Teachers Among Those Answering To Employers After Charlie Kirk Social Media Posts

By Jay Waagmeester, Florida Phoenix

September 17, 2025

The state government is investigating teachers over social media comments made following Charlie Kirk’s assassination. Faculty and classroom teacher union leaders are calling it an attack on freedom of speech.

Last week, Florida 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 “personal conduct that seriously reduces that person’s effectiveness as an employee of the district school board.”

The Florida Department of Education vowed last week to “hold teachers who choose to make disgusting comments about the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk accountable. Govern yourselves accordingly.”

Reports have surfaced from around the state of teachers under investigation for making what Kamoutsas called “despicable comments” about Kirk.

“These few are not a reflection of the great, high-quality teachers who make up the vast majority of Florida’s educators. Nevertheless, I will be conducting an investigation of every educator who engages in this vile, sanctionable behavior,” Kamoutsas said in the letter.

The statute permits the Education Practices Commission to suspend a teacher’s license if they are sanctioned or found guilty of personal conduct as described above by Kamoutsas. The law also permits the commissioner to suspend employees from positions interacting with students upon allegation of misconduct that affects the health, safety, or welfare of a student.

A Martin County teacher, who is also a Martin County Education Association official, has been removed from the classroom and placed in a job in the district office pending investigation for posting online about Kirk, calling him a “racist, misogynistic, fear-mongering neo-Nazi,” WPTV News reported Saturday.

Osceola County is investigating four teachers over social media comments, the Orlando Sentinel reported Monday. According to the Sentinel, a teacher in Kissimmee posted, “protect ur rights brother!!!! so proud of you taking this one for the team,” accompanying a Kirk quote declaring that “some” gun deaths were worth it to maintain gun rights.

News4Jax reported that a Clay County school employee was suspended after posting, “This may not be the obituary. [sic] We were all hoping to wake up to, but this is a close second for me.”

Some Lee County teachers will be subject to Kamoutsas’ discipline, Gulf Coast News reported Friday. Teachers at more than one school in that county posted social media comments that grabbed public attention. The school district emphasized their right to due process and is asking for Kamoutsas’ direction, the TV station reported.

“I certainly think there was a completely different way he could have sent that message without it sounding like he was trying to attack and threaten teachers in our public schools,” Florida Education Association President Andrew Spar told the Phoenix of Kamoutsas.

Kamoutsas, in the letter, acknowledged First Amendment rights for teachers but said, “these rights do not extend without limit into their professional duties.”

“An educator’s personal views that are made public may undermine the trust of the students and families that they serve,” Kamoutsas wrote.

Florida House Rep. Berny Jacques (R-Seminole) posted to social media a letter he’s sent to Pinellas County Superintendent Kevin Hendrick, calling on him to fire teachers who have conducted “abhorrent” behavior on their social media accounts since Kirk’s death. He cited one instructor who he said posted “good riddance” after Kirk was shot.

The Florida Department of Education on Monday told the Phoenix, which was attempting to gauge the scope of the crackdown, that it “can neither confirm nor deny the existence of a pending investigation.” Press Secretary Nathalia Medina added that Kamoutsas “intends to investigate every educator who engages in misconduct and posts vile inappropriate messages about this current situation.”

“For the commissioner to say there’s no longer a second-chance mentality in education and that he’s going to personally investigate and essentially be the investigator, the prosecutor, and the judge and jury in all of these cases is quite concerning,” Spar said.

The commissioner’s letter sends a “chilling effect throughout the profession,” Spar said.

“We cannot have a McCarthy-style commissioner or Department of Education. We need to deal with issues if they come up, yes, but we also need to support all who work in our schools and be reasonable in how we approach this,” Spar said.

Spar’s reference was to the period in the 1950s when U.S. Sen. Joseph McCarthy investigated, widely in the public eye, often inflated allegations of communist infiltration.

Monday, State University System Chancellor Ray Rodrigues sent a letter to university presidents.

“[W]hile the right to free expression is paramount it is not absolute. Celebrating or excusing campus violence — and in this case, the murder of Charlie Kirk — by members of our university system will not be tolerated. Such behavior is abhorrent, has the deleterious effects of breeding further violence and undermines efforts to promote civil discourse,” Rodrigues wrote.

Rodrigues asked presidents to review policies and procedures for students and employees relating to social media postings, “and ensure such measures are deliberately enforced.”

Also in his letter, Rodrigues pointed out earlier actions related to expression, including the 2018 Campus Free Expression Act and the university system’s Statement of Free Expression. Rodrigues pointed to the system’s annual survey of free speech and a requirement for universities to have an Office of Public Policy Events for hosting debates, too.

Rodrigues said Kirk “modeled what Florida has long promoted: free expression, civil discourse and debate.”

