The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) “has put its DEI office’s director of race and equity on leave following vulgar remarks about the death of Charlie Kirk,” reports The College Fix.
DEI director Johnathan Perkins is a notorious anti-white racist who has celebrated people’s deaths and suffering for years, and routinely expresses hatred for white people, such as the late Queen Elizabeth II of England. UCLA turned a blind eye to that viciousness for years, because it drew only a modest amount of bad press from a few conservative web sites and this blog. But when Perkins celebrated Charlie Kirk’s death, people with large social media followings drew attention to that, which finally generated enough bad press to force UCLA to put Perkins on leave.
The Washington Free Beacon reported that Johnathan Perkins is on “immediate leave” and that UCLA said it “has launched an investigation” into the situation.
UCLA said that “While free expression is a core value of UCLA, violence of any kind—including the celebration of it—is completely unacceptable and will not be tolerated.”
Earlier, reports The College Fix,
UCLA had taken down the “Who We Are” section of its Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion website following Perkins’ posts.
Perkins had written on the social media platform BlueSky that “It is OKAY to be happy when someone who hated you and called for your people’s death dies — even if they are murdered.”
In reaction to the oft-missing-context Kirk quote about the Second Amendment, Perkins wrote “Dude made his bed; reaped what he sowed; chickens coming home to roost, etc. Smh.”
Other remarks included “Fuck Around and Find Out is really doing its thing, lately,” “I’m always glad when bigots die, so,” and in response to someone saying Kirk “shouldn’t be dead” Perkins asked “Why shouldn’t he be dead?”
Corey DeAngelis, a school-choice advocate with hundreds of thousands of followers on social media, helped publicize Perkins’ hateful comments, which likely resulted in a stream of outraged emails to UCLA’s administration expressing dismay at Perkins’ comments. In response, Perkins eventually deactivated his BlueSky account.
Perkins told the Los Angeles Times that “It’s a truly sad day. My livelihood could ultimately be threatened for stating, in the clearest terms, that I felt no grief at the death of an avowed white nationalist — [a] man who dedicated his life to despising mine, to despising my people, to despising our very existence.”
(Charlie Kirk was not an “avowed white nationalist,” and did not identify himself as such. He did not call for wiping out black people, as Perkins falsely suggested).
Perkins added, “I am devastated to learn of higher ed colleagues around the country, facing similar and much worse consequences, including termination. I admit, I thought UCLA was different. I hope we are.”
Perkins’ Linkedin page describes Perkins’ duties at UCLA as “implement[ing] equitable and evidence-based best practices relating to improving learning and working environments” and “designing measures to prioritize long-term, antiracist improvement to institutional systems, climate, and environments.”
Perkins has made many inflammatory statements in the past celebrating people’s deaths or scapegoating people based on their race. He reacted to the death of England’s Queen Elizabeth by saying,“Good riddance.”
In 2022, he wrote “No one wants to openly admit [we all] hope Clarence Thomas dies,” and added the “whole rule we’re not to wish ill on people is silly.” In the same thread he said “Uncle Thomas is a sexist token who’s committed himself to making us all share in he and his treasonous wife’s misery.”
Perkins tells whites not to wish him a “Happy Juneteenth” because he will “flip tf out” if they do.
Perkins has advocated illegal discrimination on the basis of race. Perkins claims that “every white person is racist to some degree”, and falsely claimed that “white people cannot be victims of racism,” and “only white people can impose racist harm.” These claims disregarded court rulings finding that whites can be victims of racism and nonwhites can act illegally in committing racist acts. (Examples of court rulings finding that whites can be victims of discrimination and that nonwhites can impose racist harm include: (1) Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023) (successful lawsuit alleging racial discrimination against white students in college admissions prevailed in U.S. Supreme Court); (2) Wygant v. Jackson Board of Education, 476 U.S. 267 (1986) (white employees successfully sued school system for discriminating against them based on their race, winning in the Supreme Court); (3) Walters v. City of Atlanta, 803 F.2d 1135 (11th Cir. 1986) (city with black mayor was found to have illegally discriminated against a white applicant based on his race); (4) Bowen v. Missouri Department of Social Services, 311 F.3d 878 (8th Cir. 2002) (appeals court ruled white woman could sue over racial harassment by black co-worker); and (5) Huckabay v. Moore (5th Cir. 1998) (recognizing that racist harassment of white employee by black superior is illegal)).
Treating white people as racist because of their race is itself a racially discriminatory stereotype that can foment a racially hostile work environment in violation of the civil-rights laws. Courts have ruled that “baseless accusations of racism” made against white employees because they are white can be racial harassment that contributes to a racially hostile work environment in violation of Title VII of the Civil Rights Act. (See Underwood v. Northport Health Services (1989)). So operating under Perkins’ inflammatory assumption that “every white person is racist to some degree” could lead to civil rights violations at UCLA.
