A Fresno State professor who came under fire last week for cheering the death of former first lady Barbara Bush was lauded at a local literary festival this weekend.

English Professor Randa Jarrar was scheduled to headline LitHop, but had to pull out a few days before the festival due to the scandal surrounding her comments. She has since left the country and is currently on leave for the semester (her Twitter says she's in Tunisia).

Nonetheless, every time her name was read during the festival this weekend, attendees applauded, The Fresno Bee reports.

'I support Randa Jarrar's free speech and I also denounce any violence against her or threats of violence against anyone else,' Lee Herrick, founder of LitHop, said during the event on Saturday.

Just an hour after Barbara Bush's (right) death was announced Tuesday evening, Fresno State Professor Randa Jarrar (left) wrote a tweet celebrating her passing

The scandal surrounding Jarrar's comments caused her to pull out of a literary festival on Saturday (one of the festival's events pictured above)

The festival's director, Juan Luis Guzman, said he saw 'a lot of people' in the community 'showing their love and support for Randa' after she was widely criticized online.

One of the event's performers, poet Carmen Giménez Smith, dedicated a poem to Jarrar. She said Jarrar is a writer who expresses her freedom through literature.

Jarrar has also received support from her fellow Fresno State faculty and multiple advocacy groups.

Lars Maischak, a history lecturer who was demoted last year after posting a tweet saying 'Trump must hang' said last Wednesday that the university failed to stand up to the 'fascist threat to adademic freedom' by not supporting Jarrar.

Jarrar was applauded every time her name was brought up at the literary festival this weekend. Above, the tweets that caused controversy last week

Adam Steinbaugh, senior program officer for the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, toldFox News that Jarrar's 'tweets are unquestionably protected speech under the First Amendment and Fresno State has no power to censor, punish, or terminate Jarrar for them'.

While Jarrar has tenure and tweeted that she can't be fired, the university is still investigating the matter, and tenure experts say she is not completely protected.

In a press conference last Wednesday, Fresno State President Joseph I. Castro said he couldn't discuss the specific's of Jarrar's case but said officials would review the facts and the collective bargaining agreement.

'A professor with tenure does not have blanket protection to say and do what they wish,' Castro said. 'We are all held accountable for our actions.'

Gregory Scholtz, director of the Depratment of Academic Freedom, Tenure and Governance of the Americna Association of University Professors told The Mercury News that it's actually a 'common misconception that academic freedom is absolute'.

University president Joseph Castro released a statement, apologizing for the remarks, and making a point to add that the English professor's comments were made as a 'private citizen'

He said a university can fire a professor if their speech raises 'grave doubts' about their fitness for their position.

'A faculty member can be accused of unethical conduct or can be accused of incompetence,' Scholtz said.

The professor has been under intense criticism after she posted on Twitter that Barbara Bush was an 'amazing racist' following news that the former first lady had passed on Tuesday.

'Barbara Bush was a generous and smart and amazing racist who, along with her husband, raised a war criminal,' Jarrar wrote.

University officials received a link on Friday from Altrightnews that showed a compilation of Jarrar's other controversial comments

In the clip, Randa Jarrar is seen talking about Fresno's agriculture industry where she states: 'a lot of the farmers now are Trump supporters and just f---ing stupid'

On her now private Twitter, Jarrar was unbothered by the video compilation and actually called the clips of her speaking 'iconic'

'PSA: either you are against these pieces of s*** and their genocidal ways or you're part of the problem,' Jarrar added in her viral rant.

'That's actually how simple this is. I'm happy the witch is dead. Can't wait for the rest of her family to fall to their demise the way 1.5 million Iraqis have.'

Following Jarrar's Twitter storm, a video surfaced from an alt-right group, showing a compilation of Jarrar's controversial statements in interviews and speeches.

In the clip, Jarrar is seen talking about Fresno's agriculture industry where she states: 'a lot of the farmers now are Trump supporters and just f***ing stupid.'

Jarrar, a Muslim, was born in Chicago but grew up in Kuwait and Egypt, before returning to the U.S. after the first Gulf War.

Her writing has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, Salon.com, The Rumpus, the Utne Reader, The Oxford American.

She is the author of two books, the coming of age novel 'A Map of Home' and a story collection - 'Him, Me, Muhammad Ali'