The College Fix

University had previously refused to take down posters before caving

For years, the University of Missouri’s Ellis Library displayed a poster of Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X. The three were grouped under the heading “Civil Rights Heroes.”

Now, following complaints by the University of Missouri chapter of Students for Life, the poster of Sanger has been removed.

At the same time, the university also took down the King and Malcolm X posters, claiming all three were removed as part of a normal rotation of wall displays. The pro-life group, however, believes this is untrue.

“We firmly believe that the timing of the poster’s removal is no coincidence and that it had everything to do with our plans to petition,” Mizzou Students for Life spokeswoman Anna Haberdash told The College Fix via email.

The pro-life students were only concerned with the poster of Sanger. On its Facebook page, the activists listed examples of her “support for racist and eugenics ideas,” including her desire to prevent “physically or mentally defective” human beings from being born, her desire to curb “over breeding among the working class,” and using birth control to elevate “the better racial elements in our society.”

Haberdash said Mizzou Students for Life “originally contacted the library on Feb. 27” and requested the poster of Sanger, the founder of America’s largest abortion provider, be taken down.

“We told them of our plans to petition the removal of the poster,” she said. “They responded on Friday, March 2 and told us they would not take it down.”

University library spokeswoman Shannon Cary told the group that the library posters, including the one of Sanger, were due to be taken down over the summer. Haberdash said the library told them the planned removal of the posters was “part of a rotation,” something she firmly disputes.

“[The posters] have been up since I have been attending the university (2015) and a former student also told us they were up when she was here from 2007-2012,” Haberdash said.

Yet though Mizzou Students for Life was told the posters would be coming down over the summer, they were actually taken down at some point earlier this month.

Following the exchange with Cary, Haberdash said she received “a second email.”

“It was sent to me by one of the library staff members that was carbon copied on the library’s response to me and I am fairly certain it was not intended for me,” she said. “It said ‘Can i have these posters put back up?’”

Confused by the email, Mizzou Students for Life members headed over to the library during one of their biweekly meetings.

“It was then that we noticed that the poster was removed, along with the two that hung on either side of it and a display on the other side of the wall,” Haberdash said.

“We walked around the rest of the library and noticed that no other displays were removed, even displays that were the same age and style,” she added.

Reached for comment, Shannon Cary, the library spokeswoman, told The Fix: “This issue has been covered. We have no further comment.”

Though Mizzou Students for Life never actually petitioned for the removal of the poster, the group says their threat to do so was what lead to the school taking it down several months ahead of schedule.

Sanger founded Planned Parenthood in 1916. Between 1978 and 2014, Planned Parenthood killed nearly 7 million unborn humans in utero, according to CNSNews. Stats also show that since 1973, abortion has killed more African Americans than any other cause – including health- and homicide-related deaths.

MORE: Black Student Union, pro-choice group to co-host ‘racist roots of Planned Parenthood’ event

MORE: University of Michigan activists ignore Planned Parenthood’s eugenics

IMAGE: Mizzou Students for Life

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