A University of North Carolina-Wilmington professor known for posting racial, homophobic and pandemic controversies to social media was found dead in his home Thursday, a little more than a week before he was set to retire with a $500,000 payout, according to a report by The News & Observer.
Mike Adams was 55.
An investigation is underway, but authorities have neither revealed the circumstances of his death nor whether foul play was involved.
Adams’ family and the university have been notified.
Deputies with the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office found the tenured criminology professor in the afternoon after arriving at his home on Windsong Road in Wilmington for a wellness check, the Observer reported.
Adams ignited several uproars at the university for more than a decade and was taking an early retirement Aug. 1 after posting racist and inflammatory social media comments recently about Gov. Roy Cooper’s coronavirus stay-at-home orders and George Floyd protesters, The Observer reported.
Some of his posts targeted Muslims and the LGBTQ community.
On May 28, Adams tweeted that amid the pandemic, universities should only shut down “the non-essential majors. Like Women’s Studies.”
The next day, Adams used a racial epithet from the slavery era in a tweet to express frustrations with the governor’s orders.
“This evening I ate pizza and drank beer with six guys at a six seat table top. I almost felt like a free man who was not living in the slave state of North Carolina. Massa Cooper, let my people go!”
Adams also sparked outrage for calling Floyd protesters “thugs looking for an opportunity to break the law with impunity.”
Voices on Twitter accused Adams of making similar statements in the classroom.
A change.org petition calling for his ouster was also started and had more than 120,000 signatures.
Facing pressure from faculty, students, alumni and celebrities to fire Adams, UNC Wilmington Chancellor Jose Sartarelli chose instead to negotiate a $504,702.76 settlement, and Adams announced his retirement in June, The Observer reported.
The payout, approved by the North Carolina attorney general and the UNC System Board of Governors, would have covered Adams’ lost salary and retirement benefits, according to The Observer.
“It is with sadness that we share the news that the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office is conducting a death investigation involving Dr. Mike Adams, professor of criminology. Please keep his friends and loved ones in your thoughts,” the statement said, according to the Observer.
On social media, many who knew Adams expressed fond memories and condolences.
“We are devastated to hear of the passing of @MikeSAdams. Professor Adams was a beloved freedom fighter and YAF speaker. Our prayers go out to his family,” tweeted Young America’s Foundation, a national conservative campus organization in which Adams served as a mentor and adviser, according to The Observer.
Other opinions about Adams were not as flattering.
UNCW Professor L.J. Randolph wrote on Twitter that people should mourn Adams’ death but “don’t sugarcoat his rhetoric as merely “controversial” or “racially charged,” The Observer reported. “He was blatantly racist, homophobic, and sexist, and his own words left no room for interpretation on any of that,” Randolph’s tweet read.
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