Thomas Brennan. (Facebook/Twitter)
Ferris State University professor Thomas Brennan was fired after tweeting about “fags” and dismissing COVID-19 as a “hoax”.
Brennan, a former assistant physical science professor at the Ferris State University in Michigan, was previously placed on leave in November last year for a slew of homophobic, racist and antisemitic social media posts.
He often tweeted about the “Jewish mafia”, called the coronavirus pandemic a “Jewish revolution” and used the N-word in reference to Black physicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, according to an exposé by the university’s newspaper The Torch.
As much as Brennan sought to shrug off the article as a “hit piece” at a time, he confirmed on Twitter Saturday (27 February) that he has now been dismissed from the university.
I’ve been officially fired from Ferris. Here’s the defense statement that I gave to the administration on February 15, 2021, along with supporting documents. https://t.co/9rxhOrOYnFhttps://t.co/TGTCqoSAGh
— Thomas Brennan (@ThomasB57121856) February 27, 2021
The school confirmed to The Detroit News that it had terminated his contract Thursday (25 February).
“Ferris State University Assistant Professor of Physical Sciences Thomas Brennan’s employment at the university has been terminated, effective Thursday, 25 February 2021,” a spokesperson said.
“The university has no further comment.”
Ferris State professor Thomas Brennan blames homophobic tweets on ‘electromagnetic fields’
In a lengthy, six-page statement on his personal website, Brennan said he tweeted what he did because of, among other things, electromagnetic fields.
“My defence is that I was acting out and speaking out of despair caused by a personal crisis involving extremely painful migraines, EMF sensitivity and a series of repeated break-ins into my home,” he wrote.
“I am one of thousands of Americans from all walks of life who claim to be victims of a secret programme that harasses people, breaks into their homes, and uses [electromagnetic frequency] along with bio, neuro, or nano-technologies to poison and torture their targets,” the statement continued.
“Rather than kill the target, the goal is to get the target to have a breakdown that discredits them and causes them to lose their livelihood.”
He went on to detail various points of contention between himself and faculty leaders, such as refusing to wear a mask on the grounds that a mandate would be “immoral” and claiming that the severity of the coronavirus has been “exaggerated by revolutionary leftists in the media and government”.
He also admitted to the “red zingers” he posted to his Twitter and described his account on the platform as a “little hole to shout in and purge my despair”.
“As I said, it was despair that led me to do this, and I knew I might get in trouble but I needed to cry out,” he said.
“Since I had no way to speak about my disability at work,” Brennan added, “I was exercising my free speech rights on Twitter as a result of my disability.
“Therefore the things I said on Twitter were not expressed in order to discriminate against people of different races or social categories but were uttered as a result of my disability. This is one of many reasons why freedom of speech exists.”