MINNEAPOLIS — A St. Olaf College professor tapped to promote debate about "highly controversial subjects" through conversations with guest speakers is being removed from his leadership position a year early, reigniting debate of how colleges handle free speech.
Philosophy and religion professor Edmund Santurri was set to serve as director of St. Olaf's Institute for Freedom and Community through August 2023, but the private college's president, David Anderson, recently chose to rescind Santurri's appointment. His term as director will now conclude at the end of this semester. He will remain an active faculty member.
Santurri said he thinks a February virtual conversation with Australian philosopher Peter Singer, and a campus uproar that surrounded it, was the "tipping point" for his removal.
