A Lousiana geography professor has resigned following allegations that he offered students extra perks and cash to help quench his alleged clown fetish thirst.
According to USA Today, professor Joseph Tokosh worked at two previous colleges and was progressing towards tenure at Louisiana’s Nicholls University in Louisiana when the student newspaper exposed his reported misconduct in May.
Following the newspaper article, Tokosh quit his job.
He’s accused of having sexual fantasies about clowns and offered students cash and extra credit to allow him to paint their faces. His behavior was reportedly public, with him posting on Facebook and Reddit about the fetish, according to the New York Post.
One student, Sophie Levan, alleged that she accepted cash and let Tokosh paint her face in 2017, then later spoke about it after the incident took a wrong turn. Levan reportedly said that Tokosh wanted to pick her up and take her to his classroom and became angry when she stopped responding.
When Tokosh wouldn’t let up, Levan filed a police report, although, she said, police never followed up with her.
“I felt like the school would want to know about it,” Levan said. “I thought maybe they could prevent anything bad from happening since other girls would go with him.”
Other students who were reportedly victim of Tokosh’s advances didn’t respond to USA Today’s request for comment.
Tokosh also reportedly told Nicholls student reporters that he had an assignment in which students had to paint their faces as a cultural exercise. By the time the student article was published, the university ended his contract.
Tokosh reportedly said his contract ended due to being the focus of a “grade inflation task force,” but Nicholls spokesman Jerad David told USA Today that the school “does not have any such task force.”
In another 2017 incident, Tokosh allegedly posted in a Facebook group, offering cash for people who let him paint their face.
“If anyone is looking for some extra cash, I am looking for people to practice facepainting on!” he wrote. “I will literally pay you!”
In July 2017, another student replied to a post from Kent State’s Twitter account that had asked people for school love stories. Tokosh previously worked at Kent State, according to USA Today.
“A geography professor requested me on facebook and asked if he could paint my face like a clown,” the student wrote.
Another student said she retweeted the post in an attempt to get the attention of officials but no one responded. However, a graduate student who saw her post in 2018 said he contacted her and also told faculty members about it.
“I brought it to the attention of some of our faculty because I was pretty sure I knew who it was, but they were certain it wasn’t that individual and that you probably just meant geology,” he wrote.
College campuses are expected to provide students with specific safeguards against sexual harassment, even in cases that do not meet the threshold of criminal behavior under Title IX, which deals with with “sex-based harassment, which includes sexual assault and other variations of sexual violence.”
So far, no charges have been filed against Tokosh. Check back for updates.
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[Feature Photo: Joseph Tokosh/Nicholls University]
