

A teacher in Greenville, South Carolina, is “no longer employed” after the district claimed that, following Charlie Kirk’s assassination, he posted on social media that “America became greater today. There, I said it.”
At Mariposa County High School in California, parents reported that a math teacher known as “Mr. Elm” said he was glad Charlie Kirk was killed and sarcastically told “MAGA kids to go home and cry.”
A teacher at an elementary school in Pasadena, TX, posted on X, “I am not mourning his death, I am actually planning a soirée.”
In Iowa, a teacher was placed on leave for an internet post that read, “1 Nazi down.”
A high school teacher in Oklahoma posted on X that Kirk’s murder was justified by calling him “a racist, misogynist, piece of sh-t.”
In fact, teachers in California, Florida, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, North Carolina, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas have been dismissed or placed on leave amid investigations into alleged social media comments critiquing Kirk and implying approval of Kirk’s death.
In the Lone Star State, the Texas Education Agency declined to say how many public school teachers and staff are being investigated for their comments in the wake of the tragic event. However, as of Sept. 26, it said the number of complaints it had received was over 350. Still, it is not clear exactly how many teachers have been reprimanded and/or lost their jobs over their sadistic schadenfreude.
Many on the left are in a serious snit over the unemployed teachers.
In The Washington Post, Laura Meckler writes, “Teachers Are Losing Their Jobs as conservatives target lessons, speech they dislike.”
Stephanie Saul claims in The New York Times that “Conservative efforts to call out and punish educators over liberal ideas have grown for years, led in part by Charlie Kirk himself.”
Teacher union boss Randi Weingarten opines that while Kirk’s death was horrible, “This tragedy is being used to create broad-based censorship and to create a chilling effect on the people who are really trusted in society.”
Okay, if we take a deep breath and step back, we see this is not a constitutional issue. The First Amendment states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
None of the fired teachers lost their jobs because of a Congressional act or anything similar. It’s especially amusing that the same leftists who created cancel culture and speech codes—regulating speech by faculty and students in colleges—are now surprised that teachers face consequences for their words.
It’s also worth noting that this is the same left that idolizes FDR, who established the Federal Communications Commission. It’s the same left that is behind Google’s appearance before Congress, where they are asserting that senior Biden Administration officials “conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet (Google’s parent company) and pressed the company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies.”
In reality, K-12 teachers’ free speech rights do not extend into the classroom. Teachers cannot use profanity or advise students to do so. They also can’t instruct students on how to commit murder or cheat on their taxes. Teachers, among other things, are hired to serve as role models.
At the college level, professors should not introduce ideas that are not part of the course description or syllabus into the classroom. Imagine a physics professor lecturing on gender ideology instead of Newton’s laws or claiming that gravity is simply a social construct. Educators cannot use required courses as platforms for their personal ideas. Their content must adhere to the approved curriculum and professional standards of their discipline. Misusing the classroom this way is not an exercise of freedom but rather a breach of a sacred trust.
Importantly, as explained by James Shuls, head of the Education Liberty branch of the Institute for Governance and Civics at Florida State University, teachers and professors have a responsibility to shape their students’ character. This includes encouraging habits of intellectual humility, honesty, and respect for human dignity.
Shuls adds, “When educators glorify acts of violence or trivialize evil, particularly while in the classroom, they betray this calling and corrode the moral foundations upon which genuine education rests.”
Similarly, Robert Pondiscio, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, notes, “Inside the classroom, teachers are supposed to teach the curriculum. Their free speech rights are limited, courts have ruled, because they’re engaging in ‘hired speech.’”
Preserving the integrity of schools and universities involves reaffirming a proper understanding of the responsibilities accompanying educators’ rights. Academic freedom is essential, but it was never intended to serve as a license for recklessness, indoctrination, moral corruption, or yelling “fire” in a crowded theater.
In the U.S., we have the right to free speech, but we also have the responsibility to avoid deliberate falsehoods, slander, or reckless speech that damages civil discourse. This same principle applies to those entrusted with the role of teacher or professor, particularly those working in government-run institutions.
Those who spend time with other people’s children are, in part, responsible for shaping future citizens. Education succeeds when teachers and professors take that trust seriously—seeking truth, demonstrating virtue, and respecting the boundaries of their roles. When they neglect this, both students and society face serious consequences.
Larry Sand, a retired 28-year classroom teacher, is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network—a non-partisan, non-political group dedicated to providing teachers and the general public with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues. The views expressed here are entirely his own.