Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta. (Photo: John Disney/ALM)

A student group at the Georgia Institute of Technology is suing after it was denied funding to host an event featuring the niece of Martin Luther King Jr., who was slated to speak about abortion and civil rights.

The student organization, Students for Life, with the support of the national Alliance Defending Freedom, is asking a federal judge in Atlanta to place a moratorium on the university's collection of certain student activity fees and to reimburse hundreds of dollars in mandatory fees billed to the plaintiffs, exempt them from paying those fees going forward, and to release more than $2,300 in funds requested to host Alveda King. The lawsuit targets university officials, the Student Government Association and the state Board of Regents.

The plaintiffs include Haley Theis, the current president of Students for Life; and past president Brian Cochran, who graduated from the university last December. The organization is represented by Alliance Defending Freedom's legal counsel Caleb Dalton; alliance lawyers in Virginia and Georgia; and Foster, Foster and Smith in Jonesboro.

Students for Life of America is a national pro-life organization dedicated to training and equipping students to lead local pro-life student groups at high schools and universities. On Wednesday, national President Kristan Hawkins said in a news release distributed by the alliance, "Courageous student leaders across the country face real opposition from their schools because they choose to speak for the defenseless and want to peacefully educate their fellow students about it. The Constitution is clear that public universities can't engage in the type of discrimination that has taken place at Georgia Tech."

Georgia Tech spokesman Joshua Stewart said Wednesday evening the university was just learning of the litigation and had no comment on the complaint. But he added, "Georgia  Tech holds freedom of expression as an essential cornerstone to the advancement of knowledge."

The suit, filed Wednesday, alleges that Georgia Tech's Student Government Association violated the First and Fourteenth amendments when it denied Students for Life money to host King. The 68-year-old evangelist, who is an outspoken supporter of President Donald Trump, was slated to speak on abortion and civil rights, including her own family's experiences in the civil rights movement.

While similar student association requests were routinely "fast-tracked" with little, if any, discussion, Students for Life alleges the SGA "interrogated" Cochran on the "content and viewpoints" that King would present. The suit claimed that SGA members denied the funds, claiming that King's life was "inherently religious" and that they couldn't separate the religious aspect of her life from her planned keynote speech.

Students for Life and their attorneys contend that it is "discriminatory and unconstitutional" to withhold student activity fee funding "simply because a group holds a pro-life, conservative, or religious belief."

"If public universities wish to force students to pay student activity fees, then those universities have an affirmative duty to ensure that the funds are distributed in a viewpoint neutral manner," the suit contends. "When universities dictate, or grant students the power to dictate which messages and messengers are allowed on campus, they transform universities from 'marketplaces of ideas' to a seller's market of a single ideology deemed acceptable to the SGA."