A lynch mob of faculty members Chapman University is calling for the firing of a fellow professor who spoke at the “Save America” rally in Washington, D.C. shortly before violent rioters stormed the Capitol building.
But the university president is hanging tough, reports KCAL in California.
Chapman University law professor John Eastman appeared on stage with Trump’s personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani at the event, at which President Trump referred to listeners “marching over to the Capitol building to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard.”
Media and those whom they choose to amplify have portrayed the rally as a call for violence, which videos and many in attendance have confirmed it was not.
In response, over 150 Chapman faculty members signed onto a letter calling on the university to fire Eastman, and which stated falsely that “conspiratorial claims of a stolen election” at the rally “were the basis of the insurrection.”
However, University President Daniele Struppa issued two statements, on Jan. 8 and Jan. 9, saying that he will not fire Eastman.
“The manual allows for the termination of faculty who are disbarred, however, that is not the case today,” Struppa wrote in his more recent statement. “The Manual does not allow me to decide on my own that any faculty is a criminal or that they should be disbarred and therefore fired, which is what I am being asked to do. The Manual says that if a jury finds a faculty member to be guilty of a felony, or if they are disbarred, then the university can dismiss them. The university has no right to substitute itself for these formal bodies.”
