Purdue NW chancellor to face no-confidence vote

The faculty senate is moving to take a no-confidence vote on Purdue University Northwest Chancellor Thomas Keon after his mocking of the Asian language during graduation.

ABC7 News reports the senate wants to force Keon out after he apparently refused to resign on Monday.

“I’m going to continue putting pressure on the situation until he either voluntarily resigns or the Board of Trustees comes to their senses and forces him out,” Purdue University Northwest Faculty Senate Chair Thomas Roach said.

As AsAmNews reported last week, Keon began speaking in gibberish while on stage during graduation in an attempt to speak a made-up Asian language.

He has apologized for his actions but has so far not publicly offered to step down.

The move to force him out has spread beyond Purdue Northwest.

The Interfaith Council of Greater Cincinnati wrote a letter to Michael Berghoff, chair of the Board of Trustees.

That letter was made available to AsAmNews.

“While the chancellor has apologized for the terrible misconduct, we believe more meaningful and substantial sanctions are in order. Such racist and contemptuous conduct within the university environment and at graduation call for a termination from the lofty office this man has degraded,” wrote Charleston Wang of the Interfaith Council.

Wang says Keon’s speech “conveys no intellectual message but only encouragement for contempt for Asians. This is exacerbated by the speaker identifying this mockery as his “Asian version.”

According to WIBC, the Board of Trustees has accepted Keon’s apology.

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