CSUF Young Americans for Liberty host beach ball event to promote free speech and address student rights

Daily Titan

Members of the Cal State Fullerton Young Americans for Liberty (YAL) club rolled a giant beach ball through Titan Walk Wednesday, inviting students to write their political opinions on it and sign the club’s petition to protect free speech on campus.
The petition seeks to “protect free speech on campus” and calls for the termination any faculty member who encroaches on the rights of students, said Aaron Van Meter Jones, president of the CSUF chapter of YAL.
Jones said the clause about faculty termination was added after a Feb. 8 altercation involving part-time anthropology lecturer Eric Canin and three members of the CSUF College Republicans club during a protest on campus.
“The week before our first planned event, Eric Canin decided to assault a student over his political beliefs so then the petition kind of became personal,” Jones said.
An internal university investigation determined an “employee struck a student,” according to an emailed statement from CSUF Chief Communications Officer Jeffrey Cook Feb. 22. The statement read “even when we find opposing views objectionable, ours is a campus where we will insist that respect be afforded to the right of others to assert those views.”
Canin was suspended following the incident.
Canin and his representatives have continued to deny that Canin struck anyone. Canin said in a text message after the altercation that he was “confident any video would exonerate” him.
“It is grotesque that the attack on Dr. Canin, the silencing of Dr. Canin and the threat to take away his livelihood is being portrayed as a defense of free speech,” said California Faculty Association Fullerton Faculty Rights Chair Tyler McMillen in a text message in March.
The petition has about 170 student signatures, Jones said, and YAL plans to send it to the anthropology department head, Interim Dean of Students Alisia Kirkwood and the vice president of Student Life and Leadership ...

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