{"id":408144,"date":"2026-09-23T11:38:27","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/408144\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T11:38:27","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T11:38:27","slug":"administrative-judge-sides-with-florida-teacher-punished-for-charlie-kirk-facebook-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/408144\/","title":{"rendered":"Administrative judge sides with Florida teacher punished for Charlie Kirk Facebook post"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CharlieCharlie Kirk Credit: Sua Sponte Photography\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/p>\n

The state should drop charges, including an allegation of gross immorality, against a Duval County teacher who posted about Charlie Kirk after he was killed, an administrative law judge has recommended.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The decision<\/a> came last week, addressing charges against Hope McMath, who was an advanced placement art history teacher at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, a magnet high school in Jacksonville, when Kirk was killed in Utah in September 2025.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Her Facebook post positioned the shooting as \u201cKarma,\u201d referring to Kirk\u2019s comment, \u201cI think it\u2019s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe.\u201d<\/p>\n

Additionally, according to the state, she \u201cposted or reposted an artist\u2019s rendition of an individual holding the screaming severed head of what clearly is intended to represent the President of the United States, Donald Trump.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even so, Administrative Law Judge Garnett Chisenhall wrote that the state provided \u201cno competent, substantial evidence that the social media postings at issue impaired Ms. McMath\u2019s service in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe social media postings did not reflect any use, attempted use, or threatened use of violence by Ms. McMath,\u201d the judge wrote, adding that the state \u201chas not argued that Ms. McMath\u2019s post was a legitimate threat to sever President Trump\u2019s head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chisenhall recommended the Education Practices Commission dismiss the charges against McMath, which include gross immorality, personal conduct that seriously reduces effectiveness of an employee, violating the principles of professional conduct required by the Florida Board of Education, reasonably protecting students from conditions harmful to learning, and taking responsible precautions to distinguish between personal views and those of the institution.<\/p>\n

Also in September 2025, the school board adopted a policy establishing that an employee\u2019s \u201cinappropriate or unbecoming Material on publicly accessible websites\u201d \u201chas the potential to disrupt the educational process, damage the reputations of the District, it\u2019s [sic] teachers and staff, damages the District\u2019s reputation and stature, and subject the District, its teachers and employees to ridicule.\u201d<\/p>\n

McMath\u2019s post did none of that, Chisenhall concluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn short, there is no evidence indicating that anyone could reasonably conclude that Ms. McMath\u2019s sentiments were shared by her employers,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

\u2018I was not celebrating\u2019<\/p>\n

The district issued McMath \u201ca verbal warning\u201d with \u201ccoaching\/counseling,\u201d and \u201ca temporary reassignment to the School District\u2019s Art Resource Center with no teaching duties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was not celebrating, and the language in that post and the intention behind that post was not celebratory,\u201d McMath said during the proceedings, per the court record. She didn\u2019t post the comments while on the clock at school.<\/p>\n

A district investigation did not determine McMath had disrupted district operations. Furthermore, the evidence shows no teacher, administrator, or student complained, and no student viewed the social media posts.<\/p>\n

According to the principal at the school, \u201cThe content of the posts never came up at the school. Students weren\u2019t talking about it. Teachers weren\u2019t talking about it. Parents weren\u2019t talking about it. They were aware because it was in the news, but nobody ever brought it up as far as a concern of her being in front of their children.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shortly after Kirk\u2019s killing, then-Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas wrote a letter to school superintendents statewide, reminding them that he has the power to discipline educators and sanction their certificates for probable cause, including \u201cpersonal conduct that seriously reduces that person\u2019s effectiveness as an employee of the district school board.\u201d<\/p>\n

McMath, according to the court record, has not been in the classroom since the incident.<\/p>\n

\u201cContent that trivializes a homicide and that generally depicts the decapitation of a national figure is a condition harmful to learning and to the mental health of the adolescent students who encounter it,\u201d the state argued.<\/p>\n

Chisenhall said he has seen no \u201cpersuasive explanation for why\u201d McMath was reassigned away from students.<\/p>\n

Federal lawsuit<\/p>\n

McMath is plaintiff in a federal lawsuit<\/a>\u00a0against the Duval County school district, Florida Department of Education, and Moms for Liberty and its Duval chapter. \u201cWhile not state entities, they are in some way managed, run or have significant influence on the individual Defendants herein,\u201d that complaint says of the organization.<\/p>\n

In that suit, she alleges retaliation, content and viewpoint discrimination, malicious prosecution, defamation, and tortious interference.<\/p>\n

In May, the state settled<\/a> with a state-employed biologist fired after posting about Charlie Kirk after his killing. The state owes half-a-million dollars to the now-former state employee.<\/p>\n

Florida Phoenix<\/a> is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Florida Phoenix maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Michael Moline for questions: [email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This article appears in Sept. 17 \u2013 23, 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlie Kirk Credit: Sua Sponte Photography\/Shutterstock The state should drop charges, including an allegation of gross immorality, against…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408145,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[407,31134,162123,135,137,136],"class_list":["post-408144","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-charlie-kirk","tag-florida-education","tag-florida-teachers","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408144"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408144\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408145"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}