Source: Politico
By YOUSEF SABA
The president of Liberty University censored an article critical of Donald Trump, according to the sports editor of the school’s official newspaper, the Liberty Champion.
The editor, Joel Schmieg, posted a statement on his Facebook account claiming it was Jerry Falwell Jr., the university’s president and a Trump supporter, who spiked the column, which criticized Trump for lewd comments he made on a hot mic during a 2005 taping of “Access Hollywood.”
“Yesterday I was told [Falwell] was not allowing me to express my personal opinion in an article I wrote for my weekly column in the Liberty Champion about Trump and his ‘locker room talk,'” Schmieg wrote.
“I understand Joel’s frustration regarding the situation,” Cierra Carter, the opinion editor for the Liberty Champion, told POLITICO. “Our president has been very vocal with his opinions during this election season and we’d like that same privilege.”
In his Facebook post, Schmieg poked fun at a statement by Falwell earlier in the week, in which he said: “It is a testament to the fact that Liberty University promotes the free expression of ideas unlike many major universities where political correctness prevents conservative students from speaking out.”
“I find these words from Jerry amusing and extremely hypocritical,” Schmieg wrote.
Falwell’s statement came after a group of students at Liberty University criticized him for defending Trump after the release of the recording, in which the real estate mogul boasted about grabbing women’s genitals and getting away with it.
“Any faculty or staff member at Liberty would be terminated for such comments, and yet when Donald Trump makes them, President Falwell rushes eagerly to his defense — taking the name ‘Liberty University’ with him,” the students wrote.
“I think this whole tape … videotape thing was planned, I think it was timed, I think it might have even been a conspiracy among establishment Republicans who have known about it for weeks and who tried to time it to do the maximum damage to Donald Trump, and I just … I just think it just backfired on them,” Falwell told radio host Rita Cosby on Oct. 10.
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