Angry assistant professor assaults curious cameraman at Ohio State's “intellectual diversity center”
Ohio State Assistant Professor Luke Perez assaulted a local documentarian for having the audacity to ask Vice President E. Gordon Gee a single question. Things only got more bizarre from there.
UPDATE FEB. 11, 20:20 a.m.: Ohio State spokesman Ben Johnson responded to The Rooster’s request for comment from Monday, Feb. 10:
“We are aware of the incident, and it is very concerning. The faculty member involved has been placed on administrative leave pending a full OSUPD investigation and thorough review of the facts.”
The Rooster and an unaffiliated documentarian got the drop on Ohio State Vice President E. Gordon Gee inside Smith Laboratory on Monday afternoon.
Gee spoke to a cohort at the university’s “intellectual diversity center,” founded by Lee Strang, the integralist behind SB-1, the right-wing legislation that gutted faculty collective bargaining power and mandated conservative thought on Ohio’s public universities.
The Rooster wanted to speak to Gee about his recent comments about survivors of sexual abuse engaging in “cancel culture” by wanting Central Ohio billionaire Leslie Wexner deposed in the class action lawsuit against Ohio State.
The affair ended roughly three hours later, when we left the Ohio State Department of Public Safety after filing a police report about a vicious assault at the hands of a cantankerous assistant professor who claims to study “the ethics of war.”
After a jaunt to the men’s room, Gee handled the bust-up like a grizzled veteran, saying he preferred to answer the nice man’s questions rather than being chased to his car.
Gee and The Rooster discussed his role in the Dr. Richard Strauss abuse scandal as cited by the university’s independent investigation, Ohio State’s ties to the late international sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, and the “best decision of his career” in privatizing university parking lots for $500 million.
Gee apparently needs to re-read the Perkins Coie LLP report, which names him 33 times and cites him for negligence in handling allegations against Dr. Strauss by allowing him to retire quietly with prestigious “emeritus” status, which he used to continue his sadistic behavior in private practice.
Perhaps President Ted “Slapshot” Carter failed to read that report in its entirety before he called Gee back to Ohio State as his “wingman,” since Gee admitted Slapshot never broached the subject during the recruitment conversation.
Regardless, Gee told WOSU in November that he doesn’t remember “much of anything” about that era.
It’s a convenient case of amnesia that also struck him while discussing Jeffrey Epstein’s $2.5 million donation to add Wexner’s name to the Woody Hayes Athletic Center—despite him being the university president in 2011.
The interview showed why The Nation’s Dave Zirin once called Gee “the dark heart of higher education.”
The average person sees Gee as a kindly grandfather figure. It’s guile that worked on me as a Buckeye student during Gee’s last tenure as president. (How could I, the destined alcoholic, not love the old man who made cameos at off-campus house parties and played the occasional game of beer pong?)
Underneath the bow tie and “aw, shucks” demeanor, Gee is a ruthless operator who once left Wexner “unable to function for days” after Gee rebuffed his initial recruitment from Vanderbilt in 2007.
The “Ethics of War” Assistant Professor assaults a cameraman for wanting to ask one question of Vice President Gee
The routine encounter with Gee went off the tracks when the local documentarian, code-named Johann Geistmeister, decided he wanted to ask Gee a single question.
That request struck a nerve with Assistant Professor Luke Perez, who started at the Salmon P. Chase Center in January.
When we arrived on the scene, Perez became agitated instantly, claiming he hadn’t consented to being filmed.
That’s fine, we said. We don’t even know who you are. Please stand anywhere else, as we’re only here for Vice President Gee.
Instead, Perez lingered around while I conducted the interview.
Unperturbed, I agreed not to follow Gee to his car, since he was being generous by standing and talking with a stranger.
However, my compatriot, Johann, never agreed to such a deal.
When he wanted to ask Gee one more question, Perez—incorrectly believing we were part of the same organization rather than two independent creators working in concert—inserted himself into Johann’s path.
Aa startled Johann stepped back, looking to defuse the situation.
Perez returned the favor by pouncing on him, striking Johann’s head with his palm before throwing Johann and his camera to the ground.
I only turned my camera back on seconds before Perez launched his attack on Johann.
However, Johann kindly provided the footage from his first-person point of view, lest anyone think my footage has been intentionally edited to be as unfair as possible to Perez:
It’s fine if you think Johann was out of line, even if he correctly stated he never agreed to such a deal.
It still doesn’t give an assistant professor the right to assault a rogue cameraman—no matter how much “strategic decision-making” he’s studied from “the ancient world to the end of the Cold War.”
From that point, it became a matter of principle. Especially upon reviewing the film, which instantly dispelled Perez’s claim that Johann initiated the confrontation by hitting him with a camera.
I declared all previous agreements null and void, and announced we would be following Gee to the car, especially when we caught Perez huddling with Gee and Professor Christopher Green, the second-in-command at the Salmon P. Chase Center for intellectual diversity and free speech.
Things somehow got even weirder when the trio emerged from that conference room.
Perez fled the scene, while, unbeknownst to Johann and me, Director Strang arrived to see what all the commotion was about.
Despite the chaos, Gee and I continued a respectful conversation. He even pushed back against the notion that he thought of us as “scumbags,” though that might have been a random act of kindness after calculating the damage of Perez’s actions in his head.
I expected to continue that calm and respectful conversation with Gee on the elevator until the Yale Law–educated Professor Green threw his body across the precipice of the public elevator, unwilling to let me pass as if he were Gandalf and I were the Balrog.
Unfortunately, Green’s delirious psychosis, which led to non-sequiturs like, “Have you taken criminal law?” and “Do you understand self-defense?” will roll around my normal-sized head like toxic tumbleweeds for the rest of my days.
On the way to the Department of Public Safety to file a report about the assault, I asked Johann something that had been bugging me almost since the moment he got assaulted.
“What question did you want to ask Gee, anyway?” I said, thinking that I had missed a big angle about Dr. Strauss, Wexner or Epstein.
He said, “I wanted to ask Gee why he has never done anything for Ohio State students who graduate with massive loan debt.”
Somehow, this all led to Ohio State investigating two alumni for very serious crimes like assault and disorderly conduct (read: taunting and insulting)
When we arrived at the Department of Public Safety, we were told that two officers would join us shortly, as they had been called to the scene and were scouring campus for two men resembling the picture they had been provided.
Due to their line of questioning, it didn’t take long to deduce that Professor Green and Director Strang had given them a version of events that in no way resembled reality.
“Was the man in the red puffer jacket on the scene?” I asked.
No, the officers responded.
Ah! Well, nonetheless, it’s a good thing that we had everything recorded from our arrival on the scene to the interview to the assault to the series of even more bizarre events that followed.
Would we be willing to provide that footage they asked for? Yes, of course, we said, relieved that we had that footage since there are no apparent security cameras in Smith Laboratory.
That assistance apparently didn’t go far with campus police, considering that, according to the Columbus Campus Crime Log, unnamed parties are currently under investigation for disorderly conduct (insulting, taunting), criminal trespassing in a restricted area, and assault.
Given the approximate time of the events, The Rooster assumes there wasn’t an equally chaotic event unfolding in Smith Lab at 5:26 p.m. Monday.
Given that Johann and I were the only two parties not currently employed by Ohio State, I’ll assume that it’s not Dr. Gee, Professor Green, or Assistant Professor Perez under investigation for a bevy of charges, including criminal trespassing in a restricted area.
Those charges would seem to indicate that some combination of Johann and me is under the jaundiced eye of campus police, and the suspected charges would certainly speak to the hilariously misconstrued narrative originally given to campus police.
While this case winds its way through the justice system, we can only marvel at the formidable minds Director Strang has recruited to Ohio State’s “center of intellectual diversity,” tasked with molding the next generation of leaders.
The Rooster will be questioning Director Strang about what kind of operation he’s running the next time he’s on Capitol Square looking to put his sweaty palms further into the taxpayers’ till.
You're the best. Thank you for capturing the weird puffery of the perverse and their allies. May they be haunted by a free press.
Streets are saying they underestimated the the imposing and dominant stature of The Rooster.