Exclusive: PA Congressman Calls for Firing of UPenn Professor over Social Media Posts Praising Murder Suspect
A Pennsylvania congressman has fired off a scathing letter to the University of Pennsylvania’s president demanding the firing of a left-wing professor who lauded a suspect accused of murdering UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson on social media. In the letter, Rep. Dan Meuser called for the immediate termination of Cinema & Media Studies professor Julia Alekseyeva, citing her online posts praising the accused killer, Luigi Mangione, as “the icon we all need and deserve.”
Alekseyeva, who has made her online accounts private this week, praised Mangione in several posts, including a TikTok video where she sang “Do You Hear The People Sing?” from the French musical “Les Miserables” while smiling as the song played. The play tells the story of a peasant imprisoned for stealing food and his subsequent quest for redemption.
Meuser, a potential top contender in the 2026 gubernatorial contest against Democrat Josh Shapiro, referred to Alekseyeva’s behavior as “outrageous” and said it violated the “basic ideals of a civilized society.” He argued that the professor’s actions undermine the core values of higher education and threaten the trust placed in academic institutions.
Meuser also expressed concern that Alekseyeva’s behavior may be reflective of a broader issue within the university, citing a recent scandal involving the school’s soft response to anti-Semitic and pro-Hamas protests. He demanded to know if the university had found Alekseyeva to have used university property in making her pronouncements, and what steps are being taken to prevent similar scandals in the future.
The congressman gave the university until the end of the year to respond to his demands, stating that the school’s response will determine whether he and his colleagues will continue to support the allocation of future federal funding for research at the University of Pennsylvania, which received $936 million in federal research grants in 2023.