Johns Hopkins Med Students Call for Ben Carson’s Removal as Commencement Speaker (+video)

A group of students from the graduating class at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine are calling for the replacement of Dr. Ben Carson as commencement speaker for the class of 2013 following his “deeply offensive” comments on marriage equality and other issues.

In a letter obtained by Media Matters, eight members of the school’s class of 2013, including a co-chair of the school’s LGBT organization, ask their fellow students to sign a petition describing Carson, a neurosurgery professor at the university, as “an inappropriate choice of speaker at a ceremony intended to celebrate the achievements of our class.”

The letter has been circulated across Hopkins School of Medicine, School of Nursing, School of Public Health, and other institutions, according to a signatory.

Carson, who has become a celebrity in recent months among the right-wing media, has come under fire in the media and from members of the Hopkins community since comparing gay relationships with pedophilia and bestiality during a Fox News appearance earlier this week.

His comments were condemned as “nasty,” “petty,” “ill-informed,” “rancid” and “reactionary” by Professor Todd Shepard, the co-director of the university’s sexuality studies program. Current and former leaders of the organization representing the LGBT members of the Johns Hopkins medical institutions told Media Matters they found the comments “hurtful” and “extremely discouraging.”

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