Johnathan Perkins #

Introduction #

Johnathan Perkins is an American lawyer and university administrator who served as director of race and equity in UCLA’s Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Office from 2019, co-hosting the podcast “Black&” alongside his day job, and who became a national flashpoint in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Days after the 10 September 2025 shooting, Perkins — posting on X and 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” and “You cant force people to mourn someone who hated us — no matter how he died” — was placed on investigatory leave by the university, which launched a formal probe into his posts. After a four-month investigation, UCLA fired him in January 2026, with his termination letter citing the damage his conduct had done to his office’s “effectiveness and credibility”.

Background Information #

Perkins joined UCLA in the fall of 2019, initially as a special assistant to the founding vice chancellor, and rose to director of race and equity within the Office of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, a $137,000-a-year post. Before UCLA he had served within the Office of the General Counsel at Harvard University, and he is a licensed attorney. At UCLA he co-hosted the podcast “Black&” and was one of the public faces of the university’s diversity apparatus — a position that put him, in the words of his own later statement, in a role where the university would judge any commentary about Kirk especially harshly.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

In the days after Kirk was gunned down at Utah Valley University on 10 September 2025, Perkins posted a series of remarks on X and Bluesky that was screenshot and spread by conservative accounts. “It is OKAY to be happy when someone who hated you and called for your people’s death dies — even if they are murdered,” he wrote; “You cant force people to mourn someone who hated us — no matter how he died”; and, when a commenter compared Kirk to Rush Limbaugh, “Good riddance to both”. In another reply he appeared to respond “Why shouldn’t he be dead?” to a user who said they felt no sadness at the killing. UCLA announced that a “campus employee” had been placed on leave and that the school had “launched an investigation into social media posts made about Kirk”, stating: “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.” Perkins confirmed to the Los Angeles Times that he was the employee, defending the posts as “written in my own hand, in my own voice, in no way the echo of my employer, UCLA” and protected by the First Amendment.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The posts made Perkins a national story, named in coverage from the New York Post to the Los Angeles Times as the exemplar of a diversity administrator celebrating an assassination. He responded publicly that his livelihood was being 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”, adding: “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.” The investigation ran for four months; in January 2026 Perkins said UCLA had fired him, and the university later confirmed the termination, with a spokesperson saying only that it does not comment on personnel matters and that employees receiving an intent to terminate are given an opportunity to respond first. His termination letter, obtained by the Los Angeles Times, read: “Given the nature of your role as a Director of Race and Equity, the university has determined that this conduct significantly undermined trust in your leadership and adversely affected the office’s effectiveness and credibility”, with his last day on payroll 30 January 2026.

Current Status #

Perkins was fired from UCLA, with his employment formally ending on 30 January 2026, after more than six years with the university. He announced he intends to file a lawsuit challenging the dismissal, claiming his posts were protected free speech; no suit had been filed, or its outcome reported, in the coverage consulted for this page. He has not been charged with any offence — his case concerns employment discipline for speech — and reports in early 2026 described him as soliciting donations, including for the care of his pets, while out of work.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

Perkins lost a six-figure diversity directorship he had held since 2019 and, with it, the public-platform identity he had built around it, over posts he has never disavowed. His case became a dual icon: to the right, proof of what it called DEI extremism rewarded with taxpayer salary; to speech-rights advocates, another instance of a public university punishing an employee’s off-duty political expression — with his own promised lawsuit poised to test whether California’s public institutions can fire administrators for their posts. The termination letter’s rationale — that a Director of Race and Equity uniquely cannot say such things without destroying his office’s credibility — ensured his name would surface in every debate over where universities’ authority over employee speech ends.