‘ZERO TOLERANCE’: GoFundMe Is ‘Swiftly Reviewing Fundraisers’ to Remove Any Celebration of Political Violence

The crowdfunding platform GoFundMe is reviewing fundraising campaigns to remove any fundraiser that celebrates political violence in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination.

While most Americans seem to have reacted to Kirk’s death at Utah Valley University with shock and dismay, some on the Left celebrated it, including Bernadette “Bird” Bowen, a professor who earned a Ph.D. in media and communication in 2022.

Bowen reacted to Kirk’s death with this message: “Ding ding the Nazi’s dead, the wicked Nazi. Which old Nazi? The wicked Nazi!”

“Charlie Kirk was not your everyday person,” she wrote in another post. “Any false conflation of him with that rhetoric is seriously bulls—. He was a Nazi, with a net worth of $12 million. And now, he’s not. Love that for us.”

Bowen created a GoFundMe campaign seeking funds for “rent, food, and monthly bills,” saying that Western Governors University fired her after she criticized the university’s president for expressing sympathy with Kirk.

“Hi, general anti-fascist Internet community,” her GoFundMe message opens. “The neo-nazis just got what they wanted.”

“Western Governors University VP Casey Clark just fired me for calling out President Scott D. Pulsipher’s Charlie Kirk sympathizing at the start of our All Hands meeting on 9.11.25,” she wrote.

Clark does indeed serve as vice president of academic operations for the university’s business school, and Pulsifer is the president.

“WGU does not discuss individual personnel matters,” a university spokesperson told The Daily Signal.

Bowen’s GoFundMe page features an image with the text, “Tears for Neo-Nazis don’t belong in higher education.”

“Thanks to billionaire greed, despite my PhD, research expertise, publications, content, and 4 books, I have nothing saved and lived in perpetual millennial debt poverty, even during this job,” the fired professor wrote. “If I don’t get help from community I will be homeless / starving / dead just like the neo-nazis want.”

She described herself as “an autistic, non-binary neuroqueer leftist, COVID-19 realistic, ex-academic, author, and content creator.”

Her GoFundMe campaign repeated condemnations of Kirk and his allies, whom she branded “fascist” and “Neo-Nazi.”

As of Thursday afternoon, Bowen has raised $2,701 of her $26,000 goal, and 95 people have contributed since she launched it three days ago.

Bowen did not respond to The Daily Signal’s request for comment about concerns that her celebration of political violence may violate the platform’s terms of service.

GoFundMe’s Response

“Our hearts go out to the Kirk family and everyone impacted by this tragedy,” a GoFundMe spokesperson told The Daily Signal in a statement Thursday. “Our team is swiftly reviewing fundraisers related to this horrific shooting to ensure they are verified and that funds are safely delivered to the intended beneficiaries.”

“We have zero tolerance for the celebration of political violence,” the company added. “Our Trust & Safety team reviews both the content on a fundraiser page and how the funds will be used when determining whether a fundraiser violates our terms of service.”

Those terms “explicitly prohibit fundraisers for the legal defense of a violent crime, and any attempted fundraisers for the suspected shooter will be swiftly removed from the platform and fully refunded.”

GoFundMe did not address Bowen’s fundraiser.

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