By Howard Packowitz

BLOOMINGTON – Illinois Wesleyan University has announced a sudden change of plans for the President’s Convocation, scheduled for next week. That’s because of sexual assault allegations against the keynote speaker.

IWU has cancelled the keynote speech of science writer and founding publisher of Skeptic magazine Michael Shermer.  In a news release, the university said it learned of multiple public allegations related to Shermer’s conduct.

“These allegations in the aggregate represent a troubling pattern that challenges the mission of our institution,” IWU Interim President Georgia Nugent said in a statement.

President Nugent will deliver the address instead, next Wednesday at Presser Hall.  Her topic is about the university’s annual intellectual theme, “Fact of Fiction.”

The allegations against Shermer were described in an article published five years ago in BuzzFeed.

Shermer went ahead with a speech last year at Santa Barbara City College in California. In a letter to the editor to that college’s school newspaper, Shermer said the accusations are false and the police have never investigated him.

Howard Packowitz can be reached at [email protected]