NORFOLK (VA)
Associated Press [New York NY]
May 14, 2022
A professor whose research on pedophilia created a stir at Old Dominion University in Virginia has landed a new job with Johns Hopkins University’s Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse.
Allyn Walker stepped down from ODU in November after they used the phrase “minor-attracted person” instead of “pedophile” in research, leading to an outcry on campus and social media as well as threat of violence.
The Virginian-Pilot reports that The Moore Center announced last week that Walker, who uses the pronoun they, would be joining the center as a postdoctoral fellow.
The center said in a series of tweets that it was excited to welcome Walker and they would be working on research and new projects to develop a “comprehensive public health approach to addressing child sexual abuse and effective prevention programs.”
On its website, the center says it works “to change the way the world thinks about child sexual abuse, from inevitable to preventable.”
In the series of tweets, the center referred to Walker as “a leader in the field of perpetration prevention research.”
Walker, who was an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice, faced violent threats and more than 15,500 people signed an online petition calling for their removal from ODU in the fall. That came after a controversial interview about their book, “A Long, Dark Shadow: Minor-Attracted People and Their Pursuit of Dignity.” The book focused on people who do not act on their sexual attraction to children and strategies to prevent them from acting on the attraction.