Arizona State University (ASU) President Michael Crow wrote an official email smearing Turning Point USA (TPUSA) as “bullies” after an ASU professor appeared to lunge at a TPUSA cameraman, leading to a brief scuffle. The TPUSA reporter has been questioning why the educator writes stories about minors having sex with adults.
Self-professed “sex education obsessed” professor David Boyles, a writing instructor in ASU’s English Department, appeared to lunge at a TPUSA cameraman after TPUSA Frontlines reporter Kalen D’Almeida aggressively questioned him about Drag Queen Story Hour and his writing projects.
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The TPUSA reporter appeared to respond to the apparent attack by pushing Boyles down and away from the cameraman, which seemingly caused the professor to fall to the ground.
Additional video footage from a university security camera shows the aftermath of the incident, revealing that the TPUSA employees did not attack the professor while he was down. Instead, they asked him if he was okay, the organization said.
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ASU President Crow reacted to the incident by attacking the conservative student organization in a message posted to the university’s website.
“It is astounding to me that individuals from Turning Point USA would wait for an ASU instructor to come out of his class to follow him, harass him and ultimately shove him to the ground, bloodying his face,” Crow wrote.
“Cowards that they are and so confident in the legality and appropriateness of their actions, the Turning Point USA ‘reporter’ and ‘cameraman’ then ran away from the scene before police arrived,” the university president added. “This is the kind of outrageous conduct that you would expect to see from bullies in a high school cafeteria.”
Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk reacted to Crow’s email, saying he “was silent last week as pro-Hamas ‘protestors’ denigrated Jewish students on campus, but he worked over the weekend and sent an official email smearing TPUSA after ‘queer’ ASU professor David Boyles attacked our cameraman.”
Kirk also shared the security footage from the aftermath of the incident, adding, “Here’s the video evidence, clear as day.”
“Professor Boyles attacked our crew first, and our reporter, Kalen D’Almeida, pushed him off to protect his cameraman,” the TPUSA founder explained.
“Violence is never okay and just because Professor Boyles happens to be gay (or whatever) doesn’t give him the right to attack people because he doesn’t like the questions they’re asking,” he added.
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Kirk went on to say that D’Almeida “used his constitutionally-protected speech to ask a taxpayer-funded employee some simple questions,” such as “Why is he the Phoenix sponsor of Drag Queen Story Hour?” “Why is he exposing minors to fetishists who dress up as women around little kids?” and why he publishes “books about minors having sex with adults?” among other inquiries.
“President Crow is lying to his university, despite clear evidence contradicting his every word,” Kirk affirmed. “Facing a $400 million budget shortfall and a AZ state investigation into violations of free speech, President Crow is picking a strange hill to die on.”
Turning Point USA spokesperson Andrew Kolvet told Breitbart News, “What’s astounding is for President Crow to so brazenly misrepresent what’s crystal clear in the video. Professor Boyles is the one who turned this interaction violent. He lunged and hit our cameraman. Our reporter moved to protect his crew member who was getting attacked.”
Kolvet explained that the TPUSA reporter and cameraman then asked Boyles “if he was okay, and if he needed any assistance before leaving.”
“Mr. Boyles and President Crow are shamefully attempting to use Mr. Boyles’s sexual orientation to play victim and skip over the fact that he was the one who attacked our crew. Self defense is not hate,” the TPUSA spokesperson added. “President Crow should be ashamed of lying to the ASU community in an official university email when a simple review of the video contradicts his every word.”
Over the summer, a millionaire benefactor pulled a six-figure donation from ASU, citing “left-wing hostility and activism” on the school’s campus after a faculty member said the university fired her for inviting Dennis Prager, Charlie Kirk, and entrepreneur Robert Kiyosaki to speak on campus.
Meanwhile, ASU is facing a $400 million budget shortfall by the end of the year, according to a report by AZ Family.
You can follow Alana Mastrangelo on Facebook and Twitter at @ARmastrangelo, and on Instagram.
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