A Texas teachers’ union is suing the state education agency and Commissioner Mike Morath for investigating and threatening termination of educators who made comments about political activist Charlie Kirk’s murder, saying this is a violation of their right to free speech.
The Texas Education Agency has not responded to the lawsuit nor has it doled out sanctions or discipline against the teachers under investigation, but some have been fired by their school boards, and just being under review comes with consequences, such as being placed on a “do not hire” list — at least temporarily.
The state holds power over a teacher’s certification, which has created uncertainty for those who are supported by their districts but remain under investigation by the TEA, said Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers.
National AFT president Randi Weingarten, who traveled from New York for a press conference in Austin on Tuesday, said the lawsuit doesn’t seek monetary damages.
The AFT wants the court to stop Morath from enforcing a “retaliatory” policy and grant an injunction saying the investigations will stop. Almost 100 teachers remain under review. The union is also asking that the discipline against the teachers referenced in the lawsuit be reversed, Weingarten said.
“We’re asking that [the TEA] judge teachers’ conduct based upon their work in classrooms,” she said.
Kirk, a conservative political activist and ally of President Donald Trump, was known for engaging in debate with youth on controversial topics such as abortion, DEI and whether women should go to college or get married and have babies.
Kirk’s September 10 death at a Utah college campus prompted a widespread reaction as many mourned his death and others wanted to debate the ideology he presented through his organization, Turning Point USA.
The Texas AFT lawsuit references a letter Morath sent to Texas superintendents two days after Kirk’s death announcing investigations into teachers and staff who have “posted and/or shared reprehensible and inappropriate content on social media” about Kirk’s murder. The posts could constitute a violation of the Educators’ Code of Ethics and could result in sanctions, the letter states. Morath also encouraged reporting social media activity to the state agency.
Capo said about 350 educators were investigated for comments “on the controversial nature of Charlie Kirk’s previous statements on their personal, private social media and outside of their official capacity.”
“The remarks that they are now being targeted for are constitutionally protected speech that has no bearing on an educator’s ability to perform their job duties and did not impact their work environments,” he said. “The only thing that has actually disrupted their work environments or their classrooms has been the TEA investigations themselves and the online smear campaigns, many of which were spearheaded by elected officials in our own state.”
The lawsuit mentions six examples of teachers in Houston and San Antonio who were disciplined for social media comments.
“One popular high school English teacher, Teacher 1, was fired after a politician used her posts — which simply raised questions about the circumstances of Mr. Kirk’s death and did not promote violence in any way — as the centerpiece of his election campaign, encouraging his supporters to call for Teacher 1’s dismissal,” the legal filing states. “Tellingly, only two members of the school board voted for Teacher 1’s termination; the remaining five present members abstained in protest.”
Five of the six teachers retained their jobs; one settled a claim for wrongful termination. Educators in Klein, Wylie and Jourdanton ISDs were fired.
Teachers did not stand at the podium in solidarity with Capo and Weingarten on Tuesday. Capo said the AFT wanted to protect the privacy of those who have already received death threats and been shamed and doxxed for expressing their opinions on private social media accounts.
Capo and Weingarten said the TEA did not encourage teachers to snitch on each other’s social media posts when Hollywood film director and Trump critic Rob Reiner was murdered or when Democratic Minnesota Rep. Melissa Hortman was shot in a politically motivated attack in her home.
Both union officials denounced violence but said they believed wholeheartedly in the right to free speech. Weingarten said teachers needed advice from their superintendents on what to do after the entire nation witnessed a violent assassination of a public figure.
“They needed some advice and some clarity on how to make kids feel safe the next day, how we help their parents, how we help each other,” she said. “Instead they got blamed and shamed. At the heart of this case is Mr. Morath’s continued actions and the danger it’s doing to an environment of teaching and learning.”
Weingarten said Texas and Florida were the only states where top education officials issued a memo that essentially advised that “we welcome complaints of reprehensible conduct so we can fire teachers.”
“Charlie Kirk was on a campus answering questions and he was assassinated,” she said. “People remember what happened when JFK was assassinated. It was etched. Lots of teachers and lots of parents were trying to figure out how to support our kids. I wrote a memo to the field that night about how to de-escalate.”
“That’s what superintendents should be doing,” she added. “How do we find a way to bring together American values, that the goodness of people outweighs the bad? How do we deal with traumatized people? That’s what a lot of leaders were doing.”
Capo noted that Texas educators and students are living in a state that has the most gun violence in the country, which has a direct impact on the emotional well-being of everyone in a classroom.
“We have a priority issue that we need to discuss in the state of Texas,” he said. “All of this time, all of this energy could have been focused on making everyone safer rather than cheap political points that do nothing but make our entire environment worse.”
This article appears in Private: Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2026.