In the two days since conservative activist Charlie Kirk was assassinated, social media reactions have ranged from the sorrowful—grief, condemnation, and offering prayers—to the crassest expressions of celebration from online critics.
Teachers have been among those who are alleged to have posted controversial and inflammatory comments about Kirk—prompting widespread doxxing, disciplinary actions in several states, and warnings from state officials to educators about inappropriate online statements.
The resulting firestorm has raised questions of teachers’ online speech rights and responsibilities during emotionally charged and politically divisive events.
Kirk, 31, a co-founder and executive director of the conservative organization Turning Point USA, was shot Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University and died later that day. A close ally of President Donald Trump, Kirk is credited with bringing conservatism to younger generations—his “prove me wrong” debates with college students about politics often went viral on social media platforms and helped him build a massive following. Kirk also had a history of making inflammatory comments about marginalized groups.
National teachers’ union leaders condemned Kirk’s killing, calling it “antithetical to how we should do things in our American democracy.”
But teachers in California, Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas have been fired or placed on leave ahead of investigations into alleged social media comments critiquing Kirk and implying approval of Kirk’s death.
Educators’ posts in Miami, Fla., and Cecil County, Md., for instance, suggested Kirk’s death was “karma” for his controversial stances particularly on gun use, drawing quick backlash and investigations. An Iowa high school teacher was put on leave after his superintendent said he allegedly posted “1 Nazi down” on Facebook in reference to Kirk’s killing.
The ensuing backlash against these types of posts have led to spiraling security concerns for schools. Lancaster, Pa., public schools disabled comments on its Facebook account Thursday following outrage over a teacher’s alleged post.
In Massachusetts, Wachusett Regional school district Superintendent James Reilly announced the district had asked for additional police patrols on its campuses after a teacher was accused of making “inappropriate comments on her personal social media page.” In a letter posted on the district’s web page, Reilly said the teacher was under investigation and barred from campus, adding that “political violence, especially, has no place in our country, and it directly contradicts our nation’s founding principles.”
While the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark 1968 decision Pickering v. Board of Education ruled that teachers and other public school employees retain their First Amendment rights to comment or reflect on issues of public concern or debate, they can be censured for speech that is so inflammatory it interferes with their effectiveness as public workers.
“Celebrating the assassination of a 31-year-old father of two young kids is disturbing,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis posted on X. “That teachers would be among those who do so is completely unacceptable.”
In a letter to school districts Sept. 11, Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas pledged to investigate every educator who posted “despicable comments” related to Kirk’s murder, and warned that educators’ First Amendment rights “do not extend without limit into their professional duties.”
“An educator’s personal views that are made public may undermine the trust of the students and families that they serve,” Kamoutsas wrote. “Florida law allows the Commissioner to find probable cause to discipline an educator who, ‘upon investigation, has been found guilty of personal conduct that seriously reduces that person’s effectiveness as an employee of the district school board.’”
On Friday, authorities arrested a 22-year-old suspect in the shooting.
On the same day as Kirk’s assassination, two teenage boys were shot and injured at a high school in Colorado—the ninth school shooting of 2025. School districts have been the sites of an unceasing number of fatal shootings over the years. Since 2018, there have been 230 school shootings in which at least one person was killed or injured, according to an Education Week tracker.
Some of the online postings by Kirk’s critics have been directed at his support of gun rights. The conservative activist had argued that increased access to firearms would increase public safety, including for children.
Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar estimates at least eight educators in the state are being investigated for alleged comments or social media posts. Spar said the union is encouraging teachers to be aware of their roles in the community.
“Social media is not a place where we talk with friends. It’s a place where we’re talking to a very broad public audience,” Spar told Education Week. “I think this calls for a time where we need to let calm prevail, and we need to remember that what we do as a union and as educators is bring people together.”
But Spar said he was “quite concerned with the tone and tenor being spewed at educators.” Educators have been threatened or doxxed, and official calls to investigate teachers’ speech, he said, strike a “very accusatory and threatening tone.”
Online identification campaigns target teachers
Campaigns to find potentially negative comments and posts about Kirk and dox their makers have taken root online.
Scott Pressler, founder of Early Vote Action, a conservative voter registration group, sent out a call on the social platform X for reports of teachers’ reactions to Kirk’s murder, posting: “Inbox filling. Keep them coming. Pouring over teacher after teacher. Will not stop.”
A broader site, “Expose Charlie’s Murderers,” requested the names, profiles, and identifying information of students or employees “supporting political violence online” and pledged to create a searchable database.
Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters also urged the public to report potentially offensive posts from teachers to the state’s Awareity Reporting System, generally used for reporting cyberbullying, fraud, and professional misconduct.
Walters announced in a video that he had “received countless emails and messages of teachers celebrating, glorifying this assassination. … Any teacher that glorifies the assassination of the hero Charlie Kirk will have their teachers licenses taken from them, and they will never be back in an Oklahoma classroom.”
At least one Oklahoma City teacher has been reportedly fired over “callous” comments about the assassination, which have since been removed.
Broad official or private investigations into teachers’ speech outside the classroom, however, could put teachers at risk of violence and make it harder for them to teach, union leaders said.
“Teachers have been under an incredible amount of stress in Florida when it comes to talking about and discussing current events,” Spar said. “It is nearly impossible for teachers to discuss current events in our schools now, under the current laws and rules and threats that they operate under every day.”
