The videotaped rant by Penn concerning Republicans took place in the IAH 207 class Wright is in, he said.

Wright said there was “not a sad face in the room” when the teaching assistants read an email on Thursday announcing Penn had been relieved of his duties.

The TAs dismissed the class seven minutes into the lecture, saying that a new instructor would be in-place to teach Tuesday’s class.

Staff reporter Geoff Preston contributed to this report.

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William Penn, an MSU professor who went on an anti-Republican rant last Thursday, has been relieved from teaching his classes for this fall, the university released today.

“The dean of the College of Arts and Letters and a representative from the provost’s office met with Penn, who acknowledged that some of his comments were inappropriate, disrespectful and offensive and may have negatively affected the learning environment,” university spokesman Kent Cassella said in a statement. “Penn’s teaching duties have been reassigned to others. Students’ education will continue as scheduled with alternate instructors.”

Penn was teaching a class last week when he was recorded during his lecture making anti-Republican remarks.

“They are cheap,” Penn said in the video. “They don’t want to pay taxes because they have already raped this country and gotten everything out of it they possibly could.”

The video, which was uploaded to campusreform.org, has received heavy local and national attention.

Upon seeing the video, MSU Trustee Mitch Lyons tweeted out several comments about Penn and the video.

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”

Check statenews.com and tomorrow’s print edition of The State News for more on this story.