A UC Professor Wanted “The Funniest Thing” to Happen to Nick Shirley. He Named the Date: the Kirkiversary.
On the evening of September 8, 2026, the Harvard Republican Club posted to Instagram that independent journalist Nick Shirley would address the club the following night. In the comments, a writing instructor who teaches at both UC Irvine and Chapman University left a reply: “Someone can do the funniest thing just before the Kirkiversary.”
“Kirkiversary” is not a neutral word. Conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on September 10, 2025, addressing an outdoor crowd at Utah Valley University — the same kind of campus event Shirley was booked to headline. Thursday, September 10, 2026, is the one-year mark, with a Turning Point USA memorial at UVU and a separate address from Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, the organization’s new CEO.
This page documents what is verifiable: the exact comment, the instructor who wrote it, his prior public remarks on political violence, the threats Shirley says he has already survived, and the fact that as of publication, neither university that employs him has said a word.
- 365 days — separate Charlie Kirk's Sept. 10, 2025 assassination at Utah Valley University from the “Kirkiversary” Goldman referenced in his comment · Source: NPR, Deseret News
- 1.8M — subscribers on Nick Shirley's YouTube channel, built largely on street-level fraud investigations into Medicaid- and childcare-subsidy programs · Source: NPR
- $110,000,000+ — in alleged fraud Shirley's December 2025 Minnesota daycare video claimed to uncover — a figure state investigators and news organizations have since disputed in part · Source: NPR
- 2nd — documented instance of Matthew Goldman appearing to cheer political violence online, after comments following the Dec. 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson · Source: The College Fix
- 0 — on-the-record statements from UC Irvine or Chapman University as of publication, despite both being contacted · Source: The College Fix
The Harvard Republican Club’s Instagram post was routine club business — an announcement that Shirley, known nationally for his fraud-investigation videos, would speak Wednesday night. It was the reply beneath it that conservative accounts began circulating within hours: a comment from a user identified as Matthew Goldman, a composition instructor teaching at both UC Irvine and Chapman University.
“Someone can do the funniest thing just before the Kirkiversary.”
Matthew Goldman, comment on Harvard Republican Club Instagram post, Sept. 8, 2026 — per Twitchy, The College Fix, Not the Bee
Goldman never wrote the word “kill.” He did not name an act. That is precisely what critics say makes the comment worse, not better — it reads as a wink rather than a slip. “Someone” is left undefined, “the funniest thing” is left undefined, and the only fixed point in the sentence is a week: the one in which the one fact everyone in the conversation already understands is that a conservative activist was shot dead on a college campus a year earlier, addressing a crowd much like the one Shirley was about to face.
UC Irvine's website confirms that Goldman teaches composition courses there, while Chapman currently lists him as a lecturer in English.
Yard Report’s follow-up post did the basic verification: this was not an anonymous troll account. Goldman’s name, photo, and employer matched a real faculty listing at a real public university, which is the reason this became a story about institutional accountability rather than an unpleasant comment from an internet stranger.
Shirley is a 24-year-old independent YouTube journalist from Utah who spent two years on an LDS mission in Chile before returning to build a channel now approaching 1.8 million subscribers, per NPR. His format is simple and confrontational: he shows up at facilities that receive public funding, films what he finds, and asks the people running them to explain the gap between the money and the service.
His breakout came in December 2025, when a 42-minute video alleged Somali-run daycare centers in Minnesota were billing the state for children who were never present, claiming over $110,000,000 in fraud. The video helped trigger a federal funding freeze — and drew real pushback: NPR reported that state investigators and several news organizations found insufficient evidence for some of Shirley’s central claims, and multiple named daycare operators have sued state officials over the fallout. This site has not re-investigated the Minnesota claims and does not adopt Shirley’s figures as its own findings here.
What is not in dispute is the reception at the top of the Trump administration. Vice President JD Vance reposted the Minnesota video days after it broke:
This dude has done far more useful journalism than any of the winners of the 2024 @pulitzercenter prizes.
