Florida Atlantic University has decided not to renew the contract of a faculty member who was under investigation for social media posts about Charlie Kirk, despite an outside investigation finding that her conduct does not warrant discipline under the university’s guidelines.
Kate Polak, a full-time English instructor in the College of Arts and Letters, was placed on administrative leave with pay in September after the university received three email complaints with screenshots of comments posted on her personal social media accounts about Kirk and his murder.
FAU also placed two other faculty members under investigation for their Charlie Kirk comments, though both were reinstated in November. Both of those faculty members were on the tenure track, while Polak is employed on a yearly contract basis.
In a letter to Polak dated Tuesday, Oliver Buckton, chair of FAU’s English Department, said the outside investigation conducted by Alan Lawson, a former conservative Florida Supreme Court justice, had concluded. The investigation found that her posts “would be understood by most readers as condoning on-campus violence” and discipline “would be constitutionally permissible based upon their potential for harming the University’s mission,” but that discipline still “does not appear warranted” under university regulations or its collective bargaining agreement with faculty.
Still, Buckton informed Polak “as a professional courtesy” in the same letter that the university would not be renewing her appointment.
Polak was not aware that the investigation had concluded nor that FAU had decided not to reappoint her when reached by the South Florida Sun Sentinel Wednesday, but said she was not surprised, adding that the university appeared to be trying to “evade disciplinary action by not renewing my contract.”
“This is absolutely political in nature,” she added. “This entire process has been political theater, aimed at first, making me afraid, and second, aimed at making all the other instructors in the university afraid.”
Polak’s administrative leave with pay ended Tuesday, but she said it was now too late to teach for the Spring semester, given that classes started 11 days ago.
Joshua Glanzer, a spokesperson for FAU, declined to respond to questions as to why the university decided not to renew Polak’s contract if their investigation concluded that discipline wasn’t warranted, saying the university does not comment on personnel matters.
In a statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday night, he said: “Justice Lawson has previously provided recommendations regarding two of the faculty members, and the university has received his recommendations regarding the third. The university has accepted his findings.”
The investigation
Investigators first began looking into Polak after receiving a complaint with screenshots of several of her posts on Facebook and Threads, including posts not about Kirk.
Lawson concluded in the report that three of the posts, all related to Kirk, would “warrant consideration for discipline,” posts that he said “celebrated” his assassination on a college campus. In one of the three, Polak wrote in a Facebook comment on a friend’s post that she could share screenshots and video of the “exact moment” Kirk was shot, adding “lol.” In another, she wrote that seeing him shot was a “win” that she “enjoyed” and called him an expletive. The last one was a comment on Threads, in which she wrote: “Delighting in the death of someone who wished death on us isn’t sick. It’s self-defense,” the report said, including screenshots of the posts.
In other posts the university investigated that were not related to Kirk, Polak criticized the heavy police presence at an anti-ICE protest on the FAU campus in the fall and made comments about her job, including saying anyone who tried to use her materials to teach her classes could end up getting sued and criticizing expectations that she be available outside of regular hours, according to the investigation report.
In an interview with investigators, Polak said she made the posts outside of working hours and was not speaking on behalf of FAU or condoning gun violence, the report said. Lawson wrote that her performance and students were not affected by her posts.
Polak told the Sun Sentinel that her Facebook account was private and she did not believe anyone outside of her friends or the friends of people she interacted with would see her comments.
“Yeah, I did indeed say some really mean things,” Polak said Wednesday, “but I don’t believe mean things off-hours deserve this,” adding, “the way I’m being characterized is based on one rude night in a lifetime of kindness.”
The report stated that “at the time they were captured, Polak’s posts were viewable by audiences beyond her immediate personal network,” but added, “despite the highly provocative nature of the posts, they were apparently not viewed widely, and the University received only three email complaints regarding them.”
Polak had not faced any prior discipline since she joined FAU in 2020 as a visiting instructor, and personnel records showed “effective teaching and performance,” according to the investigative report signed by Lawson on Monday.
She often received some of the highest student evaluations at FAU, according to Bill Trapani, the president of the university’s faculty Senate.
Many former students reached out to Polak to support her after she was placed under investigation, she said. One sent her a case of root beer, telling her she could use it to celebrate her reinstatement.
Ultimately, Lawson concluded that disciplining Polak over the three posts would be constitutionally allowed under the First Amendment, though such discipline did not appear to follow the university’s own guidelines and its collective bargaining agreement.
“On this evidentiary record, counsel concludes that the nature of several of the posts is such that discipline would be constitutionally permissible based upon their potential for harming the University’s mission,” the report states. “However, the University’s regulations and the applicable collective bargaining agreement (“CBA”) provide that discipline is only allowable for off-the-job conduct based upon facts demonstrating actual harm to the University’s ability to carry out its mission — which has not been demonstrated on the record reviewed.”
Still, the report said, “Florida Atlantic University retains full discretion to evaluate its operational interests, apply its institutional standards, and determine any next steps, whether disciplinary, corrective, educational, or otherwise, consistent with its constitutional and contractual obligations and its broader academic mission.”
The two reinstated faculty members, Karen Leader, an associate professor of art history who made posts against Kirk, and Rebel Cole, an eminent scholar in the College of Business who made posts against his detractors and has filed a lawsuit against FAU, resumed their full duties with no discipline after Lawson concluded that their speech was constitutionally protected.
Leader had shared others’ posts on X that criticized Kirk on matters related to race, gender, guns and LGBTQ issues, many times adding her own comments, such as “This was Charlie Kirk.”
Cole had written on social media that people celebrating Kirk’s assassination were inciting riots and threatened to “hunt (them) down” and make them “both unemployed and unemployable,” according to the lawsuit complaint.
Trapani, the faculty Senate president, criticized FAU’s decision not to reappoint Polak Wednesday, describing it as unusual and inconsistent with the university’s response to Leader and Cole.
“The hasty and subjective decision to punish Dr. Polak by announcing her non-renewal, within mere hours of receiving a report that did not recommend such discipline, is out of line with our norms that academics — rather than politicians and administrators — determine academic appointments,” he said in a statement. “It also raises urgent questions about due process as the resolution appears inconsistent with the handling of the other cases, most notably Dr. Cole’s.”
Polak said Wednesday that she felt the university chose her as a “scapegoat” because of her political views, and that choosing not to renew her employment is part of a broader effort to chill speech at FAU and make the university more conservative.
“There’s a lot of fear about what exactly to say, what can’t be said, how to redesign a curriculum that has been in place for years and meets state standards,” she said. “… I’m merely an avatar for what they’re actually going after.”