Photo: The Canadian Press

The University of Guelph says it has suspended a professor who students allege insulted one of their classmates who suffers from severe anxiety.

Some of the students who witnessed the exchange said the incident happened during an anthropology class on Monday.

Charlotte Yates, provost and vice-president at the Ontario school, said in a statement that she learned of the incident on Tuesday morning.

She declined to name the professor but said he had been put on leave.

But Regan Devlin, who was present during the incident, identified the professor as Edward Hedican.

Devlin said that over the course of the interaction, Hedican referred to the student's educational assistant as his "handler" who "needed to control" the student.

Hedican declined to comment on the specifics of the incident.

"My union has cautioned me not to make any statement to the press at this time," he told The Canadian Press.

"There's two sides to every story," Hedican added. "There was no physical contact here, there's no sexual interaction, there's a verbal altercation that happened in class. And I'll just leave it at that."

A video posted to Twitter appears to show a student standing up during the class and confronting the professor about what he said.

Many students walked out of the class after that, Devlin said.