BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WVTM) - A professor in Alabama claims she was fired over a social media post on the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
She claims the actions of the University of Alabama and Auburn University violated her first amendment rights to free speech.
She is now suing both schools, saying she is fighting for the rights for everyone.
“My right to speak was violated,” Candice Hale said.
Hale said freedom of speech is something that all of us are “guaranteed no matter who we are.”
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Hale was fired from the University of Alabama and put on leave at Auburn University.
“If Charlie Kirk’s voice can be heard, and the whole world can hear the disparaging things he has to say, then the world should be able to hear what Auburn University and what the University of Alabama did to me,” she said.
Hale has filed a lawsuit against leaders at both the University of Alabama and Auburn University, claiming her first amendment rights were violated.
“If this is what I had to do to get them to hear me, then so be it,” she said.
Hale said she made a post on September 11, after finding out Kirk had died.
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“And I was just like, ‘Oh my God, this man is such a bigoted racist.’ I mean all of the ‘isms’ that you could throw at someone, he fit and checked every box,” she said.
Hale said her post was only for her Facebook friends to see.
She spoke out against Kirk and said she would ‘not mourn the wicked.’
“I saw so many people just talking about, ‘Oh this good man has now passed or he was assassinated,’ and I was like, ‘What good man?’ This is not a Christian man. Christians don’t do this,” she said.
Hale said she got a call from her supervisor five days after the post was made, telling her the president did not take it well.
“I didn’t say I wished he was dead or I’m glad he was dead. I just, I’m not gonna mourn someone who verbally and publicly disparaged any person that didn’t look like him,” she said.
Hale said the door may be closed on her career at the University of Alabama, but she will not stop speaking up until everyone’s rights are protected.
“My voice is my power. My words are my weapon,” she said.
The University of Alabama and Auburn University did not respond to WVTM’s request for comment.
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