Emory University defends firing professor over Charlie Kirk comments

Anna Kenney's firing came amid a nationwide crackdown on critics of the deceased right-wing commentator.ATLANTA (CN) — Emory University has asked a judge to throw out a lawsuit from a professor who was fired over a Facebook post about the assassination of controversial right-wing commentator Charlie Kirk.Anna Kenney, an associate professor of pediatrics at the school from 2013 until her firing last year, sued the private research university in May for breach of contract. She claims her firing violated Emory’s “Open Expression” policy, which protects faculty members’ “broad latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge and learn, whether they are on or off campus.”The policy specifically states that “listeners’ feelings of offense or the unpopularity of the view expressed are not sufficient bases for regulating speech.” It also states that open expression rights should be given substantial consideration before any disciplinary action is taken, according to Kenney.Kenney’s attorney, Andrew Carter, said an Emory standing committee had found that the university’s school of medicine failed to give substantial consideration before terminating Kenney.Emory attorney Sterling Gardner Culpepper argued university policies give it sole discretion over terminating a professor’s employment, including if an employee’s behavior harms Emory’s reputation. According to the Scholars at Risk Network, a group promoting academic freedom, Kenney did not have tenure.Dekalb County Judge Ana María Martinez did not rule on the university’s motion to dismiss on Friday, saying that the contract needed to be examined in its entirety to determine whether it’s ambiguous or not.Kenney’s firing came amid a crackdown on speech that followed Kirk’s September 2025 killing at Utah Valley University.In the wake of the killing, members of the Trump administration asserted that left-wing extremism was the main cause of political violence and vowed to prosecute what they described as hate speech and violent rhetoric.Supporters of Kirk launched a campaign to get critics fired or otherwise punished. Kenney was among them. Some of these critics including Kenney have since filed lawsuits asserting their free speech rights. In her suit, Kenney says she spent nearly 30 years studying pediatric brain cancer and that her firing delayed efforts to find a cure.After Kirk’s assassination, Kenney says she quickly learned the commentator had a history of offensive and harmful statements.In her suit, she cites one such statement made about Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson. Kirk had said that Black women “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously" and have to “go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”Outraged, Kenney left comments on a friend’s Facebook page. In her suit, she says she did not realize the page was public.“Good riddance," Kenney wrote.“Should I feel bad that I don’t feel bad about Charlie Kirk?" she continued in a second comment. “Reading his sayings, he seems like a disgusting individual. He said gay people deserve to die. That black women have ‘slow processing brains.’”The comment was soon picked up by online accounts seeking to punish Kirk critics.“Meet Anna Kenney,” one user on X wrote. “Here she celebrates Charlie Kirk being murdered and attempts to justify his murder.” The user included a photo of Kenney and a screenshot showing her employment information.In her suit, Kenney says these characterizations were false.Nonetheless, the post was further amplified Earl Leroy Carter, a U.S. representative from Georgia.“ENOUGH," Carter wrote to his hundreds of thousands of followers. “It’s time to stand up to dangerous, radical hate.”“Our federal government shouldn’t be sending hundreds of millions to places that employ people who say this,” he continued. “Either hate-filled professors like this are fired, or those funds are GONE.” He tagged Emory University and the Emory University School of Medicine in his post.Although Carter didn’t specify, Kenney says in her suit that he was referring to hundreds of millions in federal funds. She accuses Emory of caving to “jawboning,” a form of indirect censorship in which government bullies private institutions.“Emory knew there was no lawful basis for its funding to be stripped, or to take any action against Kenney, but it fired heranyway,” Kenney writes in her complaint.Kenney’s lawsuit is not the only case of its kind against Emory. The university also faces claims it violated free expression policies after 31 people including three professors were arrested at a pro-Palestine protest on campus in 2024.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads