Michael Patrick Leahy, the editor-in-chief of The Tennessee Star and CEO of The Star News Network, told Dan Mandis of SuperTalk 99.7 WTN on Wednesday morning that the administration of Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU) and the faculty adviser of the school newspaper, Sidelines, have enabled antisemitism on the university’s campus.
Leahy told Mandis that he had given a speech Tuesday night to the Republican Women of Rutherford County in Murfreesboro, where he outlined ten specific things patriotic Americans living in the state of Tennessee should do.
One of those ten things, Leahy said, was this:
Publicly oppose antisemitism and stand bravely with your Jewish friends.
Leahy went on to note that antisemitism is on full display at MTSU.
“It was in the late 1990s when academic intolerance accelerated in the United States, as we’ve seen right here at Middle Tennessee State University,” Leahy told Mandis.
Leahy then discussed the current example of antisemitism at MTSU.
Tennessee legislators at the state and federal level continue to decry the MTSU student newspaper’s decision to issue a deceptive statement about the reasons why an article written by former editor Matthew Giffin, which Leahy described as a “straightforward” story about an MTSU student who expressed concerns for friends in Tel Aviv, Israel after the October 7 attack by Hamas terrorists in which 1,400 Israelis were massacred.
Initially, Giffin faced no backlash for his article, but Leahy explained that after it was posted to social media, “the pro-Hamas, pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel lobby of young people in the MTSU community started attacking him.” They also threatened the student who was the subject of the article.
Leahy explained that “in a cowardly way, the student editorial board” released a statement “which basically said we apologize for putting out this article because we didn’t equitably treat what was happening to Palestinians in Gaza.” Giffin resigned from his position at the newspaper after the statement was released by the paper’s editorial board, because he had removed the article himself due to concerns for the safety of the student who had been threated by pro-Hamas individuals within the MTSU community, not because it failed to “equitably treat what was happening to Palestinians in Gaza,” an assertion that Giffin noted was not relevant to the article.
Giffin subsequently wrote an article, published originally at The College Fix, warning that institutions like MTSU are “folding to antisemitic, pro-Hamas voices” shortly after he resigned from the student newspaper in protest.
Though the university has stressed the publication’s independent nature, Leahy assigned blame to the MTSU administration and the university’s faculty advisor to Sidelines.
In a statement to The Star, MTSU claimed the publication “is editorially independent from the university” and the decision to purge Giffin’s article “was a matter handled internally by its student-led editorial board.” MTSU did not explain the role of the publication’s faculty advisor, Leon Alligood.
Alligood is “a former reporter for The Tennessean, he’s an associate professor at the school of journalism.” Leahy told Mandis that Alligood has not returned a request for comment from The Star.
Leahy noted that a faculty advisor to a student newspaper “would have been involved in advising the student editorial board” about the statement released describing the reason Giffin’s article was removed, and whether to “put out a statement apologizing for it.”
Recounting his previous day’s speech before the Republican Women of Rutherford County, where the MTSU campus is located, Leahy revealed the audience relayed their experiences with “high-level officials at MTSU” that left them convinced “they are very, very aggressively leftist, and do not entertain any ideas that are counter to that leftist progressivism.” Leahy warned that “now it’s morphed into antisemitism.”
Watch the full segment:
– – –
Tom Pappert is the lead reporter for The Tennessee Star, and also reports for The Georgia Star News, The Virginia Star, and the Arizona Sun Times. Follow Tom on X/Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Michael Patrick Leahy” by SuperTalk 99.7 WTN.
I sure do miss Michael Patrick Leahy’s morning radio program on 1510 from 5 AM to 8 AM.
That show was my source of Tennessee/local news. Now I have nothing!!!!
I do understand it had to be a grind for that many years. Just know I miss you!!!!! Crom and the rest!
Thanks,