Simon Newman, the president of Mount St. Mary’s University in Maryland, resigned on Monday amid controversy after he compared failing freshman to bunnies in need of drowning and subsequently fired professors who criticized him.
Mount St. Mary is located outside of Baltimore, Md., and is the second-oldest Catholic university is the country. Newman was only in his first year of presidency.
His resignation comes as a surprise considering that Newman had vowed not to step down, according to The New York Times.
“It was a difficult decision but I believe it is the right course of action for the Mount at this time,” he said in a statement.
The controversy began when student newspaper The Mountain Echo ran a story detailing his controversial plans to improve freshman retention rates. According to the paper, Mr. Newman said, “This is hard for you because you think of the students as cuddly bunnies, but you can’t. You just have to drown the bunnies. Put a Glock to their heads.”
Newman apologized for his statements, but weeks after the story ran, Ed Egan, the faculty advisor for the paper, was inexplicably fired. So was an associate professor of philosophy who had been critical of Newman. Both the professors were later reinstated, but Newman’s reputation has already been tarnished. The firings were seen as revenge for speaking out against Newman, which didn’t go over well in a university setting where academic freedom and freedom of speech are prized above all else—The faculty voted in a stunning 87 to 3 vote to demand that Newman step down as president.
While Newman’s tactics may have been unorthodox, he still had the backing of the board even when the faculty was against him. He had quite a bit of student support, too—The Washington Post reports that some students held a rally for Newman and that those who responded to a survey showed support of him as well.
“The board is grateful to President Newman for his many accomplishments over the past year, including strengthening the university’s finances, developing a comprehensive strategic plan for our future and bringing many new ideas to campus that have benefited the entire Mount community,” a board spokesman said in a statement, according to the Times.
For now, the school is looking to pick up the pieces and move on from this controversy.