both were reinstated<\/a> in November. Both of those faculty members were on the tenure track, while Polak is employed on a yearly contract basis.<\/p>\nIn a letter to Polak dated Tuesday, Oliver Buckton, chair of FAU\u2019s 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 \u201cwould be understood by most readers as condoning on-campus violence\u201d and discipline \u201cwould be constitutionally permissible based upon their potential for harming the University\u2019s mission,\u201d but that discipline still \u201cdoes not appear warranted\u201d under university regulations or its collective bargaining agreement with faculty.<\/p>\n
Still, Buckton informed Polak \u201cas a professional courtesy\u201d in the same letter that the university would not be renewing her appointment.<\/p>\n
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 \u201cevade disciplinary action by not renewing my contract.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is absolutely political in nature,\u201d she added. \u201cThis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polak\u2019s 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.\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n
Joshua Glanzer, a spokesperson for FAU, declined to respond to questions as to why the university decided not to renew Polak\u2019s contract if their investigation concluded that discipline wasn\u2019t warranted, saying the university does not comment on personnel matters.<\/p>\n
In a statement to the South Florida Sun Sentinel on Tuesday night, he said: \u201cJustice 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
The investigation<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Lawson concluded in the report that three of the posts, all related to Kirk, would \u201cwarrant consideration for discipline,\u201d posts that he said \u201ccelebrated\u201d his assassination on a college campus. In one of the three, Polak wrote in a Facebook comment on a friend\u2019s post that she could share screenshots and video of the \u201cexact moment\u201d Kirk was shot, adding \u201clol.\u201d In another, she wrote that seeing him shot was a \u201cwin\u201d that she \u201cenjoyed\u201d and called him an expletive. The last one was a comment on Threads, in which she wrote: \u201cDelighting in the death of someone who wished death on us isn\u2019t sick. It\u2019s self-defense,\u201d the report said, including screenshots of the posts.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, I did indeed say some really mean things,\u201d Polak said Wednesday, \u201cbut I don\u2019t believe mean things off-hours deserve this,\u201d adding, \u201cthe way I\u2019m being characterized is based on one rude night in a lifetime of kindness.\u201d<\/p>\n
The report stated that \u201cat the time they were captured, Polak\u2019s posts were viewable by audiences beyond her immediate personal network,\u201d but added, \u201cdespite the highly provocative nature of the posts, they were apparently not viewed widely, and the University received only three email complaints regarding them.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polak had not faced any prior discipline since she joined FAU in 2020 as a visiting instructor, and personnel records showed \u201ceffective teaching and performance,\u201d according to the investigative report signed by Lawson on Monday.<\/p>\n
She often received some of the highest student evaluations at FAU, according to Bill Trapani, the president of the university\u2019s faculty Senate.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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\u2019s own guidelines and its collective bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n
\u201cOn 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\u2019s mission,\u201d the report states. \u201cHowever, the University\u2019s regulations and the applicable collective bargaining agreement (\u201cCBA\u201d) provide that discipline is only allowable for off-the-job conduct based upon facts demonstrating actual harm to the University\u2019s ability to carry out its mission \u2014 which has not been demonstrated on the record reviewed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Still, the report said, \u201cFlorida 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.\u201d<\/p>\n
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<\/a> against FAU, resumed their full duties with no discipline after Lawson concluded that their speech was constitutionally protected.<\/p>\nLeader had shared others\u2019 posts on X that criticized Kirk on matters related to race, gender, guns and LGBTQ issues, many times adding her own comments, such as \u201cThis was Charlie Kirk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cole had written on social media that people celebrating Kirk\u2019s assassination were inciting riots and threatened to \u201chunt (them) down\u201d and make them \u201cboth unemployed and unemployable,\u201d according to the lawsuit complaint.<\/p>\n
Trapani, the faculty Senate president, criticized FAU\u2019s decision not to reappoint Polak Wednesday, describing it as unusual and inconsistent with the university\u2019s response to Leader and Cole.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe 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 \u2014 rather than politicians and administrators \u2014 determine academic appointments,\u201d he said in a statement. \u201cIt also raises urgent questions about due process as the resolution appears inconsistent with the handling of the other cases, most notably Dr. Cole\u2019s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Polak said Wednesday that she felt the university chose her as a \u201cscapegoat\u201d 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of fear about what exactly to say, what can\u2019t be said, how to redesign a curriculum that has been in place for years and meets state standards,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026 I\u2019m merely an avatar for what they\u2019re actually going after.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida Atlantic University has decided not to renew the contract of a faculty member who was under investigation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":127379,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3337,113,28,30,29,114,266,115,557,99,109,32797],"class_list":{"0":"post-127378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-boca-raton","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-latest-headlines","14":"tag-local-news","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-palm-beach-county","17":"tag-politics","18":"tag-social","19":"tag-south-florida-schools"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127378","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127378"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127378\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127379"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}