Florida Atlantic University President Adam Hasner, a former Florida legislator and GOP majority leader, said on social media that a tenured professor made “repeated comments on social media” regarding Kirk’s assassination.

Her comments reportedly included that Kirk was “racist, transphobic, homophobic and more.”

“It is our expectation that all employees consistently pursue the university’s mission and values to promote higher education, cultivate academic excellence, and support the personal growth of our students,” Hasner said.

The professor was placed on administrative leave, Hasner said. The school’s focus, he continued, is to “promote civil discourse, conduct healthy debate and treat one another with respect. This applies to all students, faculty and staff, no matter their political leanings.”

Robert Cassanello, president of United Faculty of Florida, the union representing professors in the state, told the Phoenix that conservatives have tried to “sell to the American public that colleges and universities are hostile to speech, hostile to conservative speech.”

“And if you take these ideas seriously, what they’re saying is, ‘We agree to speech when the speech is conservative and we want to make sure that speech flows freely but when the speech is not conservative, then all of a sudden we see conservatives turn their back on the First Amendment.’ And I think that’s what we’re seeing here in this case with the FAU president,” Cassanello said.

The American Association of University Professors issued a public statement Monday to remind leaders “of their fundamental duty to protect academic freedom and the absolute necessity to ensure that the freedom to discuss topics of public import without constraint is not curtailed under political pressure.”

“On the one hand, lawmakers are promoting conservative speech on our campuses yet, at the same time, they are punishing what they perceive to be liberal speech,” Cassanello said.

He cited the Hamilton School at University of Florida, created to “educate university students in core texts and great debates of Western civilization;” the Adam Smith Center at Florida International University, which promotes free-market economics, and the Institute for Governance and Civics at Florida State University, with a mission of “revitalizing civic education while advancing principles of liberty.” All are creatures of the Republican-dominated Florida Legislature.

Cassanello also cited recent laws prohibiting diversity, equity, and inclusion, like SB 266 in 2023.

A neurologist at the private University of Miami has been fired, The Miami Hurricane reported Saturday. That professor’s post likened Kirk’s assassination to “what has been done to countless Palestinian babies, children, girls, boys, women and men not just of the past two years of the ongoing genocide, but decades,” the campus newspaper reported.

University of Miami Health said in an Instagram post, “Freedom of speech is a fundamental right. At the same time, expressions that condone or endorse violence or are incompatible with our policies and values are not acceptable.”

Cassanello raised the example of Charles Negy, a professor at the University of Central Florida who was fired after arguing on social media posts in 2020 that Black Americans are not systemically oppressed and that their “being shielded from legitimate criticism is a privilege” following protests in 2020 sparked by George Floyd’s death.

“What you’re seeing now are conservatives kind of flipping the script,” Cassanello said, calling it “complete and utter hypocrisy.”

Following arbitration, Negy won his job back. UCF maintained he was not fired for his speech, but rather for creating a hostile classroom environment. The College Fix, a conservative-leaning outlet, said Nagy “had to defeat a cancellation.”

Alan Levine, vice chair of the Florida Board of Governors, shared his view on the Kirk-related investigations on social media.

Levine said he supports Hasner’s action.

Educators nationwide face similar calls from lawmakers and the general public, including in South Carolina, Kentucky, Iowa, and in Texas, where roughly 180 complaints have been filed against educators.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Florida released a statement about teachers facing investigation and removal on Tuesday.

“The ACLU of Florida condemns all forms of political violence. It has no place in a true democracy. Nor does unbridled trampling of constitutional protections.

“The First Amendment does not protect speech that is likely and intended to provoke immediate acts of violence, or speech that expresses a serious intent to commit a specific act of violence, but it does protect robust free expression, which includes criticism of the past words and actions of prominent public figures.

“Dissent, disagreement, and counterspeech that criticizes political views should not be confused with condoning or encouraging violence, and should not be subject to the retaliatory, unconstitutional ire of politicians, which only feeds hostility and division,” the ACLU said.

The ACLU said it stands by, prepared to “protect and preserve” the First Amendment, “even when we disagree.”

“Government actors calling for people to lose their jobs and livelihoods because they exercised their right to freely express political views that are controversial — a right Kirk himself exercised and encouraged for others — is alarming. Our state leaders should be focused on quelling tensions, not exacerbating them by stoking further division and punishing viewpoints with which they disagree,” the ACLU wrote.

The Florida Phoenix, a nonprofit news site that’s free of advertising and free to readers, covers state government and politics through a mix of in-depth stories, briefs, and social media updates on the latest events, editorial cartoons, and progressive commentary. The Phoenix is part of States Newsroom, a national 501(c)(3) nonprofit supported by grants and a coalition of donors and readers.