ASHLAND, Ore. – The Associated Students of Southern Oregon University used a student’s Facebook comments that were two years old to suspend his campaign for the Clubs and Organizations Senate seat.

The one-day suspension for student Chase Gildea’s allegedly homophobic and anti-transgender comments were enough to ensure he lost the student election, and provided an opportunity for the school’s liberal students and staff to ridicule his conservative perspective on the issues, The Siskiyou student new site reports.

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“I would like to know why you should be able to take office despite your homophobic and transphobic comments on Facebook,” Oneta Cantlon, Associate Justice for the Associated Students of Southern Oregon University, told Gildea during an open forum last week.

The comment sparked emotional responses from student attendees, with some shouting for Cantlon to “sit the f*** down,” and others demanding that Gildea “answer the f***ing question,” according to the news site.

Cantlon filed a grievance following the forum, alleging “Chase’s posts display transphobic, homophobic, and Islamophobic behavior” and his conduct violated student government bylaws protecting “inclusivity.”

The grievance sparked an official investigation by ASSOU’s Election Committee that resulted in a one-day suspension of Gildea’s campaign during the week before the election, Campus Reform reports.

According to the site:

In one post, Gildea allegedly used a homophobic slur to describe Kim Jong Un in 2014 but apologized for the post long before running for office.

In some more recent posts, Gildea expressed distaste for the practice of announcing gender pronouns before a conversation commences and argued that gender-neutral bathrooms could be unsafe for students.

“Some of the recent posts are just my views, and I don’t even remember saying some of those things,” Gildea said.

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As far as using special pronouns for transgender students, “I just didn’t feel comfortable doing it,” he said.

At an election committee hearing last week, Gildea pressed Cantlon to provide concrete examples of his allegedly racist and homophobic online comments, but Cantlon could not. Student government leaders grilled Gildea about his views, questioned whether they’ve changed since the posts, and suggested his positions are based on ignorance rather than critical thinking.

“I do think everyone can be more educated, but I do not think we should demonize someone for not having the proper education,” one student said, according to Campus Reform.

ASSOU Elections Committee member Jenna Stafford advocated for sending Gildea for “training” at the schools Queer and Women’s Resource Center, which Gildea agreed to do whether he won the student government seat or not.

“We can’t expect someone to change their views. We can only educate them on how to handle safe-space situations,” she said. “By expecting them to change their views and beliefs, it is proposing a sort of ultimatum where we are basically saying you can’t run if you don’t share our views.”

Gildea lost the May 21 election for the Clubs and Organizations seat, but told The Siskiyou he is now pursuing a position on a newly formed executive cabinet for the student Senate.

“I want people to know that I’m not a homophobe and I’m not transphobic. You have the right in life to the pursuit of happiness,” Gildea said. “I’m not going to stand in your way of loving who you want to love or doing what you have to do to love yourself.”