Shirley then turned to California, where his hospice and childcare billing investigations helped prompt what critics dubbed the “Stop Nick Shirley Act” — a state law he and America First Legal are now suing over. By his own account, the attention has come with a cost: he told Fox News and Newsweek he now hires 24/7 private security after doxxing and death threats, and has cited Charlie Kirk’s killing as the reason he takes it seriously. On the PBD Podcast in December 2025 he described the specific language people used: “They’re saying, ‘You’re going to be Kirked… you’ll be the next Kirk,’” per the Daily Wire. Goldman’s comment landed on someone who had already been told this once.
Matthew Goldman is not an adjunct passing through. UC Irvine’s own School of Humanities faculty page lists him teaching composition, with course material touching protest movements, campus activism, conspiracy theories, and mass incarceration; he has also taught creative writing at Santa Ana Jail. Chapman University separately lists him as a lecturer in English teaching composition built around protest movements and campus activism. His LinkedIn profile describes a specialization in “social justice rhetoric and community-centered composition,” per reporting on his public professional pages.
The Kirkiversary comment was not an isolated lapse, according to The College Fix and American Thinker, which both reviewed Goldman’s public Instagram activity. After the December 2024 killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, Goldman posted an image referencing the Mario character Luigi pointing a gun at Thompson, captioned “Let’s not pretend as if America isn’t the greatest country on earth” — widely read as gallows-humor approval of the killing. The College Fix also attributed a separate comment to Goldman stating “the only good ICE agent is a dead one.” This site has not independently verified every attributed comment beyond what the two outlets reported and screenshotted, and Goldman has not, as of publication, disputed any of them on the record.
Goldman is a data point in a wider pattern, not the whole of it — Shirley has separately drawn mockery and hostility from other public figures over his fraud reporting. What sets this comment apart is the combination of a public university paycheck, a documented prior pattern, and a punchline timed to the anniversary of an assassination.
The College Fix called UC Irvine’s media relations office and reached only a voicemail; a follow-up email to both UC Irvine and Chapman University went unanswered as of publication. Neither school has confirmed whether Goldman remains in the classroom, whether any review is underway, or whether it disputes the screenshots at all.
Chancellor: Howard Gillman — UC Irvine’s chief administrator since 2014, the official responsible for faculty conduct on campus.
UC Board of Regents Chair: Maria Anguiano — took the chair July 1, 2026, atop the governing board for every UC campus, including Irvine.
Governor of California: Gavin Newsom (D) — appoints the majority of UC Regents, making the state’s chief executive the ultimate line of accountability for a public university system funded by California taxpayers.
Chapman University President: Matt Parlow — Chapman is private and answers to its own board of trustees rather than an elected official, a real distinction from UC Irvine’s public accountability chain.
Legally, the comment sits in a familiar gray zone: no named act, no named perpetrator, no explicit call to violence — the kind of ambiguity that has protected similar comments from prosecution elsewhere on this site. No charges have been filed, and none have been publicly reported as under consideration. Goldman is entitled to the presumption of innocence in any legal proceeding. But a university’s employment decision is not a criminal proceeding, and critics argue “probably not chargeable” is a much lower bar than “fine for someone paid to teach undergraduates.”
For years the radical left has compared ordinary Americans and conservative students to Nazis and fascists. That rhetoric is directly connected to the political violence we have seen on college campuses — including the assassination of Charlie Kirk — and it has to stop.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Truth Social · President Trump on left-wing political-violence rhetoric after the Charlie Kirk assassination (paraphrase; not a response to this incident)
Strip away the euphemism and the record is plain. A public university instructor with a documented history of cheering political violence wrote, under his own name, that “someone can do the funniest thing” to a specific 24-year-old journalist — in the same week the country marks one year since a conservative activist was shot dead addressing a campus crowd. Shirley had already been told once, in December, that he’d be “Kirked.” This is the second time the same fate has been dangled at him in public, this time by a man two universities pay to stand in front of students.
One year after Charlie's assassination, campuses across the country are still hosting conservative speakers who need private security just to show up. That should shame every administrator who stays silent when a faculty member jokes about who's next.
Paraphrased commentary · not a verbatim post
Truth Social · Turning Point USA on campus safety for conservative speakers around the Kirk anniversary (paraphrase; not a response to this incident)
Whether Shirley’s own reporting holds up story by story is a separate question this site has not adjudicated here. What is documented is narrower and does not depend on the answer: the comment, the commenter’s employer, his prior public record, and two universities that, as of publication, have chosen to say nothing at all.
