WATCH: Univ. of California Professor Charged with Theft, Battery, and Vandalism After Confrontation with Pro-Life Student

A feminist studies professor at a California state university is facing criminal charges after a videotaped run-in with a teenage pro-life demonstrator in which she snatched an anti-abortion sign and appeared to get physical with the girl. 

University of California at Santa Barbara Associate Professor Mireille Miller-Young was charged with one misdemeanor count each of theft, battery and vandalism in the March 4 incident, Santa Barbara County District Attorney Joyce Dudley announced Friday. The charges came days after 16-year-old Thrin Short and her parents met with prosecutors.

Thrin told authorities what she told FoxNews.com earlier this month: She, her older sister Joan, 21, and some other pro-life activists were holding signs and demonstrating in a free speech zone on the bucolic campus March 4 when Miller-Young, who also teaches courses on pornography, went berserk.

The sisters say they distributed nearly 1,000 informational pamphlets during the event, which was organized by the Riverside-based nonprofit Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. Things took an unexpected turn when, according to Short, Miller-Young approached the demonstrators and a group of students who had gathered.

“Before she grabbed the sign, she was mocking me and talking over me in front of the students, saying that she was twice as old as me and had three degrees, so they should listen to her and not me,” Thrin Short wrote in an email to FoxNews.com. “Then she started the chant with the students about ‘tear down the sign.’ When that died out, she grabbed the sign.”

With a graphic anti-abortion sign in hand, Miller-Young, whose faculty web page says she specializes in black cultural studies and pornography, then allegedly walked through two campus buildings as Short, her sister and two UCSB students followed closely behind. Short captured much of the incident, which she charged was a “deliberate” provocation by Miller-Young, on a cellphone video later posted to YouTube while her sister called campus police. Miller-Young pushed Short at least three times, the student alleges, as she tried to stop an elevator door from closing as the educator stood inside with her sign, Short said.

Click here to continue reading…

SOURCE: Fox News