People attend a vigil at Orem City Center Park in Orem, Utah, for conservative activist Charlie Kirk, who was fatally shot Wednesday. Photo / Jim Urquhart, The Washington Post
Within 24 hours of Charlie Kirk’s killing, an assistant dean at a Tennessee college, a communications staffer for an NFL team, a Next Door employee in Milwaukee and the co-owner of a Cincinnati barbecue restaurant were fired after posting about it.
They had all used language or memes their employers deemed offensive or insensitive about the 31-year-old conservative firebrand, who was killed in a shooting on Wednesday, local time.
Kirk evoked strong feelings along party lines and the fatal shooting in Utah unleashed parallel outpourings: on the right, there were mostly mournful expressions and demands for retribution; on the left, there was mostly condemnation of political violence and some suggestions that he had it coming.
“Looks like ol’ Charlie spoke his fate into existence,” Laura Sosh-Lightsy, assistant dean of students at Middle Tennessee State University, posted on Facebook. “Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy.”
Before the day was over, MTSU president Sidney McPhee had issued a statement announcing that Sosh-Lightsy had been terminated over her “inappropriate and callous” comments as they “were inconsistent with our values”.
Sosh-Lightsy did not respond to a request for comment.
At least a dozen employers, including the Carolina Panthers, the University of Mississippi and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema) have put staff members on leave or dismissed them for their online activity, as well as apologised for and publicly disavowed their remarks. The rash of disciplinary actions over workers’ responses to Kirk’s killing, online and in real life, highlight the tension between employees’ right to free speech and employers’ need to protect their reputations and maintain civility in their ranks.
The Carolina Panthers and the University of Mississippi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Dawn Solowey, a labour lawyer with Seyfarth Shaw in Boston, said the Kirk killing “goes right to the core of some of the deepest divisions in American society”, including tensions around “race, gender, sex and sexual orientation”.
In the past 48 hours, she has heard from several clients looking for guidance on handling social media postings from employees who seemed to be endorsing violence. As a member of her firm’s “cultural flashpoints team” – which was created in 2023 to address what the firm sees as polarisation in society increasingly spilling into the workplace – Solowey encourages employers to keep their social media policies up-to-date because it’s better to be “proactive than reactive”.
“When employees are asked to bring their whole self to work, they bring their whole self to work, including their strong opinions,” she said.
In an era of rising violence across the political spectrum, such firings are not without recent precedent: after the 2024 assassination attempt on Donald Trump during his presidential campaign, Home Depot fired a cashier in Upstate New York over her Facebook comments about the incident. A South Dakota middle school behaviour facilitator, a Michigan restaurant worker and a Pennsylvania fire chief also lost their jobs over their social media activity.
But online vitriol has been more pronounced with Kirk, who was shot during an event at Utah Valley University in Orem, 56km south of Salt Lake City. Video footage of the killing was widely and rapidly shared online.
Kirk founded the conservative group Turning Point USA when he was 18 and built it into a youth-oriented political force. He was known for holding debates in public settings, particularly on college campuses. His ways of engaging on topics such as race, gender and guns could be provocative, Karen North, a professor of digital social media at the University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, said.
“This guy was an activist and a freakishly polarising one,” North said, so it’s not surprising that some people blurted out their reactions online in an age when many often rush to social media “impulsively, right when the action happens, almost like a fear of missing out”.
Many have been jarred by the less-than-empathetic responses, North said, because “despite the fact that he’s in the public eye and put himself there, this is a 31-year-old kid who is married and has babies. People are like, ‘Hang on. This a real person who just died’”.
For employers, their workers’ social media posts have been increasingly problematic, because “companies realise the ramifications of an unpopular or offensive view from an employee can have a devastating impact on the company’s reputation, stock or sales”.
It also “almost guarantees some level of hostility in the workplace the next day”, she added.
“People’s comments are perceived as representing the company that they work for,” North said. “You have the right to free speech in the town square, not in a private business.”
Several of the firings occurred after conservative politicians or commentators boosted posts by Kirk’s critics and called on employers to punish them, Jason Solomon, director of the National Institute for Workers’ Rights, said. This echoes the “relatively recent phenomenon” of social media campaigns waged by activists such as Robby Starbuck to pressure companies into backing away from diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes, Solomon added.
Right-wing activists have excelled at using social media “to go after individuals and their employers in a very organised way to make it costly or at least appear costly reputationally for employers to continue to employ these people”, Solomon said. Those on the left also have used pressure campaigns against companies, such as the 40-day Target boycott led by prominent faith and civil rights leaders in the US spring over the retailer’s rollback of its DEI policies.
Most employees in the private sector and many others are employed “at will”, which means their employers can dismiss them with or without cause, Solomon said.
State employees have First Amendment protections against being fired or disciplined for political speech, though there are limitations, he added. And very few states have protections that would give employees solid legal ground to push back on their terminations over comments making light of Kirk’s death.
