A professor of ethics and philosophy at a New York university, barred from campus in 2022 after questioning in a viral video whether adult-child sex is wrong, is suing to return to the classroom.
Stephen Kershnar, who still has a job at the State University of New York, Fredonia (SUNY), has not been back on campus or taught in more than a year after appearing in video clips featured by the conservative site Libs of Tiktok, according to media accounts.
“Defending free expression means defending all constitutionally protected speech, regardless of the content,” said FIRE’s Chief Counsel Bob Corn-Revere told The Epoch Times in an email about the case.
“FIRE is working to defend Professor Kershnar’s expression and the premise that citizens of a free society should be able to speak the unspeakable, mention the unmentionable, and question the unquestionable without government censorship,” he said.
Mr. Kershnar was ousted after making remarks in a podcast on the morality of an adult male having sex with a “willing” 12-year-old girl.
He also suggested it was difficult to say if the harm of adult-child sex stemmed from the sex itself or societal stigma against it.
The viral post sparked outrage and calls for the professor to be fired.
A book abstract by Mr. Kershnar said that adults having sex with children “intuitively strikes many people, including myself, as sick, disgusting, and wrong.”
But added: “The problem is that it is not clear whether these judgments are justified and whether they are aesthetic or moral.”
Mr. Kershnar isn’t the only professor to receive backlash for suggesting pedophilia may not be harmful.
A push has intensified in academic circles to classify pedophilia as another sexual orientation instead of a mental disorder, which has prompted many parents and conservatives to speak out against it.
The term “minor-attracted person” grabbed headlines after transgender professor Allyn Walker used it during a video discussion on pedophiles in November 2021.
Ms. Walker, a woman who transitioned to live as a man, was speaking about her book: “A Long Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity.”
Grooming Children
The controversy underscores alarm from parental rights advocates and conservative organizations over what they see as a national and global push to sexualize children and normalize pedophilia.
Influential globalist organizations plan to teach kindergarteners about sexuality through comprehensive sex education in schools.
They seek to “empower” children to “consent” to sexual encounters, according to agency documents from the International Planned Parenthood Federation, the World Health Organization, and the United Nations.
Parental rights groups such as Moms for Liberty say children are sexualized at school through gender ideology, sexually explicit library books, and sex education.
GOP-controlled state legislatures in states like Texas and Florida have passed laws banning sexually explicit books in school libraries and sexual drag queen performances in front of kids in response to parental concerns.
Mr. Kershnar’s lawsuit was filed this June in the U.S. District Court in Buffalo against the university’s president and provost.
SUNY Fredonia President Stephen Kolison caved to the “Twitter Mob” and banished him from the classroom, campus, and any contact with the “campus community,” according to the lawsuit.
Mr. Kolison said in a Feb. 1, 2022, post on Twitter, now X, that SUNY Fredonia was aware of the videos involving one of its professors.
“The views expressed by the professor are reprehensible and do not represent the values of SUNY Fredonia in any way, shape, or form,” he stated.
“They are solely the professor’s views. The matter is being reviewed.”
Mr. Kolison directed campus police to bar Mr. Kershnar from campus, search his office, seize his computer, and send it to an unknown third party for analysis, according to the lawsuit.
The university said it barred Mr. Kershnar from the campus for ongoing concerns regarding his safety and the safety of others on campus.
Child Sex Not ‘Obviously’ Wrong
Mr. Kershnar went into detail concerning the issue of adult-child sexual consent, age thresholds, and harm during appearances on “Brain in a Vat“ and ”Unregistered” podcasts.“Imagine that an adult male wants to have sex with a 12-year-old girl; imagine that she is a willing participant,” he said during one clip.
“A very standard, very widely held view that there’s something deeply wrong about this, and it’s wrong independent of it being criminalized. It’s not obvious to me that it is, in fact, wrong. I think this is a mistake.”
In another clip, Mr. Kershnar cited “metastudies” questioning the harm of adult males having sex with underage boys.
“If it is harmful, we can’t decide whether the harm is due to the sex itself or the fact that society goes berserk over it,” he said.
