The American Federation of Teachers has filed suit against the Texas Education Agency for investigating and encouraging the firing of teachers for their social media posts about Charlie Kirk.
After Kirk’s murder during a speaking engagement on a university campus in Utah in September, conservatives immediately lionized him and called him a martyr. Others pointed out his record of unvarnished support for the MAGA movement mixed with Christian nationalism and disdain for women and Black people.
Suddenly, a rash of public school teachers who made comments about Kirk on social media were being investigated not only by their own school districts but in Texas by the state agency that oversees public education.
The TEA reported 350 complaints against teachers for such posts. BNG previously reported on one example of an Amarillo, Texas, theater teacher who was fired. In California, at least 20 teachers were known to face disciplinary action for their personal comments about Kirk.
Education Week reported teachers in California, Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon and Texas were fired or placed on leave due to investigations into alleged social media comments critiquing Kirk.
The lawsuit filed by the AFT against Texas leaders Jan. 6 alleges the First Amendment rights of hundreds of educators were violated by TEA’s investigations and intimidation.
TEA “unleashed a wave of retaliation and disciplinary actions against teachers,” according to the AFT, which says the investigations were the result of an “impermissibly vague, overbroad” policy that tramples free speech rights.
“Somewhere and somehow, our state’s leaders lost their way,” said Zeph Capo, president of Texas AFT. “A few well-placed Texas politicians and bureaucrats think it is good for their careers to trample on educators’ free speech rights. They decided scoring a few cheap points was worth the unfair discipline, the doxxing and the death threats targeted at Texas teachers. Meanwhile, educators and their families are afraid that they’ll lose everything: their livelihoods, their reputations, and their very purpose for being, which is to impart critical thinking.”
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.