Climate scientist Michael Mann has resigned from the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) after fallout from controversial comments he posted following the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
Mann went on a social media spree in the wake of the murder, sarcastically describing the assassination as “white on white violence” and reposting multiple inflammatory remarks about the conservative leader, including one that referred to Kirk as the “head of Trump’s Hitler Youth.” Despite later attempting to backtrack, Mann has now resigned from his role as Vice Provost for Climate Science, Policy, and Action.
“I have reluctantly come to the position that the science policy advocacy work I am doing … at times feels in conflict with the nonpartisan role demanded of me as an administrator at a university with an established institutional neutrality policy,” Mann wrote in a statement on his personal website. “Particularly at this moment in time, I don’t feel that I can forsake the public scholarship and advocacy that I am doing and have thus decided to step down from the VPC role.”
Mann and UPenn did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Mann later deleted several of the reposts and attempted to explain himself, saying he “overlooked” the implications.
“I was simply agreeing w/ the (widespread) criticism of Ezra Klein’s claim that Kirk was ‘practicing politics the right way,’” Mann said in an X post explaining one of the comments he reposted. “I do NOT approve of the inappropriate & inflammatory language used to describe Kirk (which I’d overlooked). Have deleted.”
Mann was previously sanctioned by a judge for knowingly providing misleading information to a jury in a defamation case against his conservative critics.
Kirk — who was known for taking to college campuses to have civilized debates with students on controversial topics — was murdered during his Sept. 10 event at Utah Valley University. His alleged killer was discovered to have been “indoctrinated with leftist ideology” and fixated on gay furry porn.
Mann joins a long list of teachers and administrators who have lost their jobs over their comments celebrating Kirk’s death.
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