I strongly advise you to notify ACLU of what happened.
That wasn’t an attack on two journalist. It was an attack on you and all who dare challenge Lancaster’s powers that be.
The President of a private university has no more right to ban journalists from university grounds than the President of the United States has the right to ban them from Federal grounds. Both positions are a kind of trusteeship.
But even if F&M acted lawfully when forbidding members of the free press from stepping foot on college grounds (a liberal arts college no less!), its President broke the law when he dispatched his rent-a-cop goons to physically assault members of the press exercising their first amendment rights in the public right of way.*
A private security force does not have the right to beat up and arrest members of the press (or anyone else for that matter!) exercising their Constitutional rights in the public domain.
By countenancing such reprehensible (and frankly un-American) behavior on the part of his employees — like some fascist dictator Fry blithely watched on as his armed brown shirts beat up two defenseless reporters — F&M’s President has forfeited his moral right to head a liberal arts institution of higher learning, be it public or private.
*Editor’s note. While Fry arrived on the scene during the arrest and, as president of F & M, is responsible for establishing policies and training, it has not been ascertained that he actually dispatched the “rent-a-cop goons.” They may have been called by another member of his household.
