By JEFF PARROTT South Bend Tribune Staff Writer

6:30 p.m. EDT, May 18, 2011

Criminal charges against anti-Obama protesters on the University of Notre Dame campus two years ago have been dropped, but the conflict has new life.

One of the demonstrators, who was arrested but never charged, this week filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the university and St. Joseph County police, alleging her constitutional free speech rights were violated because Barack Obama supporters were allowed to demonstrate without being arrested or forced off the campus.

The plaintiff, Karen Torres, is a 54-year-old grandmother who has no ties to South Bend or the university. She and her husband, Sonny, drove to town from Virginia to demonstrate on campus after hearing about the controversy that erupted over the university's decision to have the president speak at the May 2009 commencement and receive an honorary degree, said her Osceola-based attorney, Tom Dixon.

Protesters were enraged that the Catholic university would honor a president who supports abortion rights and embryonic stem cell research.

Torres feels particularly passionate about "pro-life" causes because her daughter-in-law, Susan Torres, in 2005 was dying of cancer but was kept on life support, despite being brain dead, so that she could give birth to her daughter, Dixon said.

Torres was not part of the large groups of anti-abortion rights protesters who were arrested on commencement day, Dixon said. She and her husband were driving away from campus after the day's events when they noticed pro-Obama demonstrators lined up along Douglas Road, she alleges in her suit. Believing Obama's motorcade would soon be coming through on the way to South Bend Regional Airport, Torres decided she wanted to show the president two signs she had been carrying all day. They read, "Shame on Notre Dame," and "Obama=Abortion."

Sonny let her out of the car in the lot of the Notre Dame Federal Credit Union branch on Douglas Road, and looked for a place to park, according to the suit.

Torres says a county and Notre Dame security police officer told her she was on private university property and must leave or face arrest. When she refused to leave, noting the presence of nearby pro-Obama supporters who were being allowed to demonstrate, she was arrested and booked into the county jail, where she spent seven hours.

"She was arrested while an organized group of pro-Obama demonstrators were congregating right next to her," Dixon said. "The university orchestrated her arrest as part of a policy to prevent pro-lifers from speaking and criticizing the university and President Obama."

When contacted for comment Wednesday, university spokesman Dennis Brown said no one from the university would be interviewed. But Brown released this written statement:

"A lawsuit against Notre Dame for an arrest that was not made by our police officers and did not occur on our campus defies logic," Brown said in the statement. "It clearly is frivolous and we will immediately seek its dismissal."

Dixon said that although Notre Dame security police did not make the arrest, they "orchestrated it." And he said he believes the credit union branch parking lot is on campus.

"County officers weren't just wandering around looking for people to arrest on private property," Dixon said. "They had to be given marching orders from Notre Dame."

Police arrested 88 anti-abortion rights demonstrators that day. County Prosecutor Michael Dvorak announced earlier this month that he was dropping misdemeanor trespassing charges against the individuals.

Dixon, who represented all of them, said they signed an "agreement not to sue" the university or county in exchange for the charges' dismissal.

Dvorak never ended up charging Torres, despite her arrest, so she was not a party to the agreement, Dixon said.

Pete Agostino, attorney for the county, said he is "very comfortable that county officers acted properly within the bounds of the law and they performed their jobs as police officers."

Staff writer Jeff Parrott:
jparrott@sbtinfo.com
574-235-6320