N.C. Community College Fires Professor for Kirk Comments

Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, N.C., fired a professor for “unacceptable behavior” after he was secretly recorded criticizing the late conservative commentator Charlie Kirk nearly six months after he was murdered, WITN reported. 

Turning Point USA, the campus conservative organization Kirk founded, posted the recording of psychology professor Chris Schulte to social media Wednesday. 

“Did he deserve to die? No. But he was a racist piece of shit. And Turning Point USA is a racist, piece-of-shit organization,” Schulte said in the audio, which he said was recorded by a student. “And they just started a group on this campus. And it’s people like them that are coming into these classrooms and recording us, trying to get us fired because they don’t agree with us.”

Coastal Carolina president David Heatherly told WITN Schulte was dismissed a day later. In the termination letter obtained by WITN, college officials wrote that Schulte’s actions “constituted unacceptable behavior, demonstrated that you have participated in prohibited conduct, and interfered with the operations of the college.” It also said that Schulte refused to perform assigned duties.

In a statement posted to Facebook, Schulte said he was escorted to his car by campus security because of threats made to him “after I spoke out for academic freedom and called out racism and censorship where I saw it.”

Schulte is running as a Democrat for a seat in the statehouse, and he told the News & Observer that he plans to sue the college. He joins a still-growing list of academics who have been fired, suspended or investigated for speaking ill of Kirk in the wake of his killing last fall.