Professors fearing retribution turn to ‘First Responders’ after Charlie Kirk’s death
Since the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk , a group supporting academics who have been targeted by right-wing media outlets and organizations has seen an "intense spike" in faculty and administrators looking for support, according to its director.
Faculty First Responders , created in 2020, monitors conservative news outlets and proactively reaches out to faculty, students, staff and administrators when they appear on conservative websites like Campus Reform, Kirk's Professor Watch List or Canary Mission.
Since Kirk's assassination, the organization has reached out to 40 people and 15 academics have personally reached out for help, according to Heather Steffen, the director of Faculty First Responders.
"This is the first like short-term, really intense spike that I've seen in the two or three years that I've been working for the organization," she said.
While the war in Gaza increased the number of reach-outs, Steffen said it was more gradual.
The increasing number of academics looking for support comes amid talk show host Jimmy Kimmel's brief time being booted off the air due to his comments on Kirk and Massachusetts' largest teachers union receiving backlash for asking school districts to defend educators from bullying and harassment for speaking out on Kirk's death.
"We're getting a lot of organizations reaching out because they want to serve their members, because the feedback they're getting is that their members are afraid and uncertain about what to do in this moment, in the wake of Charlie Kirk's assassination and during a moment of seemingly increased doxing across all sectors," Steffen said.
Why was the group created?
Faculty First Responders was created in 2020 by Isaac Kamola, a Trinity College professor. It was in reaction to witnessing the effects of his colleague being blasted in a "smear story" in Campus Reform, a conservative news website, according to Steffen.
Since then, the organization has focused on providing peer-to-peer counseling and advice and offers webinars to higher education groups on digital security and how to take collective action to protect academic freedom, Steffen said. It doesn't provide legal advice.
The group aims to be a "hub for people to be put in touch with the resources they need," Steffen said.
It is a partner organization of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which is a union and membership association of faculty and other academic professionals.
A pin from the AAUP. (Photo by Carlin Stiehl | MLive.com)Carlin Stiehl | MLive.com
Faculty feel comfort amid turmoil
In January 2025, Northeastern University held a summit focused on menstrual equity. As a scholar in the topic, Chris Bobel, a professor at the University of Boston, gave a talk not thinking it would become widely politicized.
However, soon after, conservative news outlet Campus Reform wrote an article about it and interviewed her. She was also put on Turning Point USA's Professor Watchlist, which aims to "expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom," according to its website.
While Bobel said she stands by her comments on the subject, she didn't do her due diligence looking into what the news organization was and quickly saw they had a conservative bias.
One comfort she had throughout the incident was that Faculty First Responders reached out to offer her their support.
"It was really lovely to have that support. I think at that point is when I kind of panicked a little bit. I was like, oh, geez, maybe I've just crawled into something really unsavory," Bobel said.
'Traumatic, isolating, embarrassing, scary'
Since the founding of Faculty First Responders, there hasn't been a dull moment. However, the assassination of Kirk has brought on a new wave of concern about free speech and what can or can't be said without being retaliated against, like in the case of Jimmy Kimmel, Steffen said.
"What you have to keep in mind is that when people are under politically motivated attack in these ways, it's an incredibly traumatic, isolating, embarrassing, scary experience. And so the kinds of concerns that people have range all the way from 'Am I safe in my home?' to 'Will I still have a job a week from now?' to 'How do I keep my reputation when there are so many smear stories online?' All of those concerns have come up," Steffen said.
It isn't just individuals who are reaching out, but also campus and professional organizations looking to navigate how to support their members, she said.
One service that people are especially interested in is the Faculty First Responder's peer-to-peer counseling, so much so that the group is training and building out a team to focus on that. There have been over 50 academics who have taken up the group on the service for the past three years, Steffen said.
Over the past two weeks, there have been around 10 academics who have sought peer-to-peer counseling, she said.
It is in part due to a "deep chill" experienced on college campuses that has ramped up since the Trump administration's focus on higher education and the restriction of speech in response to Kirk's death, especially on social media, for fear that a criticism of him could be taken as disrespectful or making light of his death, Steffen said.
"Part of what's keeping me going in this moment is that at the end of almost every meeting I have with a worker who's being targeted or with someone looking to support the members of their organization, by the end of the meeting, they tell me that they are feeling much better," Steffen said.
"And I think right now that is actually quite an accomplishment because people are finding it hard to find things to feel good about in the world," she said.
The group can provide advice on anything from how to create a delicate email to an administrator to researching rules in faculty handbooks, Steffen said.
The intention of Faculty First Responders is ultimately to "show that someone else sees what's happening to them," she said.
"We serve as sort of a witnessing function for seeing that these politically motivated attacks are always happening, even when they're not getting the kind of mainstream media attention that they're getting in the last couple weeks," Steffen said.
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