State educators’ first amendment rights face test in wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing 

The district put the teacher — whose name EdSource has not independently confirmed — on administrative leave, according to a statement. A week later, parents, students and even fellow teachers spoke out against the teacher at the Pacheco Union School District’s board meeting. One teacher told the school board she had kept her children home from school because of the teacher’s postings. “He should not be able to teach at this school,” one student told the board, according to a stream on local TV station KRCR.

Since Kirk was killed last month, at least six people who work in California’s public colleges and universities and 20 who work in TK-12 schools have faced calls to be fired for statements made either on social media during their free time or in classrooms with students. It has been an extraordinary moment that is testing the limits of free speech for educators.

Educators with a wide range of beliefs have long come under scrutiny for speech made online and in classrooms. But in the weeks since Kirk’s death, Republican politicians have added their voices to calls for employees to be fired. U.S. Vice President JD Vance, who, as a guest host of The Charlie Kirk Show, told listeners, “When you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out, and hell, call their employer.”

These comments have fueled actions taken against teachers and other school officials at the local level across the country, said Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), a national First Amendment advocacy group that provides legal help to those who believe their free speech rights are under attack. “It’s a little overwhelming,” he said.

“We’re seeing a tidal wave of investigations for what they’ve said about Charlie Kirk and his assassination — and politicians are amplifying it,” Terr said. “The boundaries of what can’t be said keep expanding.”

Teachers in conservative areas seeing more scrutiny

With few exceptions, teachers and college staff or faculty targeted in California have been largely in more conservative counties of the state like Shasta, Tulare, Fresno, Mariposa and Placer.

Some of these educators have been put on leave, investigated and even terminated for their comments made in the wake of Kirk’s death. Those affected have mostly not spoken publicly or responded to requests for comment from the press. Many schools or colleges, declining to share personnel details, have only confirmed investigations or disciplinary action with vague statements.

What is clear, according to First Amendment experts, is that educators have been facing increasing scrutiny for what they say — both on the job and off. Experts worry that educators’ First Amendment protections are waning under political pressure.

“Giving the government this power to decide which speech is too offensive to utter will always be weaponized against individuals that government officials disagree with,” Terr said.

FIRE recently sent a letter to Fresno State University, demanding an investigation against a lecturer be dropped. Before Kirk’s death was confirmed, the lecturer reportedly told a student, “You want to know what I think? It’s too bad he’s not dead.” Even if this comment is considered “poorly timed, tasteless, inappropriate, or controversial,” it is constitutionally protected speech, the letter said.

“What’s crucial to remember in this moment is that the First Amendment protects speech that most of us find deeply offensive,” Terr said. “You don’t need the First Amendment to discuss the weather.”

One high-profile case is in Los Angeles involving Johnathan Perkins, UCLA’s director of race and equity. He is on administrative leave for his posts about Kirk made on his private Bluesky account, he confirmed in a statement.

Perkins sees himself as being in the crosshairs of President Donald Trump’s supporters in more ways than one: UCLA has been a major target of Trump. His administration attempted to withhold over $1 billion in federal funds from the institution unless the university drastically overhauls its diversity, equity and inclusion policies — the very area where Perkins serves as a college administrator. And Perkins says he is one of the “vanishingly few Black professionals working within higher ed leadership.”

“Amidst violent death threats, multiple of these Kirk fans gleefully bragged that I’d soon be fired,” Perkins said in a statement to EdSource. “Sadly, those of us who speak out and teach about race and racism openly and plainly, are faced with racist threats regularly.”

Data about these complaints and actions against teachers, professors and other educators is not immediately available. But educators in states with Republican majorities may face more scrutiny.

The Texas Education Agency has been investigating complaints against K-12 teachers. Gov. Greg Abbott wrote on the platform X that more than 100 teachers accused of making inappropriate comments about Kirk will “have their teacher certification suspended and be ineligible to teach in a Texas public school.”

The California Department of Education said it is not conducting any investigations of its educators at the state level.

“Personnel matters, including disciplinary actions, are overseen by the respective Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) and are not the purview of the California Department of Education,” said CDE spokesperson Scott Roark.

Social media brings off-duty speech to the classroom

The First Amendment largely protects the right of public employees — which includes staff at both public higher education and K-12 institutions — to speak on matters of public concern, especially when they are not on the clock, said Alex Morey, a First Amendment specialist with the advocacy group Freedom Forum.

But there are legal limits. Teachers can lose their cases when schools claim that an educator’s speech is disruptive, a claim that is becoming more common, Morey said.

The legal bar for what is considered disruptive is high, Terr said. It can’t just be a handful of angry comments or many angry calls from outside the community, which Terr calls a “heckler’s veto.”

Social media has made it easier for bosses and school communities to learn what educators say, Morey said.

“It was the weekend; they’re a hundred miles away; and yet someone’s screen-grabbing and someone’s taking a video; it’s getting on @LibsofTikTok and it’s going viral,” Morey said. “And then all a school needs to do is say, ‘This disrupted the school’ and courts more often than not, are siding with the school.”

That X account Morey mentioned, @LibsOfTikTok, has a long history of amplifying right-wing criticism of progressives and liberals, especially educators, to its 4 million followers. In the days after Kirk’s death, it broadcast a near-constant stream of accusations that individual educators, among other employees, were celebrating Kirk’s death and condoning violence.

Terr takes issue with the characterization that all the educators being targeted are actually celebrating Kirk’s death or condoning political violence. He says many educators are facing discipline for merely pushing back on political praise of Kirk or criticizing views they find abhorrent.

“The problem is that many political leaders are throwing this speech into the same bucket,” Terr said. “They need to be looked at on a case-by-case basis.”

Jonathan Zachreson, a school board member for the Roseville City School District, is a fan of Kirk. He said that the political views of a teacher shouldn’t play a role in deciding whether what they said has crossed a line.

“We should try to be as objective as possible,” he said.

Zachreson said he believes that something said among friends or a private social media account shouldn’t be viewed in the same context as something stated in a classroom or a public social media account that many parents or students follow. And a teacher simply stating that they don’t share someone’s political beliefs is not the same as calling for their assassination, Zachreson said. The way remarks land in a community should be considered, too.

He adds that the public may not always understand what is happening as school leaders make personnel decisions. One off-color or offensive comment may highlight a part of a broader pattern that school leaders consider problematic, he said.

@LibsOfTikTok posted the screenshots that circulated among the Pacheco Elementary School community in Shasta County of a supposed educator commenting about Kirk.

Pacheco Union school board President Gary Wold said that the district, which has fewer than 800 students, had received over 100 calls complaining about the educator. He called on speakers during the board’s public comment to use appropriate language, saying most of those calls “used fairly vulgar language, were not very polite, and our employees don’t need to be treated that way.”

The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office released a statement saying it planned to increase law enforcement presence at the school because parents, staff and students have been “understandably concerned about safety.”

@LibsOfTikTok also reposted screenshots of comments alleged to have been posted by a teacher at Silverado Middle School in the Dry Creek Joint Elementary School District in Roseville. The school principal called the post “disappointing and concerning” in a letter to families, and the district confirmed that a staff member was on leave.

In another post, the account called on Sacramento State to comment on a “witchy queer professor,” which it said appears to celebrate Kirk’s death.

The official X account for Sacramento State replied directly to @LibsOfTikTok, saying the university condemns any endorsement of political violence. “We take reports of our professors violating these values and our Honor Code seriously and are conducting a review of any allegations.”

Professors typically enjoy the broadest protections of the First Amendment thanks to the recognition that college campuses are supposed to have conversations about topics that are controversial.

“A college campus is a place where we want people to have the ability to get into the heart of the problem without being accused or found liable of committing some kind of speech crime or thought crime,” Morey said.

But that may be changing. College of the Sequoias’ spokesperson Lauren Fishback told the Visalia Times Delta that a part-time instructor at the college was fired after students complained about his “off-color inappropriate comments” related to Kirk’s death.