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Luigi Mangione, the suspect in the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, is an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania. Julia Alekseyeva, an assistant professor of English, Cinema, and Media Studies at the university, went viral earlier this week, after she made several social media posts praising Luigi Mangione.
Taking to a TikTok video on December 9 via her account @thesoviette, Alekseyeva was seen moving her finger to the beat of the revolutionary anthem, Do You Hear the People Sing from the soundtrack of the 1985 movie, Les Miserables. It’s about downtrodden soldiers rising up in a battle. The video was headlined:
“Have never been prouder to be a professor at the University of P3nnsylvania.”
While Julia didn’t mention Luigi Mangione in her TikTok video, users online speculated it was meant as praise for the accused. Before this, Alekseyeva also shared back-to-back Instagram Stories related to Luigi Mangione’s case.
In one, she wrote that the UPenn alumnus was the “icon we all need and deserve,” after resharing 34th Street Magazine’s post about Luigi Mangione reportedly being bisexual. In the follow-up Story, she reposted a Reductress news clip featuring Luigi Mangione and headlined, “Man engages in beautiful Italian-American tradition of taking matters into his own hands.”
Amid all these now-viral posts, Julia Alekseyeva faced mass backlash with netizens calling for her to get fired from her job. Here are some of them from the social networking site X.
“She has to be fired - does the University of Pennsylvania condone these values and does it represent their institution? Absolutely horrible in such a tragic situation where a person lost his life and she is celebrating,” a netizen wrote.
“Hopefully an ex-professor soon,” another netizen wrote.
“This needs to be boosted to get this individual fired,” a person wrote.
“This is what is teaching our youth... AND we are paying for it… @PennEnglish @penn_state you need to rethink this. I feel like you have donors and alumni that will not want to be supporters of this. The fact that this professor is blatantly professing this garbage indicates that she feels safe in her position...even more worrisome,” another person wrote.
“She needs to be fired,” a user wrote.
“How is that accepted in any form of decent society?” another user asked.
Julia Alekseyeva has since removed her viral TikTok post as well as her account and her Instagram has been turned private.
All you need to know about Julia Alekseyeva in the wake of her Luigi Mangione apparent praise
According to her website, Dr. Julia Alekseyeva is “a multi-modal scholar of media, film, and culture specializing in the interactions between global media and radical leftist politics." She was born in Kyiv in the former USSR, and later moved to the USA, Uptown Chicago as a girl.
She is primarily an assistant professor of English at UPenn but also teaches Cinema and Media Studies combined with history, theory, and media production. Julia’s specialty lies in film and media production of Japan, France, and the former Soviet Union.
A self-defined “socialist and ardent antifascist” she has been the co-head of workshops on theories including antifascism and abolition, grassroots comics creation, and political artmaking. Additionally, Alekseyeva is an author, illustrator, and graphic artist, focusing on non-fiction narratives, comics journalism, and memoirs.
In January 2017, she published a graphic novel cum non-fiction historical memoir titled, Soviet Daughter: A Graphic Revolution for which she won that year’s VLA Diversity Award in the adult category. She has also published non-fiction graphic essays in peer-reviewed journals and book anthologies. Her works have also been featured on Bloomberg Business, NPR, The New York Times, and Reuters among others.
Her debut academic book, Antifascism and the Avant-Garde: Radical Documentary in the 1960s, will be published in February 2025. Apart from UPenn, she has also previously taught at Brooklyn College, the Feirstein Graduate School of Cinema, and Harvard University. This year, she won the Dean’s Distinguished Teaching Award as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
Julia Alekseyeva also enjoys road trips, hiking, deejaying at silent discos, contemporary dance, and playing percussion instruments. She is the owner of a Pyrenees-Husky rescue mutt named Akiva the Wise.
Julia Alekseyeva has apologized amid mass backlash
On December 10, Julia Alekseyeva took to X and issued an apology after facing online criticism for her apparent praise of Luigi Mangione.
“Late last night I posted a TikTok, as well as several stories on my Instagram. These were completely insensitive and inappropriate, and I retract them wholly. I do not condone violence and I am genuinely regretful of any harm the posts have caused,” she wrote.
Meanwhile, as per USA Today, Jeffrey Kallberg, the deputy dean of the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Arts and Sciences, called Alekseyeva’s comments “antithetical to the values” of the institution.
“Upon reflection, Assistant Professor Alekseyeva has concurred that the comments were insensitive and inappropriate and has retracted them. We welcome this correction and regret any dismay or concern this may have caused,” Kallberg stated.
So far, it remains unknown whether UPenn is considering disciplinary action against Julia Alekseyeva.
Luigi Mangione attended the University of Pennsylvania from 2016 to 2020 and graduated magna cum laude with a combined bachelor’s and master’s degree in computer engineering and information science. During his time at the Ivy League school, the 26-year-old was a member of the Phi Kappa Psi Fraternity. Luigi Mangione also founded a video game development club and worked as a teaching assistant for an undergraduate class during his time at the university.
On December 9, after five days of manhunt, Luigi Mangione was arrested at a McDonald’s store in Altoona, Pennsylvania as a “strong person of interest” in the killing of Brian Thompson. He is facing five felony charges in the state, alongside a second-degree murder charge, three counts of weapons possession, and one count of forgery in New York.
The UnitedHealthcare CEO was on his way to an investor’s meeting on the morning of December 4, when he was fatally shot multiple times in front of the Hilton Hotel in midtown Manhattan. He was later pronounced dead at the Mount Sinai West Hospital and was laid to rest in a private funeral earlier this week. Brian Thompson, 50, is survived by his wife Paulette and two sons.
