An assistant professor of political science at Central Michigan University thought he had enough problems running for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, a challenge that pits him against an eight-term Republican incumbent in a district the Democratic leadership considers vulnerable.

But the faculty member, Gary Peters, has a new annoyance — a student who has followed him on the campaign trail, hounding him with a video camera and demanding that he relinquish his post at the university.

The student, Dennis Lennox, a junior majoring in political science, has called for Mr. Peters’s ouster, regularly updating a blog called The Peters Report, in which he uploads ambush videos of the professor and administrators, and constantly evokes the phrase “Petersgate.” Mr. Lennox is a past president of the campus chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom, a conservative student organization.

Mr. Peters, who is running against Rep. Joseph Knollenberg in 2008, told the Associated Press this week that his academic post was part time and privately financed. Federal election law does not bar faculty members from running for Congress. —JJ Hermes