A data analyst with Fema was placed on administrative leave after he posted “revolting and unconscionable” comments on his private Instagram account, the agency confirmed in a statement. Laura Loomer, a Maga activist and right-wing journalist who has taken credit for the ousting of several federal employees, had amplified the worker’s comments online and called for him to be fired.
“Celebrating the death of a fellow American is appalling, unacceptable and sickening. Such behaviour does not reflect the values of public service and it will not be tolerated among individuals entrusted to work at Fema,” the statement said. “We expect all public servants to uphold the highest standard of professionalism, respect and integrity.”
Television network MSNBC fired Matthew Dowd, a political analyst, for remarks he made on air immediately after the shooting.
“We don’t know any of the details of this, we don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration,” Dowd said on MSNBC, calling Kirk “one of the more divisive figures in this”.
The network did not respond to request for comment. But in a statement Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter, MSNBC president Rebecca Kutler called Dowd’s comments “inappropriate, insensitive and unacceptable”, adding that “there is no place for violence in America, political or otherwise”.
Dowd could not be reached for comment. But he issued a statement on X: “My thoughts & prayers are w/ the family and friends of Charlie Kirk. On an earlier appearance on MSNBC, I was asked a question on the environment we are in. I apologise for my tone and words.”
For those posting, the stakes could extend beyond disciplinary action from employers. As the Trump administration weighs its policies after Kirk’s killing, some senior officials suggested a more expansive campaign, calling out schoolteachers and college instructors who have made public statements criticising Kirk since he was killed, the Washington Post has reported.
“Is an employee or student of yours supporting political violence online? Look them up on this website,” reads the landing page of a viral website that is soliciting examples of those celebrating Kirk’s killing and says it has garnered nearly 20,000 submissions.
“This is the largest firing operation in history,” the website reads.
On Thursday (local time), US Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau warned that the Government may seek to punish foreigners over their responses to Kirk’s killing and solicited examples in a post on X.
“I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalising or making light of the event and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action,” Landau said, without specifying the action.
Several educators have been placed on administrative leave, including a Massachusetts teacher who posted a video that seemed to show her revelling in Kirk’s killing, according to reporting from MetroWest Daily News. A high school art teacher in Iowa, an employee at Lake Norman Charter School in North Carolina and two professors at East Tennessee State University (ETSU) have similarly been disciplined.
“Unfortunately, one of our staff member’s social media accounts was used to express a hateful and highly-offensive sentiment related to the murder of Charlie Kirk,” Lake Norman Charter School said in a statement, adding that “this sentiment has created further pain and suffering for many, both within our school community and beyond, as we process this heinous killing”.
One of the ETSU professors, communications professor Andrew Herrmann, said Kirk “reaped what he sowed” in the comments of a Facebook post expressing sympathy for Kirk’s family. He also shared a news article about Kirk’s positions on gun control, with a caption saying, “You can’t be upset if one of the deaths [is] yours. #charliekirk,” the Kingsport Times News reported Thursday.
Herrmann did not respond to a request for comment.
In a statement to the Post, ETSU confirmed that it had received “numerous complaints about online posts” made by the two professors and that both had been put on leave pending further review. It declined to comment further.
A long-time employee of the University of Kentucky was placed on leave over a Facebook comment in which he paraphrased a quote from the famed defence lawyer Clarence Darrow, writing “I have never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great satisfaction”, according to reporting from the Lexington Herald-Leader.
The University of Kentucky did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An employee of the Nashville Fire Department was “placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal fact-finding process”, the department confirmed to the Post but declined to comment further.
Florida Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas issued a letter condemning teachers in the state who posted “despicable comments” on Kirk’s killing and warning that they would be “held accountable”, noting that educators are “held to a higher standard” as public servants.
“Although educators have First Amendment rights, these rights do not extend without limit into their professional duties,” Kamoutsas said. “An educator’s personal views that are made public may undermine the trust of the students and families that they serve.”
Still, some are pushing back to defend workers’ rights to express themselves.
“Teachers don’t surrender their First Amendment rights when they take the job,” Keri Rodrigues, president of the National Parents Union, a parent advocacy group, said.
Some workers have been penalised for activity separate from expressing their opinions online: A.G. Gancarski, a political reporter in Florida, was suspended after he texted a Republican congressman to ask whether the shooting changed his perspective on campus carry laws.
When reached by phone, Gancarski declined to comment.
A Michigan employee of Office Depot was fired after refusing to print posters for a Kirk vigil, the company confirmed in a statement. It called the behaviour “completely unacceptable and insensitive” and a violation of company policy.
“Our established printing policy is to provide print services to all customers in a fair, consistent and non-discriminatory manner, in accordance with applicable laws and company guidelines,” the statement read. “We are committed to serving our communities with respect, integrity and professionalism.”
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