(CNN) -- Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell -- who for nearly six months has blogged about an openly gay college student -- has taken a voluntary leave of absence, the state's attorney general's office confirmed to CNN Friday. The office does not know the length of Shirvell's leave, but says that it will hold a disciplinary hearing upon his return. Earlier this week, Attorney General Mike Cox defended his assistant's constitutional right to wage the internet campaign against Chris Armstrong, even though he said he considers Shirvell a "bully." "Here in America, we have this thing called the First Amendment, which allows people to express what they think and engage in political and social speech," Cox told Anderson Cooper on CNN's "AC 360" on Wednesday night. "He's clearly a bully ... but is that protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution? Yes."
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NEW: University of Michigan won't allow blogger on campus
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Michigan assistant attorney general takes leave of absence
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He's been under fire for blogging about gay college student
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Attorney general previously defended Andrew Shirvell's right to blog on own time
"Mr. [@placeholder] Shirvell is sort of a frontline grunt assistant prosecutor in my office," Cox said.
Among other things, Shirvell has published blog posts that accuse Armstrong of going back on a campaign promise he made to minority students; engaging in "flagrant sexual promiscuity" with another male member of the student government; sexually seducing and influencing "a previously conservative [male] student" so much so that the student, according to @placeholder, "morphed into a proponent of the radical homosexual agenda;" hosting a gay orgy in his dorm room in October 2009; and trying to recruit incoming first-year students "to join the homosexual 'lifestyle.'
In a written statement from his office on Tuesday, @placeholder distanced his office from Shirvell's comments.