By Kiran Pandey

STATE COLLEGE, Pa. – In a smashing win for free speech, President Eric Barron of Penn State University reaffirmed his commitment to protecting all students no matter what they might say, especially those whose words might be characterized as “racist” and “detrimental to the Penn State community.”

“All that stuff I said in my statement about disrupting hate, bias, and racism, that’s all great,” said Barron, “but what really matters is freedom of speech! That’s my life’s work right there, that’s the legacy!”

After a Penn State student was filmed shouting racial slurs and pro-KKK rhetoric at a Philadelphia rally, the intrepid reporters of Phroth were able to score an exclusive interview with President Barron in his secret office, located somewhere in Mount Nittany. Armed guards in riot gear met Phroth staffers at the base of the mountain, blindfolded them, and drove them into Barron’s lair. When they arrived, they found Barron neatly lining up seven lines of cocaine across his mahogany desk.

“Really, when you think about it, everything is speech,” said Barron, the third-highest paid public university chief executive, and snorted a line. “It’s all just the way we express ourselves. And who am I to say people can’t express themselves any way they want?”

In one corner of the office stood a stone bust of Barron, whose pedestal read: “My name is Eric Barron, king of kings: Look on my public university, ye Mighty, and despair!” Across the room from the bust, a wall of small televisions relayed continuous news feeds from across America, displaying graphic images of police officers deploying rubber bullets and pepper spray against protesters.

“God, look at all that speech!” said Barron, and snorted another line. “Isn’t it great? I mean, no, it’s not great, it’s morally reprehensible, but we have to allow it. I wield—I mean, Penn State wields a stupid amount of power, which is why we really need to make sure that none of this speech has any consequences! God I’m so lonely.”

At this point, one of the television feeds showed a group of protesters marching through a forest, nearing a shrouded glass facility that appeared to house Barron’s secret office. Barron paled and turned to his guards, exclaiming, “They can’t reach me in here…right? Right?!” After exchanging heated whispers with his guards, Barron pressed a button on his watch, and the base of a helicopter crashed through the glass ceiling of the office, with a rope ladder descending from it.

“I’ll see all you mortals in hell!” shouted Barron as he leapt to the ladder, a line of blood trickling from his left nostril, the varicose veins in his thighs threatening to burst. “FREE SPEECH, BABY!”

The helicopter whisked Barron out of the office and into the air and was immediately gunned down by the protesters outside. Upon approaching the wreckage, however, the protesters found only the corpse of Provost Nick Jones with a Mission: Impossible-style mask of Barron pulled over his face. The real President Barron is nowhere to be found.

If readers know anything of President Barron’s current whereabouts, please contact us at phroth@gmail.com. We have been told that there are some groups that would like a word with him.