The secretary of the Marquette Republican Party resigned Wednesday after receiving backlash for his social media posts referencing the May 4 Kent State shootings.

Dan Adamini tweeted last Thursday that it was “Time for another Kent State perhaps. One bullet stops a lot of thuggery” in response to the University of California-Berkeley protests of right-wing speaker Milo Yiannopoulos, whose scheduled appearance was later cancelled.

Soon after the tweet, Adamini posted on Facebook “I’m thinking another Kent State might be the only option protest stopped after only one death. They do it because there are no consequences yet.”

Idris Syed, a Pan-African studies lecturer and an advisor of the university’s May 4 Task Force, said it’s not surprising that Adamini resigned. 

“If you call for the murder of students (and) protestors, you probably won’t be able to keep your job,” Syed said. “Advocating violence and murder isn’t really helpful to your cause.”

After facing repercussions from his posts, Adamini apologized via Twitter last Frirday, and said the tweet was meant to stop violence, not encourage it. 

On Saturday, the university released a statement in response to the tweet and invited Adamini to the campus to “gain perspective on what happened 47 years ago and apply its meaning to the future.”

Adamini said he hopes his resignation will stop the backlash to not only himself, but also to the rest of the party, according to the Marquette Mining Journal.

Brandon Mallon, president of the May 4 Task Force and a junior history major, said Adamini shouldn’t have used the tragedy in a political way by disparaging the students.

“(Adamini) can resign, he can drop his radio show, drop from his public life, but he can’t escape this,” Mallon said. “The statement that the university and the May 4 Task Force released… I still extend that invite. If Mr. Adamini is aware of any of this, he should come to the May 4 site for himself and understand what he said.”

Adamini has deleted the original posts and his Twitter.

 

Lydia Taylor is an assigning editor, contact her at [email protected].