A Catholic university is threatening to expel a student for posting flyers advertising an off-campus appearance by a conservative commentator because the flyers mentioned the school’s name.
James Dowling, a student at Saint Louis University (SLU) and a member of the SLU College Republicans, was told last week that he faced serious disciplinary action for failing to comply with administrators’ requests to take down the flyers, which he was posting off campus on December 1, shortly before the scheduled appearance by author and podcaster Matt Walsh.
The flyers were about as noncontroversial as they could get. “SLU College Republicans & Young America’s Foundation Proudly Present: Matt Walsh at Saint Louis University,” they read, adding the time and place of the event and the website at which additional information could be found. They also included a photo of Walsh.
According to Young America’s Foundation (YAF):
Administrators present outside the event took issue with the school and organization’s names being used on flyers for the event and demanded [Dowling] remove every poster.
Since removing every poster was not feasible nor fair, Dowling, wanting to remain in the school’s good graces, offered to cross out the names with a sharpie. This was not good enough for them, despite not having any jurisdiction over the off-campus location.
During a Thursday Zoom call, Dowling was told he was being charged with “failure to comply” and “inappropriate conduct.” Office of Student Responsibility and Community Standards Assistant Director William Bowey said Dowling had been “allegedly confrontational, disrespectful, and failed to comply with reasonable requests made by the staff in accordance with their duties.”
Should Dowling be found guilty of the charges, he could be punished by “suspension or expulsion from the institution,” explained Bowey.
Contrary to Bowey’s assertions, YAF writes:
In video footage of the altercation involving two administrators, the student, and two Young America’s Foundation employees, the administrators … are hostile in their treatment of Dowling and antagonistic towards the YAF employees.
When confronted with the fact that this was not university property, and instead public city property, the administrators ignored it, demanding that the flyers be taken down despite the event beginning just 90 minutes later.
They claimed that because of their disciplinary status, the College Republicans could not post any promotional materials — on or off-campus.
That “disciplinary status” refers to SLU’s punishment of the organization for responding to the “SLU Sluts,” a non-university-affiliated group that claims “not all women have a uterus” and “not all people with uteruses are women,” by posting on Instagram a video featuring Walsh’s famous question “What is a woman?”
“During the encounter, there was no doubt in my mind that the administrators were both outside of their realm of control and acting out of personal political bias,” Dowling told YAF. “I don’t know why I’m under investigation for this ordeal. I think SLU should be investing their time into investigating their bully administrators instead.”
YAF reports that SLU “is attempting to schedule an official conduct meeting [for Dowling] during finals week.”
Dowling’s ordeal is just the latest in a string of anti-Walsh actions by SLU. In November, over 250 SLU professors, faculty members, and staff signed a petition opposing Walsh’s appearance, at which he spoke on the pro-life movement, fearing it would be used “to ostracize transgender women” by asserting the scientific fact that they can’t have babies. Then, just a day before his scheduled appearance at St. Francis Xavier College Church, the church canceled the engagement because they found his public statements “to be in opposition to the teachings of the Catholic Church.”
Walsh ended up appearing to a packed house at a nearby hotel, where he was greeted by pro-abortion protestors who refused to answer “What is a woman?”
On his podcast Tuesday, Walsh said SLU’s “vindictive and petty” administrators “are power-tripping bullies, still angry that I managed to have such a well-attended event despite their best efforts, and now they’re taking it out on some random kid who lacks the resources to fight back and defend himself.”
“If they move forward with trying to expel this student, they’re going to have many more headaches in the future to deal with,” he warned. “I promise you that.”
