Anna Kenney #

Introduction #

Anna Kenney was an associate professor and cancer researcher at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, a scientist with a Ph.D. from Yale and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Hours after Charlie Kirk’s assassination on 10 September 2025, she commented on a friend’s Facebook post: “Should I feel bad that I don’t feel bad about Charlie Kirk? Reading his sayings, he seems like a disgusting individual.” A second, two-word comment — “good riddance” — followed, and within days her words had gone viral, a congressman had threatened Emory’s federal funding, and the university had terminated her employment.

Background Information #

Kenney built her career in pediatric cancer research, studying brain-cancer cells and looking for better ways to destroy them, work she pursued at Emory’s School of Medicine as an associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics. Her path there ran through a Ph.D. from Yale and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and at 56 she was, by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s account, “a distinguished scientist” whose sudden departure “weakened the collective effort to cure pediatric cancer.”

She later told the AJC she had never heard of Kirk before that day, but began researching him after his death, and the more of his political statements she read, the less she liked him. Kirk, the co-founder of Turning Point USA and a close ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed on 10 September 2025 at an event on the campus of Utah Valley University.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

On the evening of the assassination, Kenney opened Facebook and wrote her reaction to a friend’s post about the killing: “Should I feel bad that I don’t feel bad about Charlie Kirk? Reading his sayings, he seems like a disgusting individual.” The Emory Wheel reported that she “said in response to another post detailing the assassination, ‘good riddance.’” Kenney would later say she did not remember writing those two words, and would explain: “I didn’t mean good riddance to the man. I meant good riddance to the ideology.”

Two comments on a friend’s page might have stayed there, but they did not. Early on the morning of 12 September, an X account called Leftism posted a combination of Kenney’s Facebook comments, a screenshot from her page listing jobs she had held — including her Emory professorship — and a picture of her smiling and holding up a glass. Kenney disputed that framing: she says the photo was taken on a date with her husband at a Longhorn Steakhouse before the assassination, so that the image made it seem she was raising a glass to Kirk’s killing when she was not. The post drew more than 4 million impressions, according to X. The account of Rep. Buddy Carter, Republican of Savannah, amplified it with his own ultimatum: “Our federal government shouldn’t be sending hundreds of millions to places that employ people who say this. Either hate-filled professors like this are fired, or those funds are GONE.” Per the Emory Wheel, Rep. Derrick Van Orden also posted on X that he would look into “freezing every single contract” with Emory if it did not terminate the faculty member.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The fallout moved in days. Strangers sent Kenney menacing text messages. Emory executive vice president for health affairs Joon Lee released a statement condemning any “celebration or incitement of violence” on social media as “not acceptable under any circumstances and… inconsistent with our values,” and the dean of the school of medicine told staff that the non-clinical faculty member had been terminated. Four days after Carter delivered his ultimatum, Kenney got a phone call saying she had been fired. The AJC noted it is not clear whether Carter’s threat played any role in the termination, though Kenney says she believes it did. Emory also removed Kenney’s profile from the School of Medicine website.

Kenney’s termination letter, which she shared with the AJC, said she had violated “Emory’s conduct expectations and applicable policies” and cited her two statements about Kirk’s death, including the words “good riddance.” The letter also told her she had “adamantly denied making the ‘good riddance’ comment and insisted that your account was ‘hacked’” during two separate interviews with School of Medicine leadership, and that even after technology experts found no evidence of tampering she still claimed not to remember writing the words. Kenney says the “hacking” claim involved a miscommunication: she meant that her Facebook page was set to private, so only friends could see it, and she did not understand how strangers had reached her comments. “Your social media statements concerning the murder of another human being were inflammatory, inappropriate, and wholly inconsistent with Emory’s values and mission,” the letter said, adding that her statements had resulted in threats against Emory community members. “For these reasons, your relationship with Emory must end.”

Current Status #

Kenney’s employment at Emory was terminated in September 2025; the dismissal stands. Within Emory, the decision did not go unchallenged: Noëlle McAfee, president of Emory’s faculty senate, said she believed the termination violated the university’s Open Expression Policy, which gives “broad latitude to speak, write, listen, challenge, and learn,” and a preliminary investigation by a senate committee reached the same conclusion — though administrators are not bound by that ruling. McAfee said the case had a chilling effect on the Emory faculty: “People are afraid.” Kenney, for her part, told the AJC that although she was fired, “it’s not because I was a bad scientist. I didn’t fake data. I didn’t abuse students. I was fired for exercising my right to freedom of speech,” while also acknowledging of her words: “I said what I said. And these are the consequences.”

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The termination ended a decades-long research career: her office was cleaned out, her work halted, and both she and her husband — who has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — lost their health insurance. The cost spread beyond her household to the field she worked in, weakening, as the AJC put it, the collective effort to cure pediatric cancer. Her case became one of the most prominent examples of a wave in which schools and corporations fired employees for posts that appeared to condone the assassination.