O’Keefe Media has obtained leaked internal emails from Curry College revealing professors using the school’s official faculty email list to call Charlie Kirk a “Nazi,” a “fascist Christian nationalist,” and to write that he “approved of his own killing” after Kirk’s assassination.
Curry College sent a mass email to students and staff on September 11 acknowledging what Vice President for Student Affairs Erik Muurisepp described as a “heavy mix of emotions” following “the horrific incident on a college campus in Utah yesterday” alongside a recent school shooting in Colorado and the 24th anniversary of 9/11. Muurisepp invited students to a “drop-in” grief support session and asked faculty for feedback on the message.
That’s when the faculty thread exploded.
Senior Lecturer and Professor Benjamin Chicka responded in an email:
“You and I may not approve of the way Charlie Kirk was killed, but Charlie Kirk approved of the way Charlie Kirk was killed. I was ashamed that our college lowered our flags to half-mast for a bigot. Many better people have been assassinated with no recognition.”
Chicka went on to describe Kirk as a “fascist Christian nationalist” and linked to left-wing publications to justify his view that “Kirk was fine with murder as long as the ‘right’ people were dying.”
Another professor, Janet Ferone, agreed with Chicka’s remarks in the same thread, writing:
“While I agree that a mass email is a hard place for a debate, I am writing because I definitely agree with what Benjamin said, as I feel like we are being gaslit in this country to make Charlie Kirk into some national hero.”
Faculty also criticized Curry’s lowering of campus flags for Kirk, arguing it sent the wrong message to LGBTQ and Black students because of Kirk’s public positions.
One staff member, Jeffrey Leafer, pushed back on the tone of the thread, stating:
“Hateful rhetoric about a deceased individual (for example, referring to them as a Nazi as Benjamin did) because you disagree with their beliefs is NOT APPROPRIATE for faculty mass email… especially when it is in response to supporting our student body.”
Leafer added that the college’s message “was in support of our students and their personal safety” and said professors were using the moment to “spew their political agenda.”
Why This Matters
This isn’t just a debate over free speech. These emails show how some professors at a private college used official communication channels to rationalize and even celebrate the assassination of a conservative public figure—crossing a line from political disagreement into the normalization of political violence.
Charlie Kirk, founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed at a Utah university event earlier this month—a killing that was livestreamed online to millions and reignited national debate over ideological violence and campus speech.
By lowering its flags and offering support to students after Kirk’s assassination, Curry College sparked backlash—not from conservative critics, but from within its own faculty. Professors used internal channels to equate Kirk with Nazis, argue he “approved” of his own murder, and frame his death as less deserving of recognition than others.
At O’Keefe Media Group, we shine a light on what people behind the scenes are saying—not what they tell cameras. This story is about more than Curry College. It’s about exposing the mindset of educators entrusted with shaping the next generation, and about drawing a bright line against the normalization of political violence.
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