Fordham student says school wrongfully penalized him for social media posts

A Fordham University student says his school is wrongfully penalizing him over two political social media posts he made last month, one of which pictured him holding a legally owned rifle, new court papers allege.

Austin Tong made a June 3 Instagram post with a photo of slain retired St. Louis Police Captain David Dorn with the caption “Y’all a bunch of hypocrites,” to make a statement about society’s lack of outrage over the killing, he explains in a new Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit against the university.

Then on June 4, the 21-year-old Chinese-American student posted a photo of himself holding a rifle that he had a license for captioned “Don’t tread on me. #198964” to honor the 31st anniversary of the Tienanmen Square massacre, the lawsuit from Thursday says.

But, the two posts sparked a hearing and inquiry by Assistant Vice Principle and Dean of Students Keith Eldredge less than a week later because Eldredge claimed “members of the Fordham community felt threatened by the social media posts,” the court papers claim.