?William Penn, a professor in the Department of English at MSU, is under fire for a recent anti-Republican rant seemingly recorded by a student and posted on Campusreform.org.
In the rant, which the site says took place Thursday in a literature class, Penn said Republicans “don’t want to pay taxes because they have raped this country and gotten everything out of it they possibly could.”
Campusreform.org is a project from the conservative-based Leadership Institute.
Penn said he has been told not to comment by the MSU Provost’s office.
“I’ve been told to keep a lid on it,” Penn said.
After news of the video broke, Board of Trustees Member Mitch Lyons took to Twitter to express his concern over the comments with multiple tweets and exchanges with students.
One tweet read, “Thank (you) MSU Prof. William Penn for blowing up my email and phone today. (Your) ridiculous hate speech diatribe is appreciated. #wasteofmytime”
“I was appalled,” Lyons said in a phone conversation Wednesday.
“It doesn’t matter if it was Democrat or Republican … it was hateful in nature,” he said. “It puts into question how open minded people can be in his class.”
When asked about possible discipline for Penn, Lyons said, “Many board members are not happy.”
Lyons said the administration will conduct a meeting today to discuss the matter and he hoped the results would be shared with him and the rest of the Board of Trustees sometime tonight or tomorrow.
Click here to see the anti-Republican rant on video.
Keep checking statenews.com for more updates on this story.
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