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An assistant professor of counseling psychology has left Austin Peay State University after antifascists accused him online of being a white supremacist who attended the 2017 Unite the Right Rally in Charlottesville, Va.
Logan Smith and Austin Peay State “mutually agreed to end employment” Sept. 20, university president Mike Licari announced last week in a message to the Tennessee campus community. Licari’s announcement didn’t provide further details, and Smith hasn’t returned Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment.
On Sept. 9, an antifascist X account called Ignite The Right posted that “it has been brought to our attention that white supremacist Logan Michael Smith” had finished his Ph.D. and was hired at the university. Ignite The Right linked to the website for Sunlight Anti-Fascist Action, which alleged that the Logan Smith at Austin Peay State had used the pseudonym Levi Smith and operated racist social media accounts called /pol/ News Network, or PNN.
Sunlight Anti-Fascist Action, which describes itself as “a collective” of antifascist researchers “dedicated to exposing Nazis, racists and fascists,” called for people to warn the university. On Sept. 11, the university posted on X that it “cannot confirm the allegations circulating online” but “leadership is aware of the situation and is assessing validity.”
On Sept. 17, Licari wrote to the campus community that the university was still “actively assessing the situation” and “in light of these events, we are improving our hiring practices. This includes requiring applicants to disclose past activities that could damage the reputation of the university and utilizing third-party professional services to conduct social media checks on applicants.”
The All State, the student newspaper, reported that students began sharing the allegations on the university’s PeayMobile App. University spokesperson Bill Persinger told Inside Higher Ed that students protested at a Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 20—which ended up being Smith’s last day.
Smith’s online bio, which the university has taken down, said his “research interests largely focus on suicide prevalence, prediction and prevention.” In addition, his “clinical interests involve suicide prevention, trauma, obsessive-compulsive disorder and mood and anxiety disorders more broadly.”
