A Texas teachers union sued the state’s education department on Tuesday, accusing the department of inappropriate “retaliation” for public school employees’ comments on social media following the assassination of a conservative political activist. Charlie Kirk.
The lawsuit alleges that the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner, Mike Moraes, violated the free speech rights of teachers and other school staff when they directed local school districts to document content Kirk posted online after what the education agency called “malicious content.” shot to death September.
Despite calls for civility, some of Kirk’s critics after his assassination faced backlash from Republicans who felt they had insulted him, result in dismissal Universities, sports teams and media companies. Florida’s education commissioner also promised to investigate teachers’ inappropriate comments.
The Texas agency has received more than 350 complaints against individual educators, the lawsuit said, and the agency said Tuesday that 95 investigations remain open.
Zeev Capo, president of the American Federation of Teachers in Texas, claimed the state made it clear it was trying to regulate speech that offended Moraes because it had not issued similar directives after mass shootings or other violent incidents, such as the killing of a casting director. Rob Reiner.
“This is essentially a witch hunt,” Capo said at a news conference in Austin.
The educational institution said it could not comment on “pending legal matters.”
The lawsuit cites the cases of four unnamed teachers — one in the Houston area and three in the San Antonio area — who are under investigation for their social media criticism of Kirk or their reactions to his death. One Houston-area teacher was fired, while three San Antonio-area teachers remain under investigation, according to the lawsuit.
Texas AFT, which represents about 66,000 teachers and other school employees, filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Austin. Capo said the four teachers spoke on condition of anonymity out of concern for their safety.
The lawsuit comes less than a month after Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both conservative Republicans, Announcing a partnership Join Turning Point USA, a right-wing group founded by Kirk, to establish chapters on every high school campus in the state.
The AP sent emails to the governor’s office and Turning Point USA seeking comment, but the company is not named as a defendant in the lawsuit.
Moraes told school leaders in a Sept. 12 letter that the social media posts may violate the Texas Educators Code of Ethics and promised that “every incident will be thoroughly investigated.”
The lawsuit claims that Moraes’ letter represents a state policy that is too broad and vague and cannot be fairly enforced without suppressing protected speech.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that agencies can limit the speech of public employees if the speech involves official business or could disrupt the workplace, but Randi Weingarten, the union’s national president, said neither issue was an issue in the Texas lawsuit.
“We’re talking about school teachers when they’re not in the classroom – privately, on their own social media, commenting on things that everyone in the country and around the world is seeing,” she told a news conference.
The lawsuit says none of their posts glorified or promoted violence, and Moraes said violent speech is not protected.
Kirk is an unabashed Christian conservative who often makes provocative statements about politics, gender and race. He founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and built it into one of the largest political organizations in the United States, through his conservative message Enter a college campus. He was shot and killed while showing up at a Utah college.