A Liberty University student claimed in a Facebook post that university president Jerry Falwell Jr. spiked an anti-Donald Trump article. | Getty Falwell censored anti-Trump column, Liberty U student editor says

The president of Liberty University censored an article critical of Donald Trump, according to the sports editor of the school's official newspaper, the Liberty Champion.

The editor, Joel Schmieg, posted a statement on his Facebook account claiming it was Jerry Falwell Jr., the university's president and a Trump supporter, who spiked the column, which criticized Trump for lewd comments he made on a hot mic during a 2005 taping of "Access Hollywood."


"Yesterday I was told [Falwell] was not allowing me to express my personal opinion in an article I wrote for my weekly column in the Liberty Champion about Trump and his 'locker room talk,'" Schmieg wrote.

"I understand Joel's frustration regarding the situation," Cierra Carter, the opinion editor for the Liberty Champion, told POLITICO. "Our president has been very vocal with his opinions during this election season and we'd like that same privilege."

In his Facebook post, Schmieg poked fun at a statement by Falwell earlier in the week, in which he said: "It is a testament to the fact that Liberty University promotes the free expression of ideas unlike many major universities where political correctness prevents conservative students from speaking out."

"I find these words from Jerry amusing and extremely hypocritical," Schmieg wrote.

Falwell's statement came after a group of students at Liberty University criticized him for defending Trump after the release of the recording, in which the real estate mogul boasted about grabbing women's genitals and getting away with it.

"Any faculty or staff member at Liberty would be terminated for such comments, and yet when Donald Trump makes them, President Falwell rushes eagerly to his defense — taking the name 'Liberty University' with him," the students wrote.

"I think this whole tape … videotape thing was planned, I think it was timed, I think it might have even been a conspiracy among establishment Republicans who have known about it for weeks and who tried to time it to do the maximum damage to Donald Trump, and I just … I just think it just backfired on them," Falwell told radio host Rita Cosby on Oct. 10.

Falwell went on to suggest that the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives was a beneficiary of the leak, despite "Access Hollywood" saying it discovered the recording after digging through the show's archives. "It wasn't a coincidence that it came out right before Trump was supposed to appear with Paul Ryan at a rally, and it conveniently gave Paul Ryan a way to disinvite Trump," Falwell told Cosby.

Schmieg's article is heavily critical of the Republican nominee and his language in the 11-year-old recording, in which Trump described grabbing women "by the p---y."

"This is not locker room talk," Shmieg wrote. "Anyone who says otherwise is just trying to excuse the terrible things they or others have said."

He went on to argue that a high school student would be punished for saying what Trump says in the recording. "When an adult in his late 50's says things like "when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything," that should be a major red flag," he added.

"Donald Trump may have issued an apology for the words he said, but the fact that he can brush them off with a description of 'locker room talk,' tells me that he does not believe what he said is truly bad."

Emails and phone calls asking Liberty University for comment were not immediately returned.