A St. Louis University (SLU) student who put up flyers advertising an upcoming lecture from The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh is facing suspension or expulsion, even though he says he put the flyers up off campus.
The Washington Examiner reported that James Dowling “was notified last week he would be subjected to a disciplinary hearing for refusing to stop posting flyers at an off-campus location advertising Walsh’s lecture and for allegedly being ‘confrontational’ and ‘disrespectful’ to school administrators.”
The Examiner was able to review Dowling’s pre-hearing, which occurred over Zoom. The outlet noted that assistant director for the Office of Student Responsibility and Community Standards William Bowey told the student that putting up the flyers and the way he handled the situation with university officials could possibly violate the school’s code of conduct and that if he was found responsible, he faces suspension or expulsion.
More from the Examiner:
On the day of the event, Dowling posted flyers advertising the event at a location he says was off school grounds. He says a pair of school administrators approached him and demanded he take down the flyers, prompting an animated discussion that lasted almost half an hour.
In the Zoom meeting and in a letter sent to Dowling, the university accused him of being “allegedly confrontational, disrespectful” and that he “failed to comply with reasonable requests made by the staff in accordance with their duties.”
During the Zoom pre-hearing, Dowling repeatedly tried to tell Bowey the incident took place off campus property and therefore outside the purview of school discipline. The administrator replied, “That would be a matter for the hearing.”
Walsh was originally scheduled to speak at SLU on December 1, but like many conservative speakers, he and the Young America’s Foundation (YAF), an organization that helps students find conservative speakers to speak at their campus, faced trouble trying to allow Walsh to speak. Ultimately, the lecture was rescheduled twice and finally held off campus because university officials reportedly refused to allow Walsh a venue for his speech.
YAF reported that administrators specifically “took issue with the school and organization’s names being used on flyers for the event” that Dowling had hung up.
“Since removing every poster was not feasible nor fair, Dowling, wanting to remain in the school’s good graces, offered to cross out the names with a sharpie. This was not good enough for them, despite not having any jurisdiction over the off-campus location,” YAF wrote.
Dowling told the organization that he called the city to make sure the area where the event was held did not belong to the university, and was told it didn’t.
“During the encounter, there was no doubt in my mind that the administrators were both outside of their realm of control and acting out of personal political bias,” Dowling told YAF. “I don’t know why I’m under investigation for this ordeal. I think SLU should be investing their time into investigating their bully administrators instead.”
Video footage of the encounter reportedly shows the university administrators acting “hostile” toward Dowling and YAF employees.