A University of Tennessee assistant professor facing termination after posting vile comments in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder is asking the university to hear her side and to reconsider.

UT announced on Sept. 15 that it placed assistant professor Tamar Shirinian, an anthropology faculty member specializing in teaching queer anthropology, on administrative leave and initiated termination proceedings against her after reviewing a social media post she had made. The university said the post “Failed to meet our expectations for civil engagement.” 

On Sept. 22, Shirinian sent a letter to Chancellor Donde Plowman, asking her to reconsider the termination proceedings and to allow her to continue teaching at UT.

“Regardless, I do not endorse violence and never have endorsed violence. While I despise Mr. Kirk’s bigoted, often hateful rhetoric, he did not deserve to be shot. No one does,” Shirinian wrote. “I ask, considering the above, that you change your mind and allow me to continue to return to things that I love: scholarship and teaching students. If not, I will appeal any decisions within the University and, if necessary, pursue legal action to protect my First Amendment rights. It is, however, my hope that all of that will not be necessary.”

Shirinian said she has since deleted the comment because it was “Extremely insensitive,” saying it was made on a friend’s private Facebook post. She also explained her side of the story behind the post. She said she intended it to be strictly private and “not in my capacity as a UT professor,” also stating that she felt her words were “ineloquent and heartless.”

“It was insensitive and, I assure you, uncharacteristic of me as a person, a mother, a friend, and someone who advocates for social justice and respect for all. And, for that, I apologize. These were words, written out of anger and grief, which now haunt me as so many people have read them. I assure you that had I known that more than a handful of friends were going to see these words, that they were going to be leaked into the public, I would have never made that comment,” Shirinian said.

Shirinian also explained several instances where she felt “disgusted” by Kirk’s comments before his assassination, calling his past comments “bigoted, hateful, sexist” and saying he mocked the dead several times. She said that led to her commenting on the private post “emotionally rather than rationally.” 

“As an Armenian woman, a descendant of genocide survivors, and as someone born in Lebanon, which has been heavily impacted by this conflict that has been ongoing for decades, the horrific violence in Gaza feels very personal for me. At the time that I saw my friend’s post on Facebook, I had been scrolling through my social media and seeing a mix of posts about the genocide on the one hand and outpouring of grief for Mr. Kirk on the other,” Shirinian said. “I recalled a statement that I once saw him make in a widely circulated video, from a live appearance on The Alex Stein Show aired on December 14, 2023: ‘You know, I used to say hey, if you as a gay person were to go to Gaza they would throw you off of tall buildings, right? Now they don’t have any tall buildings left, so I don’t….wait, is that too soon? Maybe you shouldn’t kill Jews, you stupid Muslims!'”

Shirinian also brought up the case of Glenn Reynolds, a UT law professor who was suspended in 2016 after posting a tweet that urged motorists to run down protesters blocking a Charlotte highway.

“Such a statement was clearly endorsing violence. While UT recognized that the tweet ‘offended many members of our community and beyond,’ the University did not take any disciplinary action against the professor. I am at a bit of a loss as to why the University is now punishing me when it did nothing after one of its own used words that are clearly designed to provoke violence – clearly an order to commit violence,” Shirinian said.

UT System President Randy Boyd spoke out against Shirinian’s post in mid-September, saying “celebrating or advocating for violence and murder is reprehensible and has no place at the University of Tennessee.”

“UT Knoxville is actively investigating the matter and will take decisive action to ensure it is addressed with the full weight and attention it deserves,” Boyd said.

Knoxville area congressman Tim Burchett has supported the university’s decision to terminate her employment.

“You know, we all have a First Amendment right, but we all can be held accountable for those things we say, and that was I thought it was a poor choice of words,” Burchett said. “And the university, Chancellor Plowman and President Boyd responded appropriately, I felt like.”

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee took to social media at the time to thank the university for “taking decisive action.”

Other legislators have reportedly pressed Boyd and Plowman over concerns that the university is using Tennessee tax dollars even to offer a course in “Queer anthropology”.

Others have requested details about the process that led to her hiring in the university system in the first place. 

Steve Gill is editor and Publisher of TriStar Daily.