Law Professors
Law prof fired for online comments after Charlie Kirk’s death that led to ‘torrent of complaints’
Conservative political activist Charlie Kirk is seen at the Utah Valley University, where he was shot and killed Sept. 10. (Photo by Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune/Getty Images)
A law professor who called conservative political activist Charlie Kirk “an evil man” on Facebook after his shooting death has been fired from her position at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s William H. Bowen School of Law.
Assistant clinical education professor Felicia Branch was fired in an Oct. 13 dismissal letter from Christina S. Drale, the chancellor at the University of Arkansas. The letter, posted online, said Branch’s social media posts were “disruptive to the operation and effectiveness” of the law school, the university and the Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic that she directed.
Reuters, THV 11, the Arkansas Times and KATV covered the firing of Branch, who began working at the law school in July.
Drale fired Branch despite a recommendation by the University of Arkansas at Little Rock’s faculty appeals council that the professor should receive only a warning and stay on the job.
“I cannot see a pathway where you could remain in your position at the Bowen Law School without compromising the trust and confidence of your students and colleagues,” Drale wrote.
Branch appealed to the faculty appeals council after Colin Crawford, the law school’s dean, informed her in a Sept. 24 letter that he was firing her for cause.
Branch had been suspended with pay during an investigation of her online comments.
According to Crawford’s letter, the investigation involved a review of Branch’s posts that “celebrated the death of Charlie Kirk, equated people mourning his death to members of the Ku Klux Klan burning crosses, stated that you hoped Mr. Kirk was ‘restless in hell,’ and used a vulgar acronym to imply that Mr. Kirk had ‘f- – -ed around and found out’ by being shot—a crime that, according to you, made the world ‘a little more balanced.’”
In one of her Facebook posts, Branch wrote: “I will not pull back from celebrating that an evil man died by the method he chose to embrace. Don’t tell people who have been targeted by someone like him how to feel, how not to post, how not to celebrate that he can no longer inflict his brand of evil.”
Branch went on to refer to Kirk’s earlier statements defending gun rights. Kirk said at a 2023 event he thought that it was worth it “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.”
She also posted a meme showing Ku Klux Klan members at a cross burning with a caption reading “People mourning Charlie Kirk.”
Crawford’s letter said Branch’s posts led to “a torrent of complaints” from students, parents, alumni and elected officials.
According to Drale, Branch apparently argued that she was speaking as a private citizen in her Facebook posts, and there was no disruption because online direct responses to her posts were relatively low. Drale rejected both arguments, saying the impact of speech “is not logically confined to one channel of feedback,” and faculty members should be aware of how their speech outside the classroom affects public perception.
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