California State Fullerton lecturer Eric Canin continues to maintain that he did not strike a member of the College Republicans in early February after he and the group exchanged verbal barbs.
But claims that Canin received death threats as a result of the national attention the altercation received — he was suspended after a campus investigation determined he stuck a member — are overblown, according to authorities.
The Daily Titan campus newspaper reports:
University Police received “no direct death threats” in regard to part-time anthropology lecturer Eric Canin following a Feb. 8 altercation between Canin and members of the CSUF College Republicans club.
“(Death threats have) to be very specific and the person that is making the statement has to have the ability to carry that out,” said University Police Capt. Scot Willey.
The rhetoric reported to the police was violent in nature and related to the altercation, Willey said.
Meanwhile, California Faculty Association Fullerton Faculty Rights Chair Tyler McMillen said that Canin “categorically denies” the allegation and that he has “been in poor health, and his condition has worsened since the incident,” the Titan reports.
A separate Daily Titan article from Thursday headlined “CSUF faculty and students hold lecturer Eric Canin in high regard for ‘energetic’ personality and ‘cordial’ manners” features statements from two students and a Canin teaching colleague to that effect.
Inside Higher Ed also reported that Canin maintains his innocence regarding his encounter with the CRs, despite a university investigation holding him culpable. Article author Colleen Flaherty notes it is “somewhat curious” that the assault “didn’t make it onto film, while the rest of [the] incident did.”
The faculty union of which Canin is a member says Fullerton “has not shared any physical or video evidence to support the claim” that the lecturer struck the student.
But a campus internal investigation determined differently, noting that it “substantiated the charges that a physical altercation occurred, that a campus employee struck a student, and that as a consequence the speech of the student group was stopped.”
The CSUF police have sent the case to the district attorney’s office, the Titan reports.
The College Republicans stand by their statement: “Reached via Twitter, [Christopher] Boyle, the College Republicans president, said there were ‘cameras going at the moment of the incident, but none happened to be pointed at the professor when he shoved the student.’ There were ‘plenty of eyewitnesses,’ however, he said,” reports Inside Higher Ed.
Read the full Daily Titan stories.
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