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Pro-life group’s lawsuit against RSU dismissed

By Sarah Krichel

The pro-life group, Students for Life at Ryerson (SFLR), took the Ryerson Students’ Union (RSU) to court in December 2015 after their application to become an official group was denied. Their case was dismissed earlier this month.

It was dismissed on the basis that the RSU is a private corporation and according to the court case file, “[The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms] does not apply to a private corporation’s internal decisions affecting its members.”

SFLR applied for club status at the beginning of the 2014 school year. The group took the RSU to court in December 2015 after being denied ratification.

They claimed that the dismissal of their group infringed on Ryerson’s policy to protect freedom of speech on campus.

The Student Groups Committee said in a press release that the status was denied because the RSU “opposes … groups, meetings, or events that promote misogynist views towards woman [sic] and ideologies that promote gender inequity, challenges women’s right [sic] to bodily autonomy, or justifies [sic] sexual assault.”

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