Carnegie Mellon has stayed silent for weeks after promising swift action against a professor who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death with racial taunts, as critics demand real accountability.
Associate Professor Uju Anya posted from a now-deleted X account around the anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s death, writing lines that university leaders later called hostile. One post read, “Die first, white man, and then ask yourself why I am dancing.” Another quipped, “They began already, and it ain’t even Kirkmas kirk mubarak, y’all!”
The College Fix reported that Carnegie Mellon President Farnam Jahanian and Provost James Garrett Jr. issued a mid-September statement to the campus community. They said they were “aware of hostile and threatening social media posts by Dr. Uju Anya, a faculty member in the department of Languages, Cultures & Applied Linguistics.”
The leaders stated the posts “used expletives, racial slurs and derogatory language that demeaned, dehumanized and intimidated.” They said Anya referenced her “connection to Carnegie Mellon and implied support from university colleagues.” The posts, they wrote, violated “community standards.”
“While university policy prohibits us from sharing information about personnel matters, we are taking swift action in accordance with our processes.”
Nearly a month later, the school has offered no public update. Anya remains on voluntary leave through summer 2027. Campus police declared there was no credible threat on campus. She is still scheduled to speak next month at a University of Pittsburgh event titled “Reimagining Black placemaking through multilingual and multicultural exchange in the AfroMetaverse Project.”
Heritage Foundation research fellow Corey DeAngelis told The College Fix the university is repeating its 2022 response, when Anya celebrated the death of Queen Elizabeth and faced public backlash. He said officials are ducking questions by email, social media, and phone, with the media-relations line going straight to a full voicemail box.
“The institution is going into hiding and waiting for the storm to pass so it can return to business as usual without holding her accountable, just as it did last time.”
DeAngelis has pressed the point on X. In one post he wrote it had been 25 days and Carnegie Mellon still had not held “your racist professor accountable.” He added, “She needs to go. You promised us ‘swift action,’ you liars.”
He drew a clear line between free speech and employment. “Everyone has freedom of speech. Employers also have freedom of association. Anya’s comments were hateful and racist, and they had nothing to do with advancing knowledge or debating ideas in her field.” He said her speech implied the university shared her views and violated CMU’s standards against hostile conduct. “She is free to say what she wants. But she should not be paid to mold the minds of students any longer.”
Public anger over posts celebrating Kirk’s killing has already cost people jobs elsewhere, including a Washington Post columnist fight over assassination posts that went to arbitration.
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression raised a different objection. FIRE pointed to the departmental policy that “does not tolerate harassment, discrimination or disrespect in any form,” including some off-campus communications.
“‘Disrespect in any form’ is an insane standard for a university. Disagreement, criticism, protest, satire, and even harsh language can all be labeled ‘disrespectful.’ None of that is misconduct.”
FIRE said the policy gives administrators “a blank check to investigate almost anything controversial.” It added, “Offensive speech does not become a threat just because a university labels it ‘threatening,’ and CMU cannot evade its free speech promises that way.” If the investigation concerns nothing more than “disrespectful” speech, FIRE said, Carnegie Mellon must end it and fix the policy.
The free-speech group noted campus police found no credible threat. That fact sits beside the university’s own description of the posts as hostile, threatening, and filled with racial slurs that demeaned and intimidated.
Reactions to Kirk’s death have fueled separate fights, from TPUSA pushing back on deleted posts to ongoing criminal proceedings. Prosecutors have detailed how the accused shooter’s marksmanship created deadly risk for thousands at the event, and a judge has ordered Tyler Robinson to stand trial with the death penalty still in play.
Carnegie Mellon leaders promised swift action, then went quiet. Anya’s leave stretches into 2027. The school has not said whether the review produced discipline, a teaching ban, or simply a long pause. DeAngelis calls the pattern deliberate: hide, wait, resume business as usual.
University policy bars sharing personnel details. That shield also blocks the public from knowing whether a professor who posted “Die first, white man” while linking herself to the institution faces any lasting consequence. Taxpayers and tuition payers fund the enterprise. They are left with a mid-September statement and an empty update calendar.
The same campus that markets academic excellence now asks outsiders to accept that racial taunts celebrating a conservative’s death are a private personnel matter. FIRE worries the “disrespect” rule will chill protected speech. DeAngelis and other critics say the real failure is the refusal to treat open racial hostility as a firing offense when it targets the political right.
Evidence from the Kirk shooting case continues to surface in court, including prosecutors’ claims that poor practice marksmanship raised the deadly risk to the crowd. None of that changes the employment question at Carnegie Mellon: whether a university that condemns “hostile and threatening” posts will actually remove the poster from its payroll and classrooms.
Carnegie Mellon named the conduct. It promised action. Weeks of silence and a multi-year voluntary leave are not the same as accountability.