{"id":113924,"date":"2026-01-07T09:09:12","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T09:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/113924\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T09:09:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T09:09:12","slug":"teachers-union-sues-texas-over-probes-of-online-posts-after-charlie-kirk-murder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/113924\/","title":{"rendered":"Teachers’ union sues Texas over probes of\u00a0online posts after Charlie Kirk murder"},"content":{"rendered":"

WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) – The Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers union sued, opens new tab<\/a> Texas on Tuesday, urging a federal court to block the state from probing teachers over their social media posts on conservative influencer Charlie Kirk<\/a> after his assassination<\/a> in September.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas named the Texas Education Agency and its commissioner Mike Morath as defendants.<\/p>\n

Sign up here.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Texas AFT said a letter in September from the Texas Education Agency announced probes into teachers and staff that the agency alleged had “posted and\/or shared reprehensible and inappropriate content on social media” about Kirk’s assassination.<\/p>\n

The union said Texas launched investigations into more than 350 educators and that some union members were terminated, placed on administrative leave and reprimanded.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit said the Texas Education Agency did not define what it meant by “inappropriate” or provide protections to ensure that due process and free-speech rights of educators were preserved.<\/p>\n

The letter from the Texas Education Agency had said some social media posts may be in “violation of the Educators’ Code of Ethics.” The agency said on Tuesday that it “cannot comment on outstanding legal matters.”<\/p>\n

Kirk was shot at a Utah college campus. In subsequent weeks, hundreds of Americans<\/a> faced firings, suspensions, investigations and other actions over views they expressed<\/a> about him. Republicans alleged glorification of violence while rights advocates raised free-speech<\/a> concerns.Civil rights advocates criticized Kirk<\/a> for rhetoric<\/a> they called racist, anti-immigrant, transphobic, and misogynist, citing his public remarks about Black Americans, LGBTQ+ communities, Muslims and immigrants.His supporters described him<\/a> as a defender of conservative values and public debate who galvanized young voters for President Donald Trump<\/a> in the 2024 election.Republican-controlled Texas also faced accusations<\/a> of free-speech violations in November when it designated prominent Muslim civil rights group the Council on American-Islamic Relations a “foreign terrorist organization.” CAIR challenged that in court.<\/p>\n

Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis<\/p>\n

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab<\/a><\/p>\n

Purchase Licensing Rights<\/a>\"Kanishka<\/a><\/p>\n

Kanishka Singh is a breaking news reporter for Reuters in Washington DC, who primarily covers US politics and national affairs in his current role. His past breaking news coverage has spanned across a range of topics like the Black Lives Matter movement; the US elections; the 2021 Capitol riots and their follow up probes; the Brexit deal; US-China trade tensions; the NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan; the COVID-19 pandemic; and a 2019 Supreme Court verdict on a religious dispute site in his native India.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (Reuters) – The Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers union sued, opens new…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":113925,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5932,50262,7358,7359,7360,5949,7372,7376,7383,7377,7378,7375,26599,7373,15189,30765,45741,5920,26598,5922,7363,5947,45742,7357,7364,5933,7381,7369,7353,7354,7371,7370,26600,7379,7365,5948,26596,45744,15192,27,29,28,5935,393,5934,7368,15194],"class_list":["post-113924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-amers","tag-cens","tag-civ","tag-clj","tag-crim","tag-destlita","tag-destocatpm","tag-destociv","tag-destogov","tag-destolit","tag-destopub","tag-destousdnm","tag-destouspom","tag-destoustpm","tag-dli","tag-edu","tag-ent","tag-gen","tag-hrgt","tag-job","tag-judic","tag-legal","tag-lif","tag-mtpix","tag-murd","tag-namer","tag-nrlinogov","tag-nrlpaociv","tag-nrlpaoconl","tag-nrlpaocrim","tag-nrlpaolit","tag-nrlpaopub","tag-packageus-politics","tag-packageus-top-news","tag-pol","tag-reuters-legal","tag-rsbihuman-rights","tag-smed","tag-soci","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news","tag-topicworld-us-texas","tag-us","tag-usatx","tag-wash","tag-www"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113924"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113924\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/113925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}