UCLA Axes DEI Chief After Celebrating Charlie Kirk’s Murder Online

Paul Riverbank, 2/6/2026UCLA fires DEI director over posts celebrating Charlie Kirk’s murder, sparking free speech uproar.

In the days following the Utah campus incident involving Kirk, social media platforms seethed. Among hundreds of hot takes, Perkins’ response on Bluesky was blunt, even for the wild-west standards of the internet: “Good riddance.” He didn’t stop there. “I’m always glad when bigots die.” Closer to the bone: “It is OKAY to be happy when someone who hated you and called for your people’s death dies—even if they are murdered.” Screenshots surfaced and ricocheted through comment threads and inboxes—fuel on an already-flaring fire.

Within a week, UCLA, under pressure from all quarters, placed Perkins on immediate leave. The university’s public statement tried to walk a delicate line: upholding free expression is core, but celebrating violence, it argued, falls outside those boundaries. An investigation followed—quick, discreet, and, for many observers, inevitable in its conclusion.

By late January, the verdict arrived at Perkins’ door. Dismissal, effective January 30. The official letter from UCLA left nothing to interpretation: an office meant to bridge divides and elevate trust could hardly do so with a director whose words, however personal and off-the-clock, echoed with such animus. The tone was clinical, but the meaning unmistakable.

To Perkins, the university overreached. The next chapter for him began almost immediately: plans for a lawsuit against UCLA for violating his First Amendment rights, a GoFundMe page—purposefully unvarnished—asking for help, not just for the lawsuit, but for his “four furry dependents” too. “Anyone who believes in not just fighting racism, but standing up for free speech and fairness during these stunning times,” he wrote. Donations arrived—over 10,000 dollars’ worth, the last time anyone checked.

Public reactions, as usual, split along familiar fault lines. Some free speech advocates denounced the firing as a dangerous precedent, echoing law professor Erwin Chemerinsky’s measured opinion: unless the university could prove genuine workplace disruption, terminating Perkins might be a stretch too far. Others—conservative politicians among them—added their own pressure, calling on universities to show zero tolerance for anyone celebrating Kirk’s death. JD Vance, now Vice President, was blunt: jobs should be lost, federal funding could be at stake.

Perkins’ history of controversial social commentary complicated matters further. In one post, he had written, “No one wants to openly admit [we all] hope Clarence Thomas dies,” during the justice’s health scare—words that many found harsh, and that came up repeatedly in coverage. He’d also, misguidedly, joined speculation about Princess Catherine’s health, suggesting her cancer was a fabrication. UCLA distanced itself from these, but the context lingered.

And then there was the broader pattern: across the country, university employees—over a hundred, according to some estimates—found themselves reprimanded or dismissed for their responses to Kirk’s killing. A few fought their way back onto payrolls, some reached settlements, but by and large the issue remained fiercely unresolved. The contested border between personal expression and professional duty stretched thinner by the month.

For Perkins, the loss of his $135,000 role is more than professional. He’s relocating, along with his dogs and cats, leaving behind the tumult of Los Angeles for the uncertainty of Philadelphia. “On top of these challenges, I have two dogs and two cats who require care and support during this transition, adding to the financial and emotional strain,” he admitted to supporters—a rare spot of vulnerability in an otherwise defiant campaign.

If there was once a clear line between the right to speak your mind and what those words might cost you, Perkins’ story suggests the clarity is gone. Campus debates over speech, inclusion, and discipline aren’t new—but they have rarely been this charged, or the consequences so personal. For those watching—administrators, students, the public—the question isn’t just where the boundaries lie, but how long institutions can keep pretending that such lines are stable at all.

Jonathan Perkins’ trajectory in higher education had always seemed to follow an upward curve—law first, then a pivotal position shaping diversity policy at UCLA. Ambitious, certainly, but not exactly headline-making. That changed dramatically last September, when an event he had absolutely nothing to do with—the killing of Charlie Kirk, a polarizing conservative activist—landed him squarely at the messy center of a national debate on free speech, outrage, and whose voice is deemed “acceptable” on campus.In the days following the Utah campus incident involving Kirk, social media platforms seethed. Among hundreds of hot takes, Perkins’ response on Bluesky was blunt, even for the wild-west standards of the internet: “Good riddance.” He didn’t stop there. “I’m always glad when bigots die.” Closer to the bone: “It is OKAY to be happy when someone who hated you and called for your people’s death dies—even if they are murdered.” Screenshots surfaced and ricocheted through comment threads and inboxes—fuel on an already-flaring fire.Within a week, UCLA, under pressure from all quarters, placed Perkins on immediate leave. The university’s public statement tried to walk a delicate line: upholding free expression is core, but celebrating violence, it argued, falls outside those boundaries. An investigation followed—quick, discreet, and, for many observers, inevitable in its conclusion.By late January, the verdict arrived at Perkins’ door. Dismissal, effective January 30. The official letter from UCLA left nothing to interpretation: an office meant to bridge divides and elevate trust could hardly do so with a director whose words, however personal and off-the-clock, echoed with such animus. The tone was clinical, but the meaning unmistakable.To Perkins, the university overreached. The next chapter for him began almost immediately: plans for a lawsuit against UCLA for violating his First Amendment rights, a GoFundMe page—purposefully unvarnished—asking for help, not just for the lawsuit, but for his “four furry dependents” too. “Anyone who believes in not just fighting racism, but standing up for free speech and fairness during these stunning times,” he wrote. Donations arrived—over 10,000 dollars’ worth, the last time anyone checked.Public reactions, as usual, split along familiar fault lines. Some free speech advocates denounced the firing as a dangerous precedent, echoing law professor Erwin Chemerinsky’s measured opinion: unless the university could prove genuine workplace disruption, terminating Perkins might be a stretch too far. Others—conservative politicians among them—added their own pressure, calling on universities to show zero tolerance for anyone celebrating Kirk’s death. JD Vance, now Vice President, was blunt: jobs should be lost, federal funding could be at stake.Perkins’ history of controversial social commentary complicated matters further. In one post, he had written, “No one wants to openly admit [we all] hope Clarence Thomas dies,” during the justice’s health scare—words that many found harsh, and that came up repeatedly in coverage. He’d also, misguidedly, joined speculation about Princess Catherine’s health, suggesting her cancer was a fabrication. UCLA distanced itself from these, but the context lingered.And then there was the broader pattern: across the country, university employees—over a hundred, according to some estimates—found themselves reprimanded or dismissed for their responses to Kirk’s killing. A few fought their way back onto payrolls, some reached settlements, but by and large the issue remained fiercely unresolved. The contested border between personal expression and professional duty stretched thinner by the month.For Perkins, the loss of his $135,000 role is more than professional. He’s relocating, along with his dogs and cats, leaving behind the tumult of Los Angeles for the uncertainty of Philadelphia. “On top of these challenges, I have two dogs and two cats who require care and support during this transition, adding to the financial and emotional strain,” he admitted to supporters—a rare spot of vulnerability in an otherwise defiant campaign.If there was once a clear line between the right to speak your mind and what those words might cost you, Perkins’ story suggests the clarity is gone. Campus debates over speech, inclusion, and discipline aren’t new—but they have rarely been this charged, or the consequences so personal. For those watching—administrators, students, the public—the question isn’t just where the boundaries lie, but how long institutions can keep pretending that such lines are stable at all.