PHX Reporter

Phoenix-area philanthropist and real estate investor Tom Lewis criticized Arizona State University (ASU) President Michael Crow after Crow defend his faculty members following an ASU report that cleared the faculty of free speech violations after they protested an event at ASU featuring conservative speakers.  

"It is both shocking and laughable that President Crow would defend his radical faculty who are the same ones who harassed and hurled insults and ugly comments at Prager and Kirk," Lewis posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. "It is also unfortunate that a major university president would support his politically charged faculty over his students, who pay $30,000 a year to go to ASU. Looks like the inmates are running the asylum."

Lewis previously funded the T.W. Lewis Center for Personal Development at the Barrett Honors College at ASU.

In February, the Lewis Center hosted conservative talk show hosts Dennis Prager and Charlie Kirk, and financial author Robert Kioysaki, for an event titled, "Health, Wealth and Happiness." 

The former head of the Lewis Center, Ann Atkinson, said that after those speakers were announced, “39 of 47 Barrett faculty expressed outrage and sent a letter to the dean condemning the event,” reported Arizona PBS. 

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, Atkinson said ASU faculty described the event speakers as “purveyors of hate.” 

Those members of the ASU faculty “epitomize the low moral and intellectual level of nearly all our universities," wrote Dennis Prager at American Greatness.

Shortly after the event, the Lewis Center was shuttered by ASU and Atkinson lost her job.

ASU cleared itself of free speech violations in a recently-announced "investigation," the results of which Ariz. State Sen. Anthony Kern (R-Glendale) called a case of the "fox guarding the henhouse."

Talking Points USA, and organization headed by Kirk, added the protesting professors to its "Professor Watchlist," which led Crow to write Kirk a letter requesting the organization remove the professors from list.

Sen. Kern announced that the State Senate will hold a hearing next month to further investigate free speech violations at the university.