Less than 48 hours after videos of a philosophy professor went viral on social media, the State University of New York at Fredonia has taken steps to remove him from campus and the classroom.

In a post to Twitter on Thursday afternoon, university President Stephen H. Kolison announced disciplinary actions against Dr. Stephen Kershnar. “Effective immediately and until further notice, the professor is being assigned to duties that do not include his physical presence on campus and (he) will not have contact with students while the investigation is ongoing.”

On Tuesday afternoon, video clips of the outspoken and controversial professor began surfacing regarding his thoughts on pedophilia and sex between an adult and child.

Kershnar’s comments brought a backlash against him and the university. One of the appearances by Kershnar is on the podcast “Unregistered with Thaddeus Russell,” the other is on a video on the Twitter feed of Libs of Tik Tok.

“It’s not obvious to me that is in fact wrong. I think this is a mistake. And I think that exploring why it’s a mistake will tell us not only things about adult-child sex and statutory rape, but also about fundamental principles of morality,” he said in the videos.

Kolison said the university is continuing its investigation of the situation involving Kershnar, a past contributor to the OBSERVER opinion pages.

“Please allow me to reiterate my earlier statement that I view the content of the video as absolutely abhorrent,” the president said. “I cannot stress strongly enough that the independent viewpoints of this individual professor are in no way representative of the values of the SUNY Fredonia campus.”

Kershnar is a tenured professor at the university. According to the American Association of University Professors, this designation “is to safeguard academic freedom, which is necessary for all who teach and conduct research in higher education. When faculty members can lose their positions because of their speech, publications, or research findings, they cannot properly fulfill their core responsibilities to advance and transmit knowledge.”

Besides this incident, Kershnar has had other bits of controversy during his career at the university. In 2006, he was involved in a disagreement with then-President Dennis L. Hefner over a student conduct policy. Kershnar claimed it cost him a promotion in reports on thefire.org, which is The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.

Its mission statement, according to its website, is to defend and sustain the individual rights of students and faculty members at America’s colleges and universities.