The action followed the resurfacing of a series of controversial posts on Cole’s personal social media accounts and marked the third university professor placed on leave after Charlie Kirk-related posts. “This is my leftist FAU colleague Karen Leader, who was also suspended by Florida Atlantic University for her X posts. FAU has violated her First Amendment rights, just as it did mine,” Cole wrote in the same post. “For challenging disgusting X posts about Charlie Kirk’s assassination using my personal X account, Florida Atlantic University’s administrators in the Provost’s Office have suspended me and banned me from campus. “Stand up for Charlie Kirk, as I did, and for the First Amendment,” wrote Cole on Sept. 17.