USC Students Demand Professor Be Fired for Saying 'Accusers Sometimes Lie'

Ferlon Webster Jr. | October 8, 2018
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Last Monday, students at the University of Southern California rallied to demand the removal of a tenured professor because of an email he sent stating that "accusers sometimes lie."

According to PJ Media, School of Engineering Professor James Moore sent a reply-all email saying, “If the day comes you are accused of some crime or tort of which you are not guilty, and you find your peers automatically believing your accuser, I expect you find yourself a stronger proponent of due process than you are now.”

"Accusers sometimes lie," he wrote.

Moore was responding to an email that urged students to “Believe All Survivors.” Moore soon was inundated with emails from upset students and alumni.

It seems like a pretty reasonable statement to me, but a group of about 100 students wholeheartedly disagreed and decided to hold a rally to call for Moore's firing.

“Times Up, No Moore!” was their chant as they gathered at the USC Argue Plaza in protest. As they marched toward the office of Dean Jack Knott, they hoped to deliver letters to him. He instead came down to meet them.

“What [Professor Moore] sent was extremely inappropriate, hurtful, insensitive," the dean told the crowd of students. "We are going to try to do everything we can to try to create a better school, to educate the faculty."

Knott also added that USC was a place that supports “inclusion of all different types of people from all kinds of backgrounds but that also respects different people’s opinions.” So maybe he was accepting of Moore’s email after all? 

In response to the students' protest, Moore stated, “It is never my intention to hurt anyone. My intention is to protect more students than we currently do from being punished for acts of misconduct they have not committed. Any of us might stand accused of any number of misdeeds, and each of us at that point will want to be treated fairly under due process.”

There is no word yet on what will happen to Professor Moore but The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s Will Creeley said, “Consistent with both its own policy and California state law, USC may not punish either Moore for his comment, nor students who peacefully protest Moore for his comment.”

When you take it all in, this just looks like another overreaction from students that can’t stand to hear a viewpoint any different than their own. 

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