Updated (4/12/2017, 3:02 p.m.) with statement from Fresno State’s president.
A lecturer at California State University at Fresno who tweeted that “Trump must hang” has apologized for the statement and deleted his Twitter account.
The instructor, Lars Maischak, acted after the president of Fresno State, Joseph I. Castro, condemned the tweet and said the university would participate in any federal investigation of the incident. Earlier this week Mr. Maischak said his message had been taken out of context, but he stopped short of apologizing.
But in an email on Wednesday to The Chronicle, Mr. Maischak wrote that he did not intend to harm anyone with his messages, and that he had sought forgiveness from people “who felt threatened or offended by them.”
“With 28 followers on Twitter at the time, I never expected them to be read by anyone but a close circle of acquaintances who would know to place them in their context,” he wrote. “To treat Twitter as of no more consequence than a journal was a poor decision.”
Mr. Maischak’s tweets, originally posted in February, ignited a firestorm after a writer for Breitbart News featured them in an article last weekend. Thousands of people have since responded with tweets and emails calling for Mr. Maischak to be fired, deported, or killed.
Mr. Maischak said that it felt good at the time to write the tweets, though he said he had since deleted the account to prevent his statements from being taken “as encouragement to act violently or unlawfully.”
“In this spirit,” Mr. Maischak wrote, “I am prepared to take full responsibility for my statements.”
Mr. Castro said he appreciated Mr. Maischak’s apology and willingness to take responsibility for his statements. The university’s review of the incident continues, he said.
“As previously stated, the university takes this matter seriously and is handling it in accordance with applicable law, policy, and the requirements of the faculty collective-bargaining-unit agreement,” Mr. Castro said.
