A feminist studies professor at University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) pleaded no contest to three misdemeanor charges of grand theft, vandalism, and battery this week after she attacked a young female pro-life protestor in March.
As Breitbart News’ Warner Todd Huston reported, Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young was charged after attacking 16-year-old Thrin Short, and her 21-year-old sister, Joan, who were distributing pamphlets for the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, a nonprofit pro-life group.
Miller-Young, who teaches feminist and black cultural studies courses — which includes classes on pornography, sex work, and a specialization in “queer theory” — reportedly confronted the young girls by loudly talking over them at first, then she ridiculed them and called them names. The professor’s behavior escalated when destroyed some of the pro-life group’s signage and physically assaulted Thrin, inflicting minor injuries on the young girl.
The Short sisters took video of Miller-Young physically pushing and swinging her arms at the teen, and posted it to YouTube.
In later interviews, Miller-Young claimed she had a “moral right” to physically attack the pro-life young people, stating that she viewed herself “like” a “conscientious objector.” The professor also blamed the young pro-lifers for forcing her to viciously attack them, claiming Thrin had “triggered” her.
According to FoxNews.com, Miller-Young remains employed by the university and her attorney, Catherine Swysen, did not respond to requests for comment.
Though the charges against the professor carry the possibility of jail time, FoxNews.com sources indicate Miller-Young will merely pay a fine, perform community service, and undergo counseling when she is sentenced on August 14.
“We hope that the sentence as a whole will unambiguously undo the ‘good example’ she believes she set for her students, both in her own mind and theirs,” Katie Short, the girls’ mother and legal director of Life Legal Defense Foundation, wrote FoxNews.com in an email.
William Short, the girls’ father, said he would have expected an academic to engage in rational debate with someone with whom she disagreed.
“She was free to engage in a rational dialogue with them,” Short told FoxNews.com in March. “Instead, she chose to bully them, steal and destroy their property, and hit and scratch my daughter. After doing so, she said she thought she was setting a good example for her students.”
UCSB spokesman George Foulsham told FoxNews.com, “Professor Miller-Young is not currently teaching any courses and is not scheduled to teach any courses during the fall quarter.”
Miller-Young received support from a group of her students. Breitbart News reported in April that UCSB theater and feminist studies student Katherine Wehler told Austin Yack at The College Fix, young pro-life girls attacked by leftists professors “are domestic terrorists, because the definition of a terrorist is someone who terrorizes.”
“That’s exactly what those girls were doing,” Wehler said about the young pro-life campus demonstrators. “They were making us feel very unsafe on our campus outside one of the busiest places during the busiest week of the quarter.”
However, Katie Devlin, also a UCSB student, said she saw hypocrisy in Wehler and the other students supporting Miller-Young.
“They talk about prioritizing the safety of our campus involving activists, yet it’s our professor that attacks somebody,” Devlin said. “I think it’s just the contrast that she is a feminist professor and stands for protecting women, yet she attacks a young girl.”