An Ohio State professor was suspended for allegedly attacking a journalist who was trying to confront the university’s former president after footage of the assault went viral.
Luke Perez, an assistant Professor in the Salmon P. Chase Center for Civics, Culture, and Society, was stationed in a Smith Laboratory hallway, talking to two freelance reporters when he launched his suspected attack on February 9.
One victim, identified as Michael Neuman, attempted to walk past Perez when the staff member snatched at the man’s phone before grabbing the journalist and dropping him to the floor, according to the footage initially shared by DJ Byrnes on Instagram.
Byrnes, who runs The Rooster newsletter, claims Neuman, a documentarian, was trying to question Ohio State Vice President E. Gordon Gee on student loan debt.
“I told you not to put that in my face,” Perez yells over Neuman. “Now, I’m not gonna ask you again don’t touch me
“I didn’t touch you motherf–ker, who the f–k are you,” Neuman shouted back at Perez.
The belligerent staffer claims Neuman “put his hands on me” before having a camera shoved in his face.
Perez, a 12-year Air National Guard veteran, began to walk away down the hallway as Neuman and Byrnes threatened to call the police and have the staffer placed behind bars.
“That’s a lawsuit for sure,” Neuman said. “Are you f–king kidding me. He hits like a bitch too. Sucker punching me and he can’t knock me out? What a bitch.”
Gee, the President Emeritus of Ohio State, was a guest speaker for Perez’s class for a lecture series of Profiles in American Leadership, according to the Columbus Dispatch.
Byrnes, a self-proclaimed political gadfly, had interviewed Gee in the hallway about his comments claiming sexual abuse survivors at Ohio State were engaging in “cancel culture,” the school’s long history with late convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein and privatized on-campus parking, he wrote on the Rooster.
After the questioning, Neuman had a follow-up for Gee but Perez appeared and said they were done, leading to the violent beating.
Perez was placed on paid administrator leave on Tuesday after the alleged assault as campus police look into the altercation, WSYX reported, citing a university spokesperson.
Byrnes claimed Perez had violated their First Amendment rights as the Ohio State University is a public institution.
“I thought we were in a bastion of free speech only to end up with a guy physically assaulted,” Byrnes told the outlet. “There’s no other way to describe it other than assault. It was bizarre.”
Neuman has called for Perez to be charged with assault after the viral altercation.
“My client wants Perez prosecuted and terminated,” Neuman’s lawyer, Rocky Ratliff, told WSYX. “This is not the actions of an admirable professor or someone who’s professional. If the roles were reversed, he definitely would already be in jail.”
The two men claim Perez stepped into the hallway to tell them he didn’t consent to beingn filmed but they weren’t looking for him, instead wanted to speak with Gee.
The Chase Center was created following a state bill that mandated Ohio State and four other public institutions to promote “intellectual diversity.”
Ohio State’s American Association of University Professors chapter condemned Perez’s actions in the video.
“Based on what we know now, this incident is a vivid illustration of a larger problem – the way the Chase Center and other so-called ‘intellectual diversity’ centers have been forcibly and unnecessarily imposed on Ohio’s universities,” the chapter said in a statement to the Columbus Dispatch.
“Unfortunately, this assault — and the embarrassing actions around it — make it clear these centers aren’t really about encouraging civil discourse and intellectual diversity. AAUP-OSU is in favor of free speech for everyone on campus, not just for the ideas that politicians want to promote.”
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