Professor Doubles Down on Tweet Saying ‘Trump Must Hang’

A professor at California State University, Fresno, is doubling down on a tweet he made earlier this year in which he said that President Donald Trump “must hang.”

In a curiously sympathetic profile in Politico, self-identifying Marxist Professor Lars Maischak comes across as a man who harbors no guilt over his February tweet which called for President Trump to be hung. “To save American democracy, Trump must hang. The sooner and the higher, the better. #TheResistance #DeathToFascism,” he wrote.

Shortly after the tweet received attention in the media, the President of California State University, Fresno, Joseph Castro, said that although the university would continue to review the situation, Dr. Maischak did intend to incite violence. “Dr. Maischak reiterated that it was not his intent to incite violence or harm others, however, Fresno State has a responsibility to continue a review of the situation,” Castro claimed .

Despite the backlash and the potential that he will lose his job, Maischak claims that he doesn’t regret the tweet. “You can’t honestly regret saying something that was true just because of the consequences,” Maischak explained. “I’m with [Martin] Luther on that one. Here I stand, I cannot help it.”

Maischak told Politico that the tweets, despite its specific language, were meant to convey what might happen to President Trump rather than what Maischak personally felt should happen.

Even though Maischak’s most inflammatory tweet in February used the phrase “must hang” and “The sooner and higher the better,” he says he was making a descriptive claim about what might happen to Trump—not a prescriptive one about what should happen. “That was the point of those tweets,” he insists, “to say that you’re going down the dark side. There isn’t much I can do about it, but historically, it hasn’t gone unpunished.”

Maischak, who is not tenure-track at Cal State, Fresno, was suspended from his teaching post over the tweet earlier this year. Maischak claims that conservative donors to the university were behind the administration’s decision to suspend him and that their influence may impact future decisions regarding his future employment.