The student’s account of what happened here is easy to believe, and that says something about the political environment on college campuses.

Timothy Dionisopoulos of Campus Reform reports.

College investigating alleged assault of student by professor

American River College [ARC] administrators are investigating allegations that a professor smashed the cellphone of a student working on the campaign of a conservative candidate for student government. The allegations were made by Vladimir Musorivschi, a volunteer on Luke Otterstad’s campaign for student trustee.

According to Musorivschi’s version of events, Anthropology Professor Frank Araujo swatted his cell phone out of his hands and smashed it onto the ground during a verbal altercation over whether or not gay marriage should be legal.

Carlos Reyes, interim dean for the behavioral and social sciences at ARC, confirmed to Campus Reform last month that an investigation is taking place.

“I am currently investigating the situation,” he said. “With that being said the college has a process and that process is being followed. I do not comment on ongoing investigations so there is not a lot of details I can give you. Obviously we take the environment on campus seriously so that is something that is being looked at.”

Musorivschi, who spoke with Campus Reform, described a situation in which the professor reached over and knocked his cell phone to the ground when he threatened to call the police.

“I said no you are not even arguing the right way you are just screaming at me about something,” Musorivschi told Campus Reform. “[W]hen I said I was going to call the police he just smashed my phone, basically assaulted me and the phone went like fifteen feet and smashed into pieces.”