In another development most of the establishment press, with the usual exception of Fox News and the unusual exception of Reuters, has thus far predictably ignored, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley announced on Friday the indictment of University of California-Santa Barbara Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young on charges of "theft from a person, battery, and vandalism." The case's first hearing is scheduled for April 4.
To bring those who didn't see your truly's Monday post up to speed: "As seen in a video at the YouTube site of the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust (warning: profanity), a UCSB assistant professor (MIller-Young) took a sign away from a participant in a campus pro-life outreach effort. Flanked by two students, she took the sign back to her office and destroyed it." Excerpts from the Reuters report by Laila Kearney follow the jump (bolds and numbered tags are mine):
California professor charged for allegedly shoving anti-abortion protester
A pregnant California professor [1] will face charges for allegedly shoving a 16-year-old anti-abortion protestor and stealing another picketer's sign during a campus demonstration earlier this month, a prosecutor said on Friday.
Mireille Miller-Young, an associate professor who teaches feminist studies at the University of California at Santa Barbara [2], faces misdemeanor charges of theft, battery and vandalism, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley said in a statement.
Miller-Young was seen in a YouTube video viewed nearly 60,000 times clashing with members of the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust group who organized an anti-abortion event on the university campus in early March.
... claims a professor grabbed a sign from one of the protestor's hands, gave it her students, and they walked off with protesters following her through several campus buildings.
The protesters, who cannot be seen on camera, can be heard saying, "She's a thief. She's a professor." In response, Miller-Young turned around and said, "I may be a thief, but you're a terrorist."
When the protesters attempt to enter an elevator with Miller-Young, the group claims the professor shoved a protester several times and scratched her.
"It is ironic that a female professor, who claims to be pro-woman, would resort to theft and violence against another woman in her attempt to silence a different point of view," the group said in a statement on its website.
The university did not immediately return phone calls and an email on Friday seeking comment. Miller-Young's attorney declined to comment. [3]
In an interview with the Santa Barbara Independent newspaper on Friday, Miller-Young said she was "triggered" by the graphic images on the sign and pamphlets carried by the protesters. [4]
Notes:
[1] — How odd that Kearney chose to immediately tell readers that Miller-Young is pregnant. Is that supposed to be some kind of mitigating circumstance?
[2] — Here is a more complete description of Miller-Young's occupation Kearney "somehow" overlooked:
Her "areas of study" include "Pornography; Sex Work; Black Film, Popular Culture and Art; Feminist & Queer Theory; African American & African Diaspora Studies; Visual Archives; New Media; Ethnography; Oral History. As I wrote on Monday, UCSB "clearly either charges far too much in tuition, gets far too much money from the state, or both."
[3] — Miller-Young's attorney may not be talking, but Miller-Young herself is still tweeting:
I'm not detecting a lot of remorse here.
Here is the link to the truly vile Feminist Wire item for which Miller-Young is so grateful. Warning: Its defense of Miller-Young is based on incompletely presented facts and a twisted worldview.
[4] — The interview to which Kearney refers was not with the Santa Barbara Independent. The Independent's coverage of Friday's indictment carries the relevant text from the UCSB Police Department's interview of Miller-Young, but contains no indication that any Independent reporter got to speak with her.
A Google News search for the past 24 hours on Miller-Young's full name at 1 a.m. returned only 12 items, two of which likely preceded the indictment announcement.
Perhaps it's a trifle, but the District Attorney's penchant for using Fridays in prosecuting this case makes one wonder if the objective is to resolve the matter as quickly and quietly as possible — oh, and with as little press coverage as possible.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
