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Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath delivers remarks on the release of 2025 A-F accountability ratings at North East ISD\u2019s Harmony Hills Elementary School in San Antonio, Friday, Aug. 15, 2025.<\/p>\n
Marvin Pfeiffer\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n
One teacher was fired by his district and placed on a statewide \u201cdo not hire\u201d list for a private\u00a0Instagram story after Charlie Kirk\u2019s assassination. Another was forced to go on leave for writing on a private Facebook page, \u201cSome men improve the world only by leaving it.\u201d A third was sent to state education officials for investigation even though their principal confided that they had done nothing wrong.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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They\u2019re among several educators who say they were unfairly targeted <\/a>by the Texas Education Agency\u2019s investigation into teachers\u2019 social media posts about Kirk. A federal judge is weighing this week whether to halt the agency\u2019s probe, which has been ongoing for months.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n BACKGROUND: Texas teachers union files lawsuit against TEA over Charlie Kirk investigations<\/a><\/p>\n One of the state\u2019s top teacher\u2019s unions sued the agency in January<\/a> after TEA Commissioner Mike Morath put thousands of educators on notice about sharing their political views on social media. In a letter, Morath directed superintendents to report to the agency any \u201creprehensible and inappropriate\u201d social media posts about Kirk\u2019s killing.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWhile the exercise of free speech is a fundamental right we are all blessed to share, it does not give carte blanche authority to celebrate or sow violence against those that share differing beliefs and perspectives,\u201d Morath, who is appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott, wrote in the letter in September.\u00a0<\/p>\n Local school districts placed several teachers on administrative leave, fired or otherwise disciplined them after Morath sent the letter, and the agency routed hundreds of complaints <\/a>to its Education Misconduct & Investigations division, which more typically handles cases of sexual misconduct or child abuse and has the power to issue subpoenas to school officials.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n At the heart of the case is who should answer for the disciplinary actions. The TEA has denied that it had any influence over school districts\u2019 discipline of teachers, arguing that Morath\u2019s letter did not constitute a binding policy change. Instead, TEA argues<\/a>, it was \u201ca reminder of existing policy and how to refer complaints.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cInvestigations alone are not harm,\u201d the agency\u2019s attorneys write in a March 24 response to the court.<\/a> The agency contends that the teachers\u2019 union\u2019s complaints do not meet the high bar that would justify a preliminary injunction, and asks the court to hold off on judgment until the lawsuit has played out.<\/p>\n School districts have so far had discretion in how to handle complaints about Kirk-related posts. A Houston-area independent school district, Cypress-Fairbanks ISD,<\/a> put six staff members who made critical comments after Kirk\u2019s death on administrative leave, then passed the complaints to the TEA. One was reported for writing, \u201cRIP I guess,\u201d while another was written up for posting that the killing \u201ccouldn\u2019t have happened to a more sh***y person.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Among them was a temporary employee who shared a post after the assassination that said, \u201cLove seeing people get what they deserve.\u201d It was later determined that the post had not referred to Kirk, but to a former roommate who owed him money.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n All six were eventually reinstated.\u00a0<\/p>\n In another district, a middle-school art teacher was fired after he posted a private Instagram story quoting the conservative activist on gun violence.<\/p>\n \u201c\u2018I 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,\u2019\u201d the story quoted Kirk saying. In the story, which none of his students or their parents could access, the teacher added a sticker reading \u201cDAMN RIP LOL.\u201d The art teacher regained his job months later, but said he lost ten pounds from the stress and no longer \u201chas the stomach for\u201d political discourse.<\/p>\n In his case, the TEA has sinceblamed the teacher\u2019s local school district and argued it did not cause the firing. The agency also noted Morath did not directly threaten any punishment for superintendents who did not discipline teachers.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Texas American Federation of Teachers President Zeph Capo speaks at a press conference before the start of the 88th Legislature at the state Capitol, Tuesday, Jan. 10, 2023.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jerry Lara\/San Antonio Express-News<\/p>\n \u201cSimply having oversight authority over someone does not render everything one says coercive,\u201d the TEA wrote.\u00a0<\/p>\n Whether the agency will seek discipline in its investigations is unclear. So far, it has dismissed hundreds of complaints but kept many others pending, with no time frame for closing them.<\/p>\n While under state investigation, educators are susceptible to having their teaching certificate suspended if they are deemed \u201ca threat to public safety,\u201d though no suspensions have been announced nearly nine months after the investigations began. The TEA did not answer Hearst Newspapers\u2019 questions about the status of the inquiries by Wednesday afternoon.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n The lawsuit from the Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers argues<\/a> that the TEA has infringed on educators\u2019 rights to exercise free speech by encouraging districts to take action. Government employees have the right to weigh in on political events as private citizens, including in many personal social media posts, according to First Amendment precedent<\/a> cited in court filings.However, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has previously ruled that speech is unprotected when it has \u201ccaused disruption\u201d or impeded working relationships.<\/p>\n The AFT argues<\/a> that Morath\u2019s policy targeted protected speech, and that statements criticizing Kirk or even celebrating his death \u201care not denied First Amendment protection merely because they may be offensive.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Because of the TEA\u2019s actions, \u201cpublic school teachers withdrew as active participants in democracy and instead stayed on the sidelines for fear of discipline that could cost them their livelihood,\u201d a March 10 court filing<\/a> reads.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath delivers remarks on the release of 2025 A-F accountability ratings at North East…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":261622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[933,27,29,28],"class_list":["post-261621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-austinlatest","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261621","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=261621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/261621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/261622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=261621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=261621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=261621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n