A theater professor at Austin Peay State University in Tennessee who was fired in September for his “insensitive” social media post after Charlie Kirk’s assassination is back on the job and will receive a $500,000 settlement.
Darren Michael, an associate professor of acting and directing, had shared a Newsweek article on social media on Sept. 10 that quoted Kirk’s own words about gun violence after the right-wing activist was fatally shot.
“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” Kirk said at an event in 2023. “That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe.”
Michael did not caption the post with his own thoughts, but his social media activity gained the attention of Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.), who posted a screenshot of his post and professor page on X, asking the university, “What do you say?”