The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is reportedly investigating more than 280 complaints against teachers accused of making inappropriate comments online about the conservative's assassination.
Sherry Sylvester, a senior fellow at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, says this dangerous mindset and rhetoric began somewhere.
"Higher education is the source of all this ideology," she submits. "That's where we've gotten DEI. That's where we've got the indoctrination of the country being divided between people who are oppressed and people who are oppressors. Universities are where we train our K-12 teachers."
TEA says any firings or other disciplinary actions would be at school districts' discretion, but commissioner Mike Morath is recommending the State Board for Educator Certification suspend the licenses of teachers who are disciplined.
"While all educators are held to a high standard of professionalism, there is a difference between comments made in poor taste and those that call for and incite further violence — the latter of which is clearly unacceptable," Morath said Monday.
In Klein, MASA Online reports a social studies teacher was fired for calling Kirk "racist, homophobic, a misogynist, transphobic nasty person."
In Goose Creek, a teacher is facing dismissal for suggesting Kirk's death was the "consequences of his actions."
Two educators – a band director and an elementary teacher – in the Wylie ISD resigned after making extreme remarks, one saying, "Hope he is roasting!"
At the Bilingual Education Institute in Houston, Sarah Rollwitz was terminated for her Instagram posts that criticized the public's reaction to Kirk's assassination. She claims her firing violated her rights, and she is considering legal action.
"The teachers' representatives have said that the state is trying to silence dissent," Sylvester relays. "There's no dissent in terms of violence. Violence is not OK. You can't suggest it's OK because this guy believed something you disagreed with."
A wrongful termination attorney points out that most employment in the U.S. is at-will, which means people can be fired for any lawful reason, including posts made on their personal social media accounts.
Limited circumstances allow a person to file a wrongful termination lawsuit, with eligibility depending on the specific content of the comments, whether the person worked for a public or private employer, and their state's laws.
Critics argue the TEA investigations may overstep constitutional boundaries, but as the U.S. Supreme Court decided in Pickering v. Board of Education, Garcetti v. Ceballos, and Connick v. Myers, public employees' free speech can be restricted if it disrupts the workplace, interferes with the school's mission, or impairs working relationships.
"It doesn't matter what [Kirk] stood for," Sylvesterc concludes. "It doesn't matter if you disagree with him. We don't shoot people in this country for their opinions."
