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Who is Stephen Kershnar? SUNY prof slammed for his SHOCKING video defending pedophilia

SUNY Fredonia's philosophy professor Stephen Kershnar is under review for defending pedophilia in a viral video clip

A professor of the State University of New York (SUNY) at Fredonia is under review after videos emerged of him defending pedophilia and insisting it wasn’t obvious to him why it was wrong and why people are so against it.

Professor Stephen Kershnar, who teaches libertarian philosophy and applied ethics at SUNY Fredonia, was filmed questioning whether pedophilia was in fact unethical. This video of him got viral, its clip was shared on Twitter by Libs of TikTok and the university is investigating the matter. Kershnar is not the only prof who is known for his dubious comments, this year, professor Andrew McGregor put out a tweet saying that late NFL coach and former broadcaster John Madden and his widely popular NFL computer games "glamorized violence and dehumanized Black athletes." In Dec last year, Scott Yenor, a Boise State professor was slammed for saying women should focus on having kids.

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In the viral clip shared by Libs of TikTok on Twitter, the professor said, “Imagine that an adult male wants to have sex with a 12-year-old girl. Imagine that she’s a willing participant." “A very standard, very widely held view is that there’s something deeply wrong about this — and it’s wrong independent of it being criminalized,” Kershnar is heard saying.

“It’s not obvious to me that it’s in fact wrong. I think this is a mistake. And I think exploring why it’s a mistake will tell us not only things about adult/sex and statutory rape and also fundamental principles of morality,” the professor added in his jaw-dropping comments.

One of the clips appeared to be from his appearance on a podcast, “Unregistered with Thaddeus Russell,” in December 2020.

Fox News reported that the clips were also from a YouTube video posted January 30 on “Brain in a Vat,” which publishes “thought experiments and discussions with philosophers.”

In the clips, Kershnar says: “One is even if you are looking for a threshold. Let’s say there’s a threshold. I’m making this number up, but let’s say it’s at age 8. Still, that tells you that some adult sex is permissible. Second, the notion that it’s wrong even with a 1-year-old is not quite obvious to me."

“There are reports in some cultures of grandmas fellating their baby boys to calm them down if they’re colicky,” the professor continues, according to the Post Millennial. “I don’t know if this is true but this is sort of widely reported as occurring in at least a foreign culture — and it working, that the grandmas believe that this actually works,” Kershnar continues. “If this were to be true, and again, I don’t know it to be true, if this were to be true, it’s hard to see what would be wrong with it,” he is heard saying.

Kershnar then makes the odd comparison of youngsters taking part in athletic activities and preparing for their bar and bat mitzvahs and consent. “They might think that children can’t be willing things in general. It’s an odd view in that they seem to will things all the time. They will participate in kickball. They will be showing up and participating in bar mitzvah lessons, bat mitzvah lessons,” he adds.

“You might think that, well, maybe there’s something distinct about sex that they can’t really understand it. It’s not clear to me that what they’re not getting at is consent,” Kershnar goes on. “I suspect that what they want to say is that they’re willing participants, they’re voluntary participants. They have some understanding of what is going on. Not the understanding we do, but some understanding. But they haven’t consented. Perhaps that’s so, but that’s a different claim from them being unwilling,” he remarks.

“There’s a lot of activities that children engage in that they don’t understand all that well. For example, when you first show up to participate in a judo tournament or when you prepare for your bar mitzvah. You have a rough idea, but it’s not clear how much you fully understand it,” he commented.

Who is Stephen Kershnar?

According to Kershnar’s LinkedIn page, he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania Carey Law School in 1991 and has been working for SUNY for more than 23 years. And according to his bio, he has written one hundred articles and book chapters on usch diverse topics as abortion, adult-child sex, hell, most valuable player, pornography, punishment, sexual fantasies, slavery and torture. His bio on the SUNY website also mentions he is an attorney.

On Tuesday, February 1 night, SUNY Fredonia president Stephen Kolison posted a statement via twitter reacting to the professor’s comments about pedophilia. “SUNY Fredonia is aware of a video posted online involving one of its professors,” he said. “The views expressed by the professor are reprehensible and do not represent the values of SUNY Fredonia in any way, shape or form. They are solely the professor’s views. The matter is being reviewed.”

According to a report by the Post, as of now, Kershnar has not commented anything on the matter. And SUNY Fredonia as of now has not commented regarding if the professor has placed a leave and whether he will be dismissed or not.  Marc Guilliod, a freshman at SUNY Fredonia and student of Kershnar spoke to wkbw and said these comments lare not a one off. "I could tell people in the room were uncomfortable,” Guilliod said. “People were putting their head down into their hands, me included." And he said, the prof's classes have not been canceled yet.