Fraternity brothers and professors of Rick Santorum from his days at Penn State are publicly refuting the GOP candidate's claims that he was constantly being oppressed as a conservative voice at a liberal university in the late seventies.
The New Republic interviewed Bob O'Connor, one of Santorum's old political science professors who taught Santorum in four different classes. O'Connor objected to Santorum's persecution charge. "He really has a rich fantasy life," O'Connor told the magazine. "[Penn State] in the 1970s was not exactly Berkeley. I resent this sort of accusation [that] I and my colleagues graded students on the basis of their political attitudes. Ridiculous.”
Santorum's college buddies are also fairly shocked by their friend's assertions. The recollections of his Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity brothers don’t fit with the image that the former Pennsylvania senator has crafted as a suffering conservative oppressed by university liberals.
"I’ve gone through it," Santorum has claimed. "I went through it at Penn State. You talk to most kids who go to college who are conservatives, and you are singled out, you are ridiculed-- I can tell you personally, I went through a process where I was docked for my conservative views. ”
Was there any kind of oppression at the frat house? "Not the group that I hung with," Tau Epsilon Phi fraternity brother Bruce Elliehausen says. Fellow fraternity member David Vondercrone backed that up: "I wasn't aware of any oppression of any sort."
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