Charges against Brigid (and the 87 other members of the “Notre Dame 88”) finally dropped by Notre Dame

As the two year May 17th anniversary of the protests for the giving of an award to then new President Barack Obama, approaches.

Here are some postings I’d put up at the time. Brigid makes the news at Notre Dame today, Brigid took all these pictures at Notre Dame, Brigid’s home, safe and sound and there’s plenty more if you type in the search box on the upper right – “Notre Dame”, as I chronicled the trespassing charges wending their way through the Indiana court system.

And here’s an interesting picture Brigid took – the woman on the left is Norma McCorvey, the original Roe in Roe v. Wade, who is now prolife. Next to her is Father Norman Weslin, and on the right Joan Andrews Bell. All three of them were arrested.

ND could have (& should have) had the charges dropped at any time. In a normal civil disobedience case the charges are normally dropped within a month or two, or there’s a settlement that stipulates the protestors arraignment and the couple of hours they spent in the police station are enough.  BUT, Notre Dame was concerned that if they simply dropped the charges, they’d be civilly sued for violating the civil rights of the protestors. A reasonable fear on their part. The campus is open to the public, nothing was blocked or disrupted, and all the people were doing is wearing t-shirts (Brigid’s said “ProJustice ProLife ProPeace”), carrying signs and singing hymns. It would have been an interesting case …

Lots of pro bono work was done on behalf of the demonstrators by local South Bend lawyers who agreed with the protest, led by Tom Dixon, pictured below, as well as at least two national Catholic legal organizations.  We are very grateful for everything they did – the attorneys put much, much, more time into this then Brigid did – even with the long trip to Notre Dame and back!

They strongly recommended the final agreement, which dropped all charges and some other annoying limits the University tried to put on people, in return for the protestors agreeing to not sue the University. It was the unanimous opinion of the lawyers that Notre Dame has tried to make amends by supporting some initiatives to help pregnant women, among other things, and that it would not be productive from a prolife perspective to pursue legal action against the University.

Go here for more information, including a link to the final agreement outlining some of the points in the prior paragraph.  The complete story: Notre Dame dismisses charges against the “ND 88”