A college geography professor, Joseph Tokosh, resigned from Nicholls University in Louisiana after being exposed for asking female students to paint their faces, per the NY Post.
The bizarre behavior was revealed by the student newspaper in March, prompting his immediate resignation. Before the report, Tokosh had openly shared his interest in face painting and clowning on social media.
“I have a facepaint fetish and convince the cute girls in my classes to let me paint their faces,”
he stated on Reddit.
Tokosh openly engaged in discussions about his fetish on various online platforms, including Facebook groups and YouTube videos. The newspaper discovered that he even shared pictures of women in white face paint on Reddit. This raised concerns about university background checks and his previously reported interactions with campus police and student complaints.
He even offered money to students who allowed him to paint their faces.
“If anyone is looking for some extra cash, I am looking for people to practice facepainting on!”
he wrote.
“I will literally pay you!”
Sophie Levan, who was an 18-year-old student at Kent State at the time, had her first encounter with Tokosh in 2017. He was a 28-year-old graduate student and employee at the college. Tokosh allegedly offered to pick her up from her dorm to paint her face in the geography department building. When she declined, Tokosh became aggressive. Levan filed a police report in January 2018.
According to USA Today, Tokosh left Kent State after he pleaded no contest to unlawfully entering his fellow students’ offices and stealing a USB drive.
On March 27, the student newspaper ran a story titled
“Geography professor suspended amid sexual harassment allegations.”
Campus TV reporters confronted Tokosh, who claimed that the face painting was necessary for his geography class to enhance cultural understanding.
“That’s an assignment in one of my classes where they actually come up with their own face paint and makeup design inspired by a culture and they implement it,”
he said.
Tokosh resigned on the same day, although he had been dismissed by the university in February for undisclosed reasons. No criminal charges have been filed against him regarding the face painting.
#Clique, what are your thoughts?
