Conservative Groups Targeting More Teachers Over Comments on Charlie Kirk Assassination

Conservative groups are taking it upon themselves to publicly out teachers and other individuals after discovering their negative online comments about Charlie Kirk’s assassination.The self-styled speech vigilantes have been scouring social media to catch educators in the act. In New Jersey, a conservative parents group known as New Jersey Project immediately went on a blitz through social media sites like Facebook and X to call out comments made by educators.The group, which was designated in 2024 as an anti-government organization by the Southern Poverty Law Center, has allegedly called out as many as 15 individuals for their comments on the fatal shooting of Kirk, 10 of whom the group claims work in New Jersey school districts or libraries. It is also alleged that they posted contact information for their employers and encouraged others to call in complaints and request that they be fired for their actions.Officials with the New Jersey Project refute claims that they had posted contact information of the teachers’ employers, saying they simply consolidated comments from teachers that were already publicly available.Parents and administrators “should know what their teachers are saying online, and a lot of these things were public and could have been found,” New Jersey Project’s executive director, Mickey Stouffer, said to The New York Sun. “Just because we grouped them all together and put them online, everybody had a problem.”“Everybody thinks this kind of language is okay,” she added. “If they’re willing to present themselves this way online, I’m pretty sure they’re doing the same thing when they’re with kids.”Officials at three districts –– Rockaway, Little Egg Harbor, and Clark –– have said they are reviewing the social media posts of staffers after receiving complaints, according to NJ Advance Media.“The district is aware of the social media post made by one of its teaching staff members regarding the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” Clark School District officials said in a public statement. “The district is in