{"id":284871,"date":"2023-02-06T18:38:23","date_gmt":"2023-02-07T00:38:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=284871"},"modified":"2023-02-15T11:29:53","modified_gmt":"2023-02-15T17:29:53","slug":"pro-life-student-smithsonian-incident-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pro-life-student-smithsonian-incident-lawsuit\/","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit filed against Smithsonian for allegedly harassing, kicking out pro-life students"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UPDATE, 2\/8\/23<\/strong>: The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ)\u00a0announced<\/a> today that it has filed a lawsuit against the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in defense of the pro-life students and their parents who were verbally abused and kicked out of the museum for refusing to remove their pro-life hats.<\/p>\n

“The victims were students. They wore matching hats from their Catholic school so their chaperones could keep track of them, which is a very common practice in museums like this. It\u2019s for the safety and organization of the group. It wasn\u2019t a demonstration,” said the ACLJ.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit argues that the museum violated the students’ First Amendment rights.<\/p>\n

The ACLJ said it also plans to file a lawsuit against the National Archives, where other pro-lifers were allegedly harassed on the same day.<\/p>\n

2\/6\/23<\/strong>: Patrick Murphy, one of the students recently <\/span>kicked out<\/span><\/a> of the Smithsonian\u2019s Air and Space Museum for refusing to remove their pro-life hats, was recently on the \u201c<\/span>Hannity<\/span><\/a>\u201d show to discuss the incident. The students are being legally represented by Jay Sekulow from the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), who also appeared on the show.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

According to Murphy, the students had been in the museum for about 30 minutes when they were approached by \u201ctwo women in all black, presumably security guards\u201d who told the group to remove their hats. “They say, \u2018All people wearing a pro-life hat, take it off.\u2019 And immediately we’re confused,” Murphy recollected.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the students then informed the guards that the hats were being worn for identification purposes to help the group stick together. \u201cSo the two women, they kinda blew us off,\u201d Murphy said. \u201cAnd after that, we decided to sit against the wall.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n