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A Project of The Annenberg Public Policy Center

Video: Carson on ‘Extreme Bias’


This week, CNN’s Jake Tapper gives the full account of an incident Ben Carson has described as an example of “extreme political bias” on college campuses.

Carson, a Republican presidential contender, has mentioned a 2013 incident at Florida Atlantic University, in which, he says, a student was disciplined for refusing to “stomp” on a piece of paper with the name “Jesus” written on it. That’s just the student’s version of what happened.

The professor, who is a Christian, said that the exercise wasn’t designed to have students actually step on the piece of paper. Instead, the goal was to spark a conversation in the Intercultural Communications class about the importance of symbols once students hesitated to step on it.

The professor also said the student physically threatened him, which led the university to initially charge the student with violating a student code of conduct clause related to making threats. In the end, the university decided not to pursue the charges.

The following video is part of our partnership with Tapper, and is based on our story “Carson’s ‘Extreme Bias’ Example.”