent you feel it in your heart to forgive, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to you. May your tormentors understand some day how unjust they were to you and to the forces of Life.
Sharon
January 9, 2020 at 6:29 amShame on all you .If your Mother choose abortion you would not be standing in your photo with that garbage you placed on your folders with that smile on your face . The 5th commandment means just that . Thou shall not kill. That covers the most innocent of all humans beings. In case you haven’t figured that out they are called BABIES!