Kirk's Legacy Already at Work
Good afternoon, everyone. A small Middle Tennessee college was the first to fire an employee for their comments on the Kirk assassination... The state purges the voter rolls... The National Guard heads to Memphis... And much more!
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Cumberland University First in Nation to Fire Tenured Professor over Charlie Kirk Comments
From Jerod Hollyfield
When Lebanon’s Cumberland University fired tenured English professor Dr. Mic Rex over posting “karma’s bitch” in response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination this morning, it became the first institution in America to challenge the often abused shield of academic freedom.
How the firing of Rex at Cumberland (and the case of the tenured ETSU professors on leave for similar comments celebrating the murder of Kirk) plays out will determine what higher ed will look like going forward.
An untenable situation has been building for years. The night before Kirk’s assassination, a non-tenure track lecturer was fired from Texas A&M for adding gender-based critical theory to a course without the content specified in the undergrad catalogue. That would have been unthinkable in 2012 when Kirk started Turning Point or even in 2017 during Trump 1.0.
But Rex’s firing is the holy grail the Right has pursued for years—an entrenched, tenured, openly leftist English professor at a private college who has long gone on political tangents unrelated to course material and received numerous unaddressed student complaints.
It will reverberate further than the fall of former Harvard President Claudine Gay for those teaching at thousands of regional institutions. Now that Robby Starbuck is focusing his energy on this incident and those like it after his Cracker Barrel cap feather should make the outcome obvious.
By this time next week, Tennessee could well be patient zero for the complete rebuilding of higher ed. Less than 48 hours after the news broke, students at Vanderbilt have banded together to start the first Turning Point USA chapter on a campus that has, until a recent meteoric turnaround, ranked 140th in FIRE’s free speech rankings.
In life, Charlie Kirk was a thorn in the campus Left’s side. In death, he will be an unstoppable force not even Donald Trump could rival at his zenith.
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🖋️ Edited by Megan Podsiedlik.
🗳️ Voter Registration & D7 The Davidson County Election Commission purged 80,000 voters from its rolls, the highest in the state, while cleaning out inactive and ineligible voters. The numbers were detailed in a report published by Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett last week. The Commission collaborates with the SOS office to add newly registered voters and remove people from the voter rolls in accordance with state guidelines.
The majority of voters removed from Nashville’s system were inactive voters who did not confirm their registration when contacted. Nearly 14,000 active voters were also removed, which can be carried out by request due to death, a name change, relocation, or a felony conviction. The total of registered voters in Nashville is now 460,986 compared to 530,477 registered voters in November 2024.
The change comes months before the special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, triggered by U.S. Representative Mark Green’s resignation this July. Early primary voting begins next Wednesday, and the Davidson County Republican Party will be hosting a dinner and forum with the Republican candidates next Friday at Ray Stevens CabaRay Showroom in Nashville. As of this writing, the only candidate who has declined to participate is State Representative Lee Reeves.
As for the Democrats, the candidates have also been duking it out in public forums. On Tuesday, all four attended a debate at First Baptist Church. The event was hosted by the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy, SEIU Local 205, the Nashville Central Labor Council, the Equity Alliance, and the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition. You can watch the full debate, posted by Tennessee Advocates for Planned Parenthood, here.
🇺🇸 The National Guard Is Heading to Memphis This morning, President Donald Trump announced that the National Guard will be deployed to Memphis to address crime. The announcement was shared with the hosts of Fox & Friends and the president said that both Memphis Mayor Paul Young and Governor Bill Lee—who is deploying 50 Tennessee Highway Patrol troopers to support the Memphis Police Department—are supportive of the plan.
“I am committed to working to ensure any efforts strengthen our community and build on our progress," Mayor Young said in a statement. "We agree with Governor Lee that effective support for Memphis comes through focused initiatives that deliver results like we have seen with the FBI, state troopers, and other law enforcement partnerships.”
During this morning’s media roundtable, Mayor Freddie O’Connell said he has not heard anything more about a deployment to Nashville. “I'm interested to hear from Mayor Young, what he may have known about this announcement in advance—if anything,” said O’Connell. “And certainly, we will be making sure we do reach out to the governor's office to see what we can learn about any intended future deployments.”
🚍 Bussing In The Flameheads Starting this Sunday, the Titans are providing free WeGo rides on game day when they play at home. The perk will continue throughout the season and rides will be free for all riders, not just those heading to the game.
“If you're coming to the game, incredible. We hope to see you there, Titan up,” said Kate Guerra, the Titan’s Vice President of Communications and Corporate Affairs, during a press conference this morning. “If you need to go to the grocery store that day and take the bus, we're extremely excited about that as well.”
DEVELOPMENT
- Ex-Tin Angel building gets $2 million makeover for new restaurant (NBJ)
- Dallas investors plan new retail building in 12South (NBJ)
- Neighborhood bar to open in fall in The Nations (Post)
- North Gulch hotel project plan progresses (Post)
THINGS TO DO
View our calendar for the week here.
📅 Visit our On The Radar list to find upcoming events around Nashville.
🎧 On Spotify: Pamphleteer's Picks, a playlist of our favorite bands in town this week.
👨🏻🌾 Check out our Nashville farmer's market guide.
TONIGHT
🎸 AMERICANAFEST @ Multiple Venues, $125, Info
🎸 Disaster Artist / Good Samaritan / Kandy and the Kavities / Patchwork @ The East Room, 8p, $13.36, Info
🪕 The Cowpokes @ Acme Feed & Seed, 12p, Free, Info
🍀 Live Irish Music @ McNamara’s Irish Pub, 6p, Free, Info
🎸 Kelley’s Heroes @ Robert’s Western World, 6:30p, Free, Info
📰 Check out the full newsletter archive here.
Today's newsletter is brought to you by Megan Podsiedlik, Camelia Brennan, and Davis Hunt.