Charlie Kirk’s legacy was robust debate. Why silence his SC critics? | Opinion
South Carolina Republicans seeking to be the state’s governor are crassly politicking on the back of a dead man while teaching young people to choose cowardice rather than courage.
A few years ago, the Republican-controlled Legislature passed laws to protect white students from having to hear the truth about the state’s racial history, not wanting to discomfort them. Republicans are silencing views again in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
In one breath, they claim Kirk was a champion of free speech. In the next breath, they call for the firing of anyone who dares critique his life the way Kirk frequently critiqued his opponents.
Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette, one of several candidates running to be governor, said she was “horrified and disgusted” by social media posts and retweets by one Clemson University professor mocking Kirk, who was assassinated on a Utah college campus Wednesday.
“According to Kirk, empathy is a made-up new age term, so keep the jokes coming. It’s what he would have wanted,” read one of the comments the professor reposted that day.
“Today was one of the most beautiful days ever,” read one of the professor’s own posts. “The weather was perfect, sunny with a little breeze. This was such a beautiful day.”
Evette said she spoke with members of Clemson’s Board of Trustees and called Clemson’s president twice to have professors removed because “anyone who espouses these types of statements, should never be in a position to shape the minds or hearts of our children and S.C. students.” She also urged students to drop classes and for parents to demand tuition refunds.
Monday, Clemson replied by announcing it had terminated one employee and removed two professors from their teaching duties pending an investigation. Tuesday, the university announced it had fired the two faculty members.
U.S. Rep. Nancy Mace, another gubernatorial candidate, is also asking the U.S. Education Secretary to cut off funding for any school that does not discipline “personnel who choose to justify political violence or celebrate the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
Mace repeated her favorite epithet for transgender people while discussing Kirk’s alleged killer and then enlisted help to identify people who say things about Kirk she doesn’t like.
She also blamed Democrats for the evil act allegedly committed by the 22-year-old man who grew up in a conservative family with parents who are registered Republicans with gun licenses in the red state of Utah.
Attorney General Alan Wilson, another gubernatorial candidate, also pressured Clemson’s president to fire the professors last week. He sent out another news release Monday saying that he “confirms Clemson has authority to act on faculty’s incendiary Charlie Kirk assassination posts.” Wilson said, “The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, but it does not shield threats, glorification of violence, or behavior that undermines the mission of our state institutions.”
A statement from U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham showed he also has no clear understanding of First Amendment protections.
“Free speech doesn’t prevent you from being fired if you’re stupid and have poor judgement,” Graham posted.
But free speech protections do prevent you from being fired for saying something “stupid.”
That’s the purpose of the First Amendment. We don’t need protections for speech that everyone likes or agrees with. There’s no threat there. We need protections when there is debate, difference, provocation — like the kind Kirk trafficked in.
If a politician calls another a “kook” and “crazy,” the way Graham spoke about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump in 2016, we wouldn’t want a more powerful politician to be able to jail him and shut him up. Right?
Those Clemson professors, who work at a public university where speech is protected from government intrusion by the First Amendment, should not be fired.
For those who really believe Kirk’s legacy is robust debate, it’s clear why.
Kirk got to call a murdered George Floyd a “scumbag” and still be praised by Republicans who believe he was simply a God-fearing Christian.
Kirk spoke of “moronic” Black women and said Black people were better off during Jim Crow and the lynching era, arguing that “in the ‘40s, it was bad, it was evil. But something changed. They committed less crime.” He wanted a “citizen force” along the southern U.S. border to protect “white demographics in America,” and he argued that though half of Black men had been arrested by the age of 23 (that number is 40% for white men), “not enough of them have been arrested.”
He argued Republican prosecutors should “investigate first, define the crimes later” to punish Democratic officials in retaliation for supposedly politically-motivated investigations of Trump.
That’s the Kirk those professors — and many others — have been mocking, the Kirk who spent years earning money and fame mocking and demeaning others. No matter how hard South Carolina Republican leaders try, they will not be able to whitewash that truth out of existence.
It matters little if we agree with what they said. Free speech protections are clear. If those professors are not making direct death threats and the like, they should not be fired. Courts may have to decide.
There is a conversation about civility, etiquette and common decency to be had. What is our responsibility to people who spent their lives dehumanizing us when theirs is taken during an evil act?
Let’s have that conversation instead of teaching our kids that the best way to deal with discomfort is to stop the voices of those with whom you disagree from talking.
Issac J. Bailey is a McClatchy opinion writer in North Carolina and South Carolina.
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 5:00 AM.