In October, we shared with you the story of Dr Ruggero Freddi whose university students at La Sapienza in Rome discovered that he was once a gay porn star.

Now, the story continues as Dr Freddi is in the news again, but this time because he’s openly opposing the university.

Dr. Freddi has been planning to hold discussions about HIV/AIDS with his engineering class for a month or so, and planned to host the event on World AIDS Day.

Going into the event, Freddi had the support of the head of faculty for Pharmacy and Medicine as well as support from members of his own department.

"The event was in collaboration with ANLAIDS, PLUS Onlus and the Faculty of Medicine,” he told GayStarNews, “but at the last second the Dean of the Faculty didn’t wanna give permission, despite the fact that at the beginning he told me he supported the event.”

The Engineering faculty head, who originally told Freddi to seek out the faculty head of Medicine, explained that the lecture was not appropriate for a math professor to have with his students and would be better in the Faculty of Medicine.

"We already had everything ready," Dr. Freddi told IlFattoQuotidiano.it, " We were a month behind secretariats and bureaucracy to do everything better; we presented guest resumes; the Engineering Dean sent us to speak with the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, who had assured us the presence of a professor of Wisdom itself. Now they have pulled back. What's the reason?"

This change also upset several university students such as Philosophy student Sussanna who told IlFattoQuotidiano.it, "S ex education should be done in a complete manner, we should talk about it. I've never had information on my school and university background."

This then led students in the group called Collettivo LGBT Prisma, who originally were working with Dr. Freddi as a joint project, to stage a protest by hanging a banner saying, “Non creddere che l’HIV non ti riguardi” or “Do not believe that HIV is not your concern" and passing out flyers/condoms.

Freddi, who wanted to forget the whole thing after the lecture's cancellation, felt spurred on by the students.

“I couldn’t turn my back on a group of young and hopeful students so I decided I would have been there during the protest, where condoms were distributed inside the university.”

Freddi also added that he thinks the Engineering Faculty Dean’s decision to cancel the lecture is a wrong one.

“HIV is a universal problem," he noted, "Informing and forming people should be done in any institution and always but especially in an important day such as the 1st of December.”

In addition, a Facebook video started going around the next day. The video shows Dr. Ruggero Freddi addressing his classroom and talking about why the faculty head denied his HIV awareness lecture.

It seems that after the protest, Dr. Freddi felt compelled to say a word to his class about the entire situation and asked a student to film it. He then later asked the Facebook group Spotted: "Sapienza" – University of Rome (which shares news of university happenings) to publish the video.

Update 12/05/2017:

More information has been included to this article.

Some additions are the fact that the faculty head of Engineering originally supported the HIV awareness event, quotes from other primary sources, and the video of Dr. Freddi speaking to his classroom.