A South Carolina lawmaker has demanded that Clemson University be defunded if it fails to take action against faculty members who are accused of celebrating the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk. In a letter shared on Facebook on Monday, Republican state Rep. Jordan Pace, R-Berkeley, requested a special session to pass legislation to punish the university if it does not fire the employees facing the allegations.
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The letter
“Clemson University, which has failed to act against three faculty members who publicly praised the assassination of Charlie Kirk. Such behavior is intolerable at any public institution funded by South Carolina taxpayers,” Pace wrote in the letter. “We, as a body, should be clear on what that accountability looks like: immediate termination of those faculty members. Any member of the administration and Board of Trustees that is opposed to this should resign. They have failed in their duty.”
“If Clemson persists in this failure, we must act,” Pace added. “If Clemson refuses to hold these faculty members accountable, then the taxpayers deserve a refund.”
Clemson announces termination and suspensions
Clemson announced on X Monday that it had fired one employee and suspended two faculty members from teaching duties after it was made aware on Sept. 12 of social media posts the staffers had made.
A statement from Clemson University: pic.twitter.com/qtkjuuVVw2
— Clemson University (@ClemsonUniv) September 15, 2025
The university said in an earlier statement that it was investigating “individually” and “thoroughly” while “ensuring appropriate action is taken.”
The employees at the center of the controversy have not been named, nor have their social media posts been disclosed by the university.
However, in a petition announced by the South Carolina Freedom Caucus, which Pace chairs, the lawmaker claims Clemson assistant professor Melvin Earl Villaver Jr., “mocked Kirk’s murder on social media with reposts like ‘no one mourns the wicked’ and cruel jabs such as ‘there’s no longer such a thing called Charlie Kirk.’”
Prominent conservatives call for anti-Kirk posters discipline
The letter follows Vice President JD Vance’s call for people to face punishment from their employer if they are found to be celebrating Kirk’s killing. The Trump administration has also indicated that it will look at revoking the visa holders who “praise, rationalize, or make light of” Kirk’s death.
As reported by Greenville News, South Carolina’s Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, R, has instructed students to drop any course taught by professors who respond positively on social media to Kirk’s killing.
ACLU urges universities to defend First Amendment rights
The American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina, meanwhile, is pushing for universities to ensure the First Amendment rights of employees remain intact against what it calls “politicized and sometimes manufactured outrage.”
In a statement on Friday, the ACLU of South Carolina accused some of an “organized political effort” to “mine social media for statements about the murder” in an effort to get them fired from their jobs. The group “strongly condemned political violence, including the killing of Kirk,” but stressed that it also opposes “the targeted harassment of teachers, professors, and other public servants for political statements that they publish in their personal capacity.”
