Lawsuit filed against Smithsonian for allegedly harassing, kicking out pro-life students

UPDATE, 2/8/23: The American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) announced 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.

“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’s for the safety and organization of the group. It wasn’t a demonstration,” said the ACLJ.

The lawsuit argues that the museum violated the students’ First Amendment rights.

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.

2/6/23: Patrick Murphy, one of the students recently kicked out of the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum for refusing to remove their pro-life hats, was recently on the “Hannity” 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. 

According to Murphy, the students had been in the museum for about 30 minutes when they were approached by “two women in all black, presumably security guards” who told the group to remove their hats. “They say, ‘All people wearing a pro-life hat, take it off.’ And immediately we’re confused,” Murphy recollected.

One of the students then informed the guards that the hats were being worn for identification purposes to help the group stick together. “So the two women, they kinda blew us off,” Murphy said. “And after that, we decided to sit against the wall.” 

When the time came for the group to catch their bus, they started to walk out, but were reportedly approached by “a large man.” Murphy recalled: “And he comes up to us, rubbing his hands together, saying, ‘Y’all are about to make my day,’ with a massive smile on his face.” The man told the students that he had reports that they had refused to remove their hats and that they were “in trouble.” 

A student repeated that the hats were being used for identification purposes, but, according to Murphy, “he wasn’t having it.” Murphy continued: 

I then said, “This is a violation of our First Amendment right. This is a government-funded building. How are we paying for this with our taxes and I’m not allowed to wear this hat?” And he said, “This is a neutral zone … and that doesn’t apply here.” And we were blown away. We had almost no words.

Alison Wood, Deputy Director of Communications for the museum, has responded: “Asking visitors to remove hats and clothing is not in keeping with our policies or protocols. We provided immediate training to prevent a re-occurrence of this kind of incident.”

Sekulow, however, seemed unimpressed with this response. “[T]hey said they did a training afterwards. We want to know … about the training before. And they didn’t apologize to these students,” he stated. 

“They picked on the wrong students,” Sekulow concluded.  

According to Sekulow, legal action is “imminent.”

Editor’s Note, 2/15/23: Minor corrections have been made that do not affect the factual content of this article.

Did you know that as little as $10 a month is enough to reach more than 3,000 moms and dads with the truth about abortion this year? Click here to start saving lives 365 days a year.