Conservatives do not need to go out of their way to defend academics who celebrate the death of Charlie Kirk.
“People have come out caping for the devil that walked among us […] so no. I will not pull back from CELEBRATING that an evil man died by the method he chose to embrace,” University of Arkansas Little Rock law Professor Felicia Branch wrote on Facebook. “You’re so QUICK to chastise, thinking we’re simply celebrating a death. We. Are. Not […] evil begets evil [and Kirk] is no longer able to beget evil,” she wrote.
Branch also compared Kirk supporters to members of the Ku Klux Klan.
She has since been suspended, following calls for punishment from Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders and others
Southern University Professor Kelly Carmena is similarly facing an investigation after sharing her hatred of Kirk and others like him.
“I will 1000% wish death on people like him,” Carmena wrote. She has “no compassion” for Kirk, because “[h]e is the epitome of evil.”
These situations can be tempting for conservatives eager to showcase their free speech cards. But the truth is, these professors are hardly champions of free expression—their delight at someone’s death during a campus debate makes that plain. Far from advancing the university’s purpose of truth-seeking through free and open debate, their presence in the classroom more likely obstructs it.
The issue of assassinating an individual who was sitting in a chair answering questions peacefully is a binary one—either someone thinks it is acceptable to murder a speaker for speaking out against transgender violence, or it is unacceptable to murder someone for peacefully expressing their views. It’s that simple.
As Michael Knowles points out, those cheering on Kirk’s death are really celebrating the silencing of all conservatives.
After all, Kirk’s views were standard conservative takes: pro-life, pro-gun, anti-DEI, and opposed to transgender ideology. “People like him,” as Professor Carmena says, are those who share his views—meaning millions of conservatives across the country and in the classroom.
The Daily Wire host relates how Ann Coulter came to speak at Yale University, and his friends were calling her evil. But, as Knowles pointed out, there was not much difference between his views and her views; she was just more prominent. The same applies to the Kirk situation. “We’re happy he got murdered because of his beliefs, but there’s a big difference between you and him. He says his views out loud,” Knowles imagines liberals arguing.
To paraphrase Knowles, the only difference between a 23-year-old Federalist Society member in Carmena’s class or Branch’s class and Kirk is that the latter had a bigger platform for sharing his views. Professors like these two scholars have already set the standard: oppose leftism, and it is okay to get killed.
If professors are okay with people getting murdered for opposing leftism, there’s no reason to believe they are not okay with shutting down debate in the classroom or grading a student lower for expressing a center-right view. This is why punishing people who celebrate the death of conservatives ultimately helps free speech—it sends a message that it is not okay to praise the murder of someone just for having different beliefs.
This does not mean every person must be fired for expressing less than fawning praise for Kirk. Professors who do choose to speak out should be clear that they are opposed to the assassination. Then, if they want to express their disagreement with Kirk’s views, that is perfectly fine. Because professors are human, they should also be given the grace to amend their ways if they made a bad comment in haste.
This should be the case with a Kansas Department of Education official who quickly wrote “well deserved” on a friend’s social media post. She said she wrote it without thinking and deleted it as soon as she could—but not before it had been screenshotted and shared online. This should also apply to the professor who admitted he made a reckless comment about Kirk’s death in a moment of impulsiveness.
People who express earnest contrition for saying abhorrent things should be given the room to apologize and retract their statements.
The argument has also been made that Kirk would not have wanted people fired for expressing their joy at his being assassinated.
Whether he would have supported it or not does not change the underlying principle that radical professors who celebrate the death of someone for being conservative should be kept out of the classroom.
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That being said, it seems plausible Kirk would have wanted these professors fired, as a simple search of his posts on X shows.
“She should be fired immediately,” he wrote in 2023, in response to a video of a professor harassing and vandalizing a Students for Life of America table. “Fire the professors,” he wrote in response to two professors who labeled a Turning Point USA (TPUSA) advisor a racist in 2021.
“Is this who you want teaching your kids,” Kirk asked in 2017, commenting on an anti-cop professor.
Kirk fought for universities to be places of free and open debate. Many schools have abdicated this duty, so TPUSA had to step in and set up tables and host speakers so students would have a fighting chance of hearing any center-right view presented fairly.
Conservatives would only be siding with intolerance and against TPUSA’s mission if they went to bat for radical professors taking the unconscionable position that it is acceptable to assassinate a husband and father of two kids because of what he said.
Follow Matt Lamb on X.
Image by Michael on Adobe; Asset ID #405448726
The term is “Moral Turpitude” and it is grounds to fire a tenured professor — always has been.
Moral Turpitude is “an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community.” Celebrating the assassination of an American — any American — is such a grave offense.