Texas Teachers Union Sues State Education Agency for Investigating Charlie Kirk Posts

By Jaden Edison, The Texas Tribune 

AUSTIN, TX — One of Texas' largest teacher unions wants a federal court to block Education Commissioner Mike Morath and the state education agency from investigating teachers accused of making inappropriate remarks about conservative activist Charlie Kirk's assassination on social media, saying the act violates legally protected speech.

A lawsuit the Texas American Federation of Teachers filed Jan. 6 argues that Morath “unleashed a wave of retaliation and disciplinary actions against teachers” when he urged school districts to report “reprehensible and inappropriate” content about Kirk’s killing last year.

Texas AFT also wants the court to require that Morath retract his policy calling on school leaders to report any instances of “inappropriate content” related to Kirk’s death posted to teachers’ social media accounts. The lawsuit also asks the judge to require that Morath issue new guidance making clear to superintendents that districts do not have to report such conduct to the state if the alleged speech is legally protected.

In a Sept. 15 statement, Morath said, “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.”

As of October, the Texas Education Agency was investigating more than 350 complaints that educators made inappropriate social media remarks about Charlie Kirk, the late conservative activist who was shot and killed while speaking at a Utah college.

Kirk founded Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit known mostly for its work on college campuses, where the organization promotes itself as a hub for open debate and urges students to “promote the principles of fiscal responsibility, free markets, and limited government.”

Morath sent a letter to district superintendents, saying he planned to refer “all documentation of educators that have proliferated such vile content” to his agency’s investigations unit. The investigators will determine if the content violates Texas educators’ code of ethics and whether it warrants disciplinary action, Morath added.

Morath and Gov. Greg Abbott have said that teachers whose actions called for or incited violence would have their teaching license suspended by the State Board for Educator Certification. Morath also called on school leaders to report additional instances of alleged misconduct related to Kirk’s killing to the education agency, which has typically conducted such investigations for acts like abuse or harassment.

The education agency has not released details about what the hundreds of complaints allege. The Texas Attorney General’s Office said the agency does not have to provide records of the complaints.

Many school districts have responded to complaints with statements condemning what administrators have described as hateful rhetoric and suspending or firing employees whose comments they felt violated their local codes of conduct.

The union cites the cases of four members who it believes faced unfair disciplinary action for private social media remarks related to Kirk’s death. Those actions include termination, being subjected to investigations, or having their employment records negatively marked.

In each of those cases, the teachers faced discipline “solely for their speech, without any regard to whether the posts disrupted school operations in any way,” according to the complaint.

The lawsuit describes Morath’s letter asking superintendents to report inappropriate social media posts as “vague” and “overbroad” because it does not ask school leaders to evaluate such posts’ impact on the school environment.

During a November event at the University of Texas at Austin, Morath said that while districts had taken action at their discretion on some complaints, the agency had not yet disciplined any educators.

“Some of those complaints are clearly people that are personally settling scores with others they don’t like, and those cases will just get closed,” Morath said. “The ones that we’re going after, from an enforcement perspective, are very clearly violations of the educator code of conduct."