The sensible response to the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk on Wednesday afternoon was to gasp in horror, but instead one University of Michigan professor called Kirk’s death a “solution.”
“Even if you believe violence isn’t the answer, it is a solution, especially to the violent conditions and violent rhetoric spewed by empowered people that create them,” Charles H.F. Davis III wrote in an X post less than four hours after Kirk was shot, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
Davis is an assistant professor at the University of Michigan’s Marsal Family School of Education, where he teaches a course on “Anti-Racism” and directs the university’s Campus Abolition Research Lab. The lab supports the #PoliceFreeCampus Project, which envisions “a police-free campus” and “a police-free world.”
He’s since blocked anyone except approved followers from seeing his X account, including his reported reposts on X excusing Kirk’s killing.
“Charlie Kirk is a reminder of two things: your words don’t skip consequences, they just collect interest. And lastly, empathy has boundaries. Good luck,” read one post reshared by Davis.
In his X bio, Davis calls himself an “artist committed to the lives, love, and liberation of everyday Black people.” He also lists his location as “Occupied Anishinaabe Territory.”
His faculty profile notes that he’s “received funding support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Lumina Foundation, Spencer Foundation, the National Academy of Education, and the National Center for Institutional Diversity.”
Davis is among other professors, public officials, and political figures in Michigan who have tried to justify Kirk’s killing. A city council candidate in Howell called Kirk’s assassination “karma.”
A district court judge in Oakland County shared a video of Kirk arguing for the importance of the Second Amendment. “Talk about dying for your beliefs,” District Judge Jaimie Powell Horowitz wrote in a Facebook post.
A former Ingham County prosecutor echoed the same sentiment in a Facebook comment Wednesday.
“I’m sure he doesn’t mind because he has said that shootings and gun deaths are a price he is willing to pay for nearly unfettered abilities to possess and use firearms,” wrote Carol Siemon. “I support sensible firearm control and perhaps he will now too.”
Vassar Public Schools Superintendent Steve Clark sent a letter to parents disavowing one teacher’s social media comments that he said “do not reflect the sentiments of the school district’s leadership or the Board of Education.”
Though the superintendent did not name the teacher, he said they were placed on administrative leave.
Another University of Michigan faculty member allegedly mocked Kirk’s death in now-hidden Facebook posts. Lydia Fettig, a lecturer and academic adviser, referenced Kirk’s statement that some gun deaths are unpreventable given the Second Amendment’s protections. He called the tradeoff “prudent” and “rational.”
“Well, at least his death was prudent and rational,” Fettig wrote.
These Michiganders weren’t born ready to defend public murder. Their parents and grandparents would have been horrified by these posts in decades past. They have been shaped by political and intellectual elites who shrug off violence as an understandable response to political disagreement.
Where were the protests when, just last month at the “People’s Conference for Palestine” in Dearborn, one panelist called for the targeting of “perpetrators” of Israel’s war against Hamas?
“We all know who they are, whether they are in Israel, in Tel Aviv, in Washington, in Germany, in Europe,” said Nidal Jboor, co-founder of a Michigan-based doctors group that formed after October 7. “They need to be locked up, they need to be taken out, they need to be neutralized.”
Universities may try to shrug off these latest justifications, too. A U-M spokesperson told the Free Beacon the school takes no position on Davis’s comments.
“Faculty members are free to speak and debate issues of the day; but, to be clear, those individual expressions do not represent the views of the university,” Kay Jarvis, director of the school’s office of public affairs, told the outlet.
In a better world, these civic leaders—those who hold public office, sit on the bench, and teach at our most respected universities—could sway the public conscience toward revulsion.
Until they stop trying to justify assassinations, we should brace ourselves for more.
Thomas McKenna is a contributing writer for Michigan Enjoyer.
