Jul 30, 2014 02:15 PM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

After a professor at UC - Santa Barbara (UCSB) assaulted a member of the Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust, the anti-abortion group is pressing charges.

The Santa Barbara Independent reported in March that three members of the group, known as Survivors, accused Dr. Mireille Miller-Young of stealing and destroying a banner at a demonstration as well as assaulting a member. The UCSB police department is currently investigating.

According to USA Today, Miller-Young pled no contest to three misdemeanor charges of theft, vandalism and battery last Thursday. The assault apparently happened when the Survivors tried to take back their sign and Miller-Young did not yield. The Survivors told the Independent they later found the sign destroyed.

"The police did not seem overly concerned about the incident until they saw the video and realized how violent the professor had been," Kristina Garza, the Survivors' campus director in Riverside, told the newspaper.

Joan Short, a 21-year-old student at Thomas Aquinas College, said she was demonstrating with her 16-year-old sister Thrin and 11 other Survivors when the encountered Miller-Young. While Short contended the graphic imagery of late-term abortions was meant to "begin conversations," Miller-Young yelled at the group to "tear down the sign."

About a week after the incident, Miller-Young told police she felt as though she had a "moral right" to remove the signs, the Independent reported. She said she was pregnant and the graphic imagery set her off.

The feminist studies professor was accompanied by a few of her students as they passed the Survivors. Short said the professor incited a "tear down the sign" chant before snatching one banner and walking away with it. At that point, the Short called 911 while her younger sister filmed Miller-Young walking away.

"She was definitely leading the group," Short told the Independent of Miller-Young. "I sincerely doubt any crime would have been committed if she hadn't been there."

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