Candice Hale #

Introduction #

Candice Hale is an American English instructor and lecturer who taught at two of Alabama’s flagship public universities — the University of Alabama and Auburn University — until September 2025, when a single Facebook post about the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk cost her both positions. Hale posted on her personal Facebook page on September 11, 2025, the day after Kirk was fatally shot while speaking at Utah Valley University, writing that she did not mourn him. She was soon fired from the University of Alabama and placed on leave at Auburn, and she answered with federal lawsuits against both universities claiming they violated her First Amendment rights. In July 2026, al.com reported, citing court records, that she had reached a settlement with the University of Alabama — only for her new attorney to announce that she never agreed to any terms and is moving to reopen the case.

Background Information #

Hale built an academic career spent entirely in Alabama public higher education, ultimately spanning some 18 years, most of it teaching English. By 2025 she held two part-time, non-tenure-track instructor roles renewable each year: one in English at the University of Alabama, where she had been hired in 2023, and a lectureship at Auburn University. She had no previous disciplinary actions on record. Her attorney, Richard Rice, described her as an educator with more than 18 years in the classroom whose teaching centers on social issues — race, gender, and intersectionality — making freedom of speech central to her professional identity, and noted that the University of Alabama is her alma mater.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

The sequence that ended Hale’s employment began on September 10, 2025, when Kirk, a conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University. The next day, Hale turned to her personal Facebook page — a post, she later said, that was visible only to her Facebook friends — and wrote: “I do not mourn oppressors. I do not show them empathy. I don’t give a damn about evil racist, fascist, misogynist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, mediocre white men who claim to be Christian individuals and then do everything Christ would not do on Earth. We are getting closer and closer to the real assignment.” In interviews she defended the post: “I didn’t say I wished he was dead or I’m glad he was dead. I just, I’m not gonna mourn someone who verbally and publicly disparaged any person that didn’t look like him,” she said. Her lawsuit alleges she was fired “without any formal investigation, hearing, or opportunity to respond,” over a “loss of confidence” in her teaching skills.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

Hale was caught in a wave that spread far beyond her own campuses: she was among many people around the country who were fired or reprimanded after Kirk’s death for comments some deemed offensive, as Kirk supporters reported unfavorable comments about him to employers who took action. At Auburn, President Christopher Roberts announced on X that the school had fired several employees for social media posts that were “hurtful, insensitive and completely at odds with Auburn’s values.” Hale says she was summoned to a virtual meeting with two campus safety officials who questioned her about her post and whether she was a threat to members of Auburn’s Turning Point USA chapter; she alleges she denied having weapons or violent intent and that the officials concluded she posed no safety risk, yet days later she was placed on paid administrative leave, prohibited from contacting her students, and later banned from campus entirely. At Alabama, she says her department chair told her the university’s president did not like the post and that she would be fired — and she was, removed from her part-time instructor role.

In October 2025, Hale sued leaders at both universities in federal court, claiming her First Amendment rights were violated. “My right to speak was violated,” she said, framing the case as a fight for others as much as for herself: “If this is what I had to do to get them to hear me, then so be it.” Her complaint argued that “the right to speak freely without fear of government retaliation is the bedrock upon which our democracy stands,” and that when she “spoke about the death of Charlie Kirk, a political figure — commentary on a matter of undeniable public concern,” she was exercising “the very freedom the First Amendment was designed to protect.” The University of Alabama pushed back, arguing in a February 2026 motion to dismiss that her termination did not violate a “clearly established constitutional right.”

Current Status #

The case reached a bewildering peak on July 7, 2026. That morning, al.com, citing court records, reported that Hale had reached a settlement for an undisclosed amount of money with the University of Alabama the previous month; her attorney at the time, Kira Fonteneau, had no comment. By that evening, al.com reported a different story: Hale’s new attorney, Richard Rice, who had joined the case that Monday, said his client never agreed to settlement terms, that there had been some miscommunication between Hale, the University of Alabama, the court, and her former attorney, and that he is filing to reopen the case. Rice said Hale remains optimistic she can still reach a settlement, but rejected previous offers in part because they would bar her from future employment anywhere in the University of Alabama System, which includes UA, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, and the University of Alabama in Huntsville. Her lawsuit against Auburn remained pending, and the University of Alabama generally declines to comment on pending litigation.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

Whatever the litigation’s outcome, the dispute has already reshaped Hale’s professional life. Rice argued that a settlement barring her from UA System jobs would function as a statewide exile: “With her having an 18-year career of only ever working in the state of Alabama, if she’s unable to work for the universities in the system, then she’s effectively banned from working in the state, especially when you throw in Auburn as well,” he said, adding that no comparable universities could pay on the same scale. Hale, who has sought monetary damages and renewal of her position at UA, has described the toll in personal terms: “My body is dealing with the stress of everything that has happened,” she said in 2025. She has insisted, though, that she does not regret speaking up: “My voice is my power. My words are my weapon.”