A university professor who was fired for retweeting something negative after Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk’s murder last year has been reinstated and awarded $500,000.
Following Kirk’s Sept. 10 murder by a crazed leftist assassin, Austin Peay State University (APSU) associate professor of acting Darren Michael reposted to Facebook an article titled “Charlie Kirk Says Gun Deaths ‘Unfortunately’ Worth it to Keep 2nd Amendment.”
The insinuation of the repost was that Kirk deserved his own murder.
In fairness to Michael, he didn’t write anything about Kirk with his repost. Instead, he just reposted the article, and that’s it.
This, nevertheless, was enough to catch the attention of Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn, who afterward took to X (formerly Twitter) to draw attention to Michael’s Facebook post:
What do you say, @austinpeay? pic.twitter.com/dTgCe4iv5l
— Marsha Blackburn (@VoteMarsha) September 12, 2025
Her post, in turn, caught the attention of APSU.
“A faculty member of Austin Peay State University reshared a post on social media that was insensitive, disrespectful, and interpreted by many as propagating justification for unlawful death,” APSU President Mike Licari said in a statement to Clarksville Now.
“Such actions do not align with Austin Peay’s commitment to mutual respect and human dignity. The university deems these actions unacceptable and has terminated the faculty member,” Licari added.
This all happened in September.
The following month, APSU walked some things back, saying in a public statement that Michael had instead been suspended and that the administration was working on fully terminating him.
Two months later, on Dec. 30, school President Licari announced in an email obtained by Clarksville Now that the school “did not follow the required tenure termination process in this matter” and that Michael was headed back to his job as a tenured professor.
“APSU did not follow the required tenure termination process in this matter, and I deeply regret and apologize for the impact this has had on Professor Michael and on our campus community,” the email read. “I am committed to ensuring that due process and fairness are upheld in all future actions.”
“This has been a difficult period for our campus. I want to acknowledge that and thank you for your continued dedication to the university and our students. I am committed to helping our community move forward with integrity, respect, and a renewed focus on our shared mission of serving our students with excellence,” he added.
🚨BREAKING: A Tennessee University pays a professor $500,000 settlement after initially firing him over a social media post he made in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Darren Michael is an associate professor of acting and directing at APSU and mocked the assassination pic.twitter.com/v9lmJDR9xt
— The Patriot Oasis™ (@ThePatriotOasis) January 7, 2026
According to local station WKRN, the university also agreed to pay Michael a whopping $500,000 and to reimburse him for “therapeutic counseling services” as per a secret settlement agreement.
It’s not clear what prompted this massive turnaround. Perhaps a lawsuit threat by Michael?
WKRN notes that Michael was one of several people in the local/state area who were targeted after Kirk’s murder.
“The developments at APSU follow the filing of a federal lawsuit by a former state employee who was fired over comments made about Kirk,” according to the outlet.
“A Metro Communications employee was placed on leave in September 2026. A Nashville Fire Department employee was placed on administrative leave last year as well. A Williamson County Schools employee was suspended and later resigned,” the report continues.
Meanwhile in Texas, the American Federation of Teachers just sued state education officials for investigating over 350 teachers because of their online Kirk-related posts.
“The lawsuit … notes that two days after the conservative activist was fatally shot during an appearance at a college in Utah, Texas’s education commissioner sent a letter to superintendents warning that the state would investigate Kirk-related posts by educators on social media considered ‘reprehensible and inappropriate,'” according to the Washington Post.
“Numerous members of the union, which has 66,000 members in Texas, were then reprimanded, placed on administrative leave, and fired,” the reporting continued.
“A few well-placed Texas politicians and bureaucrats think it is good for their careers to trample on educators’ free speech rights,” union President Zeph Capo said in a statement. “They decided scoring a few cheap points was worth the unfair discipline, the doxing, and the death threats targeted at Texas teachers.”
“Meanwhile, educators and their families are afraid that they’ll lose everything: their livelihoods, their reputations, and their very purpose for being, which is to impart critical thinking,” she added.
Writers and editors can be contacted at [email protected] with feedback, tips, or corrections.
V. Saxena is a staff writer with a decade of experience as a professional writer, and a lifetime of experience as an avid news junkie. He holds a degree in computer technology from Purdue University. Saxena also contributes to BizPac Review.
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