{"id":222806,"date":"2025-09-13T05:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T05:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/222806\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T05:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T05:52:10","slug":"u-of-t-professor-placed-on-leave-after-online-post-about-charlie-kirk-shooting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/222806\/","title":{"rendered":"U of T professor placed on leave after online post about Charlie Kirk shooting"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The University of Toronto\u2019s media-relations office said the institution acted on its own immediately once it learned of the faculty member\u2019s comments.Nathan Denette\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

A University of Toronto professor whose social-media post after the assassination of American political activist Charlie Kirk<\/a> was criticized by Ontario\u2019s Minister of Colleges and Universities is now on leave, according to the university.<\/p>\n

Ruth Marshall, an associate professor in religious studies and politics, has been placed on administrative leave, the University of Toronto\u2019s faculty association confirmed Friday.<\/p>\n

An account on X, apparently connected to Prof. Marshall, posted Wednesday afternoon that \u201cshooting is honestly too good for so many of you,\u201d using a profanity and describing the subjects as \u201cfascist.\u201d <\/p>\n

The comment was posted a few hours after Mr. Kirk, a right-wing commentator and supporter of U.S. President Donald Trump, was shot and killed while speaking at a university campus in Utah on Wednesday. <\/p>\n

Charlie Kirk\u2019s videos thrived on controversy as he used the manosphere playbook to reshape politics<\/a><\/p>\n

Nolan Quinn, Ontario Minister of Colleges and Universities, took issue with the comment. Mr. Quinn, in his own social-media post Thursday, said he had asked the University of Toronto to take action.<\/p>\n

\u201cUniversities and their professors are supposed to foster critical thought, respectful debate, and be safe learning environments \u2013 and this professor\u2019s violent rhetoric flagrantly flies in the face of that. I\u2019ve been clear with the University of Toronto: they need to act,\u201d Mr. Quinn said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the University of Toronto\u2019s media-relations office said the institution acted on its own immediately once it learned of the faculty member\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe university acted independently and apprised the government of its actions after they were complete. The matter is being looked into, and the university will not be commenting further.\u201d<\/p>\n

Prof. Marshall could not be reached for comment Friday. Webpages connected to Prof. Marshall on the U of T website were also not viewable and showed an \u201caccess denied\u201d message.<\/p>\n

Analysis: History doesn\u2019t really repeat itself, but it can provide perspective in the Trump era<\/a><\/p>\n

University professors are often shielded when making controversial public statements by the principle of academic freedom. According to the Canadian Association of University Teachers, the national umbrella group that represents university faculty, academic freedom includes the right to engage in rigorous debate and give voice to unpopular views on matters of public interest. However, it does have limits.<\/p>\n

The CAUT policy describes a right \u201cto contribute to social change through free expression of opinion on matters of public interest.\u201d It also says that \u201cacademic staff must not suffer any institutional penalties because of the exercise of such rights.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Quinn was not made available for an interview.<\/p>\n

Terezia Zoric, president of the University of Toronto Faculty Association, said in a statement that the association is aware of the allegations and can confirm that the university\u2019s administration has placed Prof. Marshall on administrative leave. Prof. Zoric said the association would not comment further.<\/p>\n

In 2016, the U of T faced criticism when professor Jordan Peterson said in a video posted to social media that he would not use the genderless pronoun \u201cthey\u201d if he was asked to do so by a student.<\/p>\n

At the time, Dr. Peterson was quoted saying, \u201cI think that people need to be able to say whatever they want no matter how outrageous.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Doug Ford government in 2018 mandated that all Ontario universities and colleges adopt a free-speech policy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: The University of Toronto\u2019s media-relations office said the institution acted on its own…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":222807,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2148,2138,671,104,2132,692,2147,2131,2143,2144,2140,2133,2130,79,407,746,2142,2137,2159,2134,2135,454,2139,1165,728,2149,108,2154,2155,50,2157,2152,2156,2150,2153,2136,85,2146,80,2145,2151,1458,158,1164,2141,1154,107,2158],"class_list":{"0":"post-222806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-alberta","9":"tag-arts-news","10":"tag-bc","11":"tag-breaking-news","12":"tag-breaking-news-video","13":"tag-british-columbia","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-canada-news","16":"tag-canada-sports","17":"tag-canada-sports-news","18":"tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","19":"tag-canadian-breaking-news","20":"tag-canadian-news","21":"tag-economy","22":"tag-education","23":"tag-environment","24":"tag-federal-government","25":"tag-foreign-news","26":"tag-globe-and-mail","27":"tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","28":"tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","29":"tag-government","30":"tag-life-news","31":"tag-lifestyle","32":"tag-local-news","33":"tag-manitoba","34":"tag-national-news","35":"tag-new-brunswick","36":"tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","37":"tag-news","38":"tag-northwest-territories","39":"tag-nova-scotia","40":"tag-nunavut","41":"tag-ontario","42":"tag-pei","43":"tag-photos","44":"tag-political-news","45":"tag-political-opinion","46":"tag-politics","47":"tag-politics-news","48":"tag-quebec","49":"tag-sports-news","50":"tag-technology","51":"tag-travel","52":"tag-trudeau","53":"tag-us-news","54":"tag-world-news","55":"tag-yukon"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}