The Texas Teachers Union filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Education on Tuesday, accusing it of waging an inappropriate “retaliation spree” against public school employees over their comments on social media in the wake of the assassination of a conservative political activist. Charlie Kirk.
The lawsuit says the free speech rights of teachers and other school employees were violated by the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner, Mike Morath, because they directed local school districts to document what the education agency called “vile content” posted online after Kirk was posted online. Deadly shot In September.
Despite calls for civility, some people who criticized Kirk after his assassination faced backlash from Republicans who saw them as insulting his honor. Which leads to shooting By universities, sports teams and media companies. Florida’s education commissioner also promised to investigate teachers for unacceptable comments.
The lawsuit says the Texas agency has received more than 350 complaints about individual teachers, and the agency said Tuesday that 95 investigations remain open.
Zev Capo, president of the American Federation of Teachers of Texas, argued that the state has clearly shown it is trying to police speech that disparages Morath because it has not provided similar guidance after mass shootings or other acts of violence, such as the killings of the actor and director. Rob Reiner.
“It was actually a witch hunt,” Capo said during a news conference in Austin.
The Education Agency said it could not comment “on outstanding legal matters”.
The lawsuit cites the cases of four unnamed teachers — one in the Houston area and three in the San Antonio area — who were investigated for social media posts critical of Kirk or reaction to his death. According to the lawsuit, the teacher from the Houston area has been fired, while the three teachers in the San Antonio area remain under investigation.
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 were not identified due to concerns about their safety.
The lawsuit comes less than a month after Texas Governor Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, both conservative Republicans, announced… Announced a partnership With Turning Point USA, Kirk founded the right-wing group to create chapters on every high school campus in the state.
The Associated Press sent emails seeking comment from the governor’s office and Turning Point USA, which were not named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Morath told school superintendents in a Sept. 12 letter that social media posts could violate the Texas teacher ethics code, and promised that “each case will be thoroughly investigated.”
The lawsuit says Morath’s letter represents a state policy that is too broad and too vague to be applied fairly and without suppressing free speech.
The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that agencies can restrict public employees’ speech if they are handling their official duties or if it could disrupt the workplace, but Randi Weingarten, the union’s national president, said neither of that is an issue in the Texas lawsuit.
“We are talking about school teachers when they are not in the classroom — in private, on their social media, commenting on an issue that everyone in the country and the world has seen,” she said during the press conference.
The lawsuit said none of their posts celebrated or promoted violence, which Morath said would not be protected speech.
Kirk was an unabashed Christian conservative and often made provocative statements about politics, sex, and race. He founded Turning Point USA in 2012 and built it into one of the largest political organizations in the country, shaping a generation of young people by taking… His conservative message To university campuses. He was shot during an appearance at a university in Utah.