ALYSSA BUMP
Editor in Chief
CHLOE KOWALYK
News Editor
Several SUNY Fredonia professors have voiced their opinions about the recent news regarding their colleague Dr. Stephen Kershnar. This past week, a video on Twitter from @libsoftiktok showed Kershnar appearing on a podcast where he discussed topics such as adult-child sex. Along with the resurfacing of this podcast on Twitter, several of Kershnar’s books, blog posts and other works have entered the public eye once again.
With differing views circling on academic freedom and the First Amendment, numerous SUNY Fredonia professors have not shied away from expressing their opinions.
Dr. Neil Feit, a distinguished teaching professor at SUNY Fredonia, has taught in the philosophy department for over 20 years. Feit was emailed a request for an interview with The Leader on the Kershnar situation, which he politely declined. However, he did provide us with a message he sent to President Kolison.
In the message, Feit was responding to Kolison’s message to the campus from Feb. 3 where he announced Kershnar has been assigned duties off campus and that the situation would continue to be investigated. Feit wrote to Kolison, “Everything that has recently provoked outrage on this matter is very clearly constitutionally protected speech, and SUNY Fredonia is a public university. There is no basis for this matter being reviewed or investigated, and there is no basis for sanctioning Dr. Kershnar in any way.”
Feit also included a link to a Daily Nous post titled, “Kershnar Cycle Reactivated (several updates).” According to their “About” page, “Daily Nous provides news for and about the philosophy profession, useful information for academic philosophers, links to items of interest elsewhere and an online space for philosophers to publicly discuss it all.”
The post started out by explaining what they say the “Kershnar Cycle” is. Simply put, the post explains that every few years, people discover the work Kershnar has done as a philosopher. People are shocked by it. They tend to feel outraged and share their disapproval. That is, until there’s something else to discuss and Kershnar is forgotten about once again.
The author of this post, Justin Weinberg, wrote, “Kershnar Cycles, like hurricanes, come in varying strengths. Typically they’re… mild. This time, however, it’s more severe, as the cycle appears to have been initiated by a very popular social media account, @LibsofTikTok, which shared a selectively edited video of an interview with Kershnar, titles of some of his articles and called for him to be fired.”
The post continued by pointing out how Kershnar shapes his philosophical arguments around adult-child sex. It also shows written instances where Kershnar himself has said he does not support adult-child sex.
Weinburg finished the original post with, “Raising questions about sacred beliefs is one of the ways philosophy is especially valuable. That Kershnar has dedicated his career to this value (in ways that may have been personally or professionally costly to him) gives his fellow philosophers a further reason, apart from academic freedom, to defend him, even if they disagree with his conclusions.” The post has since been updated several times.
Another SUNY Fredonia professor, Dr. Darrin Rogers, has also voiced his opinion.
Rogers is an associate professor in psychology and earned his Ph.D. in child and adolescent clinical psychology from Ohio State, where he did research in direct child victim focused sexual aggression and sexual abuse research as well as clinical work. He has been trained as someone who studies offenders and offending.
“I’m fully in favor of academic freedom,” Rogers said, “and I think even difficult and uncomfortable topics should be explored.”
However, Rogers’ main concern with Kershnar’s discussion was Kershnar’s lack of judgement about how to discuss topics of this manner. Rogers said, “I do not believe that he showed good judgment or responsibility [regarding] when and how he made these comments and what audience he made them to.”
Rogers also pointed out that many of Kershnar’s arguments are factually incorrect: specifically Kershnar’s reference to adult-child sex as being “unharmful.”
“If you do good research, you find that yeah, this causes harm,” Rogers explained. “But it gets messy because [the research is] realistic… not everybody experiences terrible consequences for the rest of their lives, [but] some people do.”
Rogers also cited that many organizations across Europe and the United States that advocate for adult-child sex may latch onto information such as the discussions put out by Kershnar that are not entirely factual, and use them as a sort of justification.
“It was frustrating to me to see him make these comments, especially the comments that this doesn’t cause harm… his comments were [in direct] contradiction to a large amount of research on this,” Rogers said. “I think he’s wrong about harm. I think he’s irresponsible to wander off on these interesting philosophical musings and his philosophical musings always end in a place, I think, at least from what I’ve seen, that is shocking and horrifying.”
Rogers further explained, “You’d make the world a better place by using science and sound judgment to figure out why [pedophiles] have these thoughts and feelings, [and] how to manage them, so they don’t turn into behaviors.”
Dr. Bruce Simon, an associate professor in English, voiced his criticisms of those who’ve criticized Kershnar on Facebook. In his post, Simon also linked a review of the situation posted by Rogers on Facebook to provide more information on the topic.
In his post, Simon wrote: “So, yes, of course his positions and arguments deserve severe criticism. And what I find truly terrifying about the online ire aimed at him right now… is how eager his most vehement critics are to…” followed by a list of criticisms about how Kershnar’s critics have handled the situation.
First, Simon explained that Kershnar’s critics have “cast a contrarian libertarian conservative as a liberal or progressive.” This point reflected the labeling of Kershnar as a liberal by some news outlets’ viewers due to his employment at a liberal arts college.
Simon also criticized those who demanded SUNY Fredonia ignore the First Amendment and campus policies and “fire [Kershnar] for his extramural speech without proof of adequate cause or any due process.”
Simon also added that many of Kershnar’s critics have demanded that “politicians punish SUNY for hiring, reappointing and promoting him,” and have cited Kerhsnar has a poster child for the misuse of taxpayer dollars, which could delegitimize and defund public higher education institutions like SUNY Fredonia.
Also, some of Kershnar’s critics have described those defending Kershnar’s free speech as either “secretly agreeing with him, being complicit in his thoughts and crimes or protecting a pedophile,” according to Simon.
Finally, Simon explained that because Kershnar is Jewish, several posts depicting anti-semeticism have shown up as a result of the situation.
Mike Igoe, an associate professor of journalism at SUNY Fredonia and an attorney, was reached out to by WDOE radio and WKBW TV for an interview. During a separate Zoom interview with The Leader, Igoe referenced what he told those two news organizations. “I said, ‘I don’t really want to get into his case at all, because there’s too many things [at play] right now…’ So, I will talk strictly about the First Amendment.”
Igoe made the point that not all types of speech are protected under the First Amendment. He also explained that there are a lot of separate issues simultaneously working together in Kershnar’s case. “There’s employment contracts, union contracts, academic freedom… it’s a very involved story in many respects.” Igoe also points out that The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed speech to be restricted by school administrators if they feel it disrupts the learning environment and conflicts with the school’s values.