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University Will Allow NAACP Chapter
By Martin D. Snyder
The Catholic University of America has reversed its earlier decision to ban the formation of a campus chapter of the National Association for the Advance-ment of Colored People (NAACP). Last April, the university administration rejected a proposal by CUA student William Jawando to form a chapter of the ninety-five-year-old civil rights organization because two other minority-student groups already existed on campus and because the NAACP board of directors had adopted a policy statement supporting abortion rights. (See the story in the September-October Academe.) As the dispute simmered, NAACP president Kweisi Mfume threatened to sue the university. According to the Catholic News Service, he called the school's action "outright discrimination, bigotry, prejudice, and intolerance all rolled into one."
Catholic University's president, the Very Rev. David O'Connell, agreed in October to allow students to form an NAACP chapter on the condition that the group may not take positions contrary to the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, such as advocating abortion rights. After meeting with about twenty student proponents of the NAACP chapter, O'Connell said in a statement that the students had convincingly demonstrated "why a student chapter of the NAACP would be an important addition to our roster of student organizations, particularly in advancing the cause of civil rights."
"This is a great day for Catholic University and the NAACP. The students of CUA, with the help and guidance of the nation's oldest and most revered civil rights organization, will have the awesome opportunity to do the work of civil rights," said Jawando, according to the Catholic News Service.
Although the university's dispute with the NAACP seems to have been settled, the Associated Press reports that faculty and students continue to protest other moves by the university to bar prominent abortion rights advocates from campus. In September, the administration vetoed a proposed invitation to actor Stanley Tucci to speak at a forum on Italian film, and last year, the institution's bookstore banned a book-signing appearance by Washington, D.C., congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton because of her abortion-rights advocacy.
The Catholic University of America has been on the Association's list of censured administrations since 1989.
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