Sept 17 (Reuters) –
(Updates story slug and adds comment from Arkansas Law dean Colin Crawford in paragraph 5)
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock on Tuesday suspended a law professor for comments on social media about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and said it would conduct an investigation.
The suspension of professor Felicia Branch by the university’s Little Rock William H. Bowen School of Law appears to be the first disciplinary action on a legal academic over reactions to Kirk’s killing. In other fields, however, at least a dozen university professors and administrators have been dismissed or placed on leave by their respective institutions for statements about the Sept. 10 assassination.
Attempts to reach Branch on Wednesday were unsuccessful.
Branch had joined the school’s faculty in July and directed a clinic program in which law students assisted low income taxpayers.
She has been suspended with pay while the university conducts an investigation, according to a statement from University of Arkansas Little Rock Chancellor Christina Drale.
The law school’s dean, Colin Crawford, said in a Wednesday statement that lawyers and legal educators “are called to engage with conviction and integrity, never in ways that legitimize violence.”
Elected officials in Arkansas had called for Branch to be fired, citing what they said were posts on her Facebook account likening people mourning Kirk to members of the Ku Klux Klan and suggesting people should not be criticized for celebrating that “an evil person is no longer on this earth causing immense suffering.”
Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders called the posts “vile” and “disgusting” on social media platform X. “While faculty members have the right to express opinions, openly celebrating the assassination of a fellow American crosses a line,” Lieutenant Governor Leslie Rutledge wrote in a letter to the law school dean.
In her Tuesday statement, Drale wrote that she supports the right to free speech but opposes “violent rhetoric.”
“As educators we should hold ourselves to a higher standard of conduct that values civil discourse, speaks clearly about the dangers of political violence, and that prioritizes a rigorous, fair-minded learning environment,” Drale wrote. “The postings I read this morning do not reflect this standard.”
