Two FAU faculty members return to work after Charlie Kirk comments found to be protected speech

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Two Florida Atlantic University faculty members returned to work Tuesday after a university investigation concluded that comments they made about Charlie Kirk were protected speech.

Karen Leader, an associate professor of art history, and Rebel Cole, an eminent scholar in the College of Business, have resumed their full duties after two months of administrative leave, according to an FAU spokesperson.

The two faculty members, along with a third, English professor Kate Polak, had been placed on administrative leave with pay in September while the university hired an outside attorney to investigate complaints about their remarks on social media following Kirk’s assassination. While Leader and Polak were investigated over comments they made aimed at Kirk himself, Cole was investigated over comments he made regarding Kirk’s opponents.

Over the last two months, the suspensions have drawn criticism from FAU faculty members and other members of the community who raised concerns about infringements on the employees’ free speech. In October, FAU’s Faculty Senate and union published a joint resolution voicing concerns about the investigations. Last week, Cole filed a lawsuit against FAU, requesting his reinstatement and accusing the university of causing him emotional distress and violating his First Amendment rights.

FAU had hired Alan Lawson, a former Florida Supreme Court justice, to investigate the three faculty members. In his report, Lawson concluded that Leader’s and Cole’s speech was constitutionally protected. The investigation into Polak’s comments is ongoing.

“The findings reflect that each professor’s social-media statements, though provocative to varying degrees, were authored in a personal capacity on matters of public concern,” Lawson wrote. However, he added, the investigation itself did not infringe on the faculty members’ rights. “The University preserved constitutional rights while upholding its responsibility to ensure professionalism, civility, and safety within its academic community.”

Joshua Glanzer, a spokesperson for FAU, said in an email Wednesday that “the university has accepted Justice Lawson’s recommendations.”

Cole

In a letter to Cole announcing his reinstatement Tuesday, the university said that Lawson had concluded his investigation and recommended that Cole’s administrative leave be lifted without discipline.

FAU had received two formal complaints about Cole’s comments on social media, according to Lawson’s final report, leading the university to place him on leave on Sept. 15.

While Lawson’s report does not name the faculty members, they are identifiable based on the context.

In one social media comment, Cole told Kirk opponents, according to his lawsuit, “we are going to hunt you down. We are going to identify you. Then we are going to make you radioactive to polite society. And we will make you both unemployed and unemployable.”

The complainants “expressed alarm at language perceived as advocating or glorifying violence, denigrating individuals based on gender identity, and making racially insensitive remarks,” the report states.

Cole’s comments were made from a personal account, after work hours, without the use of FAU resources, the report said, and “nothing in the record indicates that the statements fell outside constitutional protection as citizen speech on matters of public concern.” FAU also “presented no evidence” that the posts disrupted university operations or hindered its mission.

However, the report said, some of Cole’s “conduct approaches — but does not cross — the threshold of ‘conduct unbecoming,'” describing the posts as “crude and inconsistent with the decorum encouraged by University policy.”

Instead of formal discipline, the report recommended that FAU give Cole “written guidance” to “remind him of the University’s expectations of civility and professionalism.”

Cole declined to comment when reached by the Sun Sentinel Wednesday. In a LinkedIn post Tuesday night, he wrote, “After nine weeks on administrative leave and one week after I filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging violation of my 1st Amendment Rights, FAU administrators finally admitted the obvious — that I did nothing to merit suspension — and returned me to normal status. However, the damage they have done to my reputation (and to the reputations of the other two suspended professors) is permanent.”

The lawsuit remains active. Glanzer declined to comment in response to questions about the lawsuit, saying the university “does not comment on pending litigation.”

Leader

Leader, an associate professor of art history who is also a faculty associate in the Center for Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, was the first faculty member put on leave over her Charlie Kirk comments. The university placed her on leave on Sept. 13.

After Kirk’s assassination, Leader had shared others’ posts on the social media site X that criticized him on matters related to race, gender, guns and LGBTQ issues. In many of them, she added her own comments to others’ posts, such as “This was Charlie Kirk.”

In response to Leader’s posts, FAU received numerous direct messages, voicemails, and replies on X, according to Lawson’s investigative report. The complaints came from “parents of current and prospective students, students, alumni, and members of the surrounding community, and the overwhelming majority expressed disapproval of the perceived tone of the posts.”

But Lawson reached similar conclusions about Leader’s comments as he had about Cole’s. Like Cole, Leader had posted on social media outside of work, without using FAU resources, about a topic of public interest, the report states, and there was no evidence her posts disrupted university operations.

The report described Leader’s posts as “intemperate but personal. The tone, while inconsistent with the collegiality envisioned by (university policy) did not impair job performance, involve misuse of University resources, or amount to prohibited harassment.”

Similar to Cole, FAU recommended reinstating Leader and providing her with written guidance about the university’s “expectations of civility, integrity, and professionalism.”

Leader declined to comment when reached by the Sun Sentinel Wednesday.

FAU did not comment further in response to Sun Sentinel questions about the investigation.

Polak

The third faculty member, Polak, who was put on leave at the same time as Cole, remains under investigation. In a text on Wednesday, the English professor told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that she has not yet been reinstated but has had “virtually no communication or guidance about this throughout the time I’ve been on ‘leave.'”

Polak’s social media comments included replies to other people’s posts about Kirk on the social media site Threads, according to the University Press student newspaper. The newspaper published screenshots of posts, which it said Polak confirmed were authentic. One of the comments said, “Delighting in the death of someone who wished death on us isn’t sick. It’s self-defense.”

Glanzer said in response to questions about Polak’s case that the university “does not comment on pending personnel matters.”

The report

Lawson’s report also determined that FAU complied with its own regulations when it placed Cole and Leader on leave, despite criticism that suspending the faculty members infringed on their free speech.

“This outcome reflects a proportional, principled approach that strengthens institutional integrity and provides a clear precedent for handling future cases involving expressive conduct by faculty or staff,” the report states.

Lawson also recommended that FAU “encourage participation in a voluntary professional-development session addressing social-media conduct, academic freedom, and the obligations of public-employee speech.”

FAU faculty Senate President Bill Trapani, a university trustee, told the Sun Sentinel Wednesday that he was pleased with the reinstatements but believed the suspensions should not have occurred in the first place.

The report “confirmed what many of us knew in advance,” he said, “which is that academic freedom is essential to university operations and faculty members do not lose their First Amendment right to free expression simply because they are university professors. For myself and many faculty, it has always been somewhat curious we’re even in this situation.”

Trapani added that, despite the reinstatements, he remains concerned that the investigation could have a chilling effect on faculty members’ speech, something that would be particularly detrimental given that universities and their professors are supposed to embrace discourse.

“Every time you have one of these instances where faculty are placed on leave, especially for dubious causes, it will create an environment where faculty members or academics feel the need to restrain their speech,” he said. “That would be unfortunate, first because it would be a dampening of First Amendment Rights, and because it’s essential for faculty members to be fully engaged in robust, sometimes difficult conversations.”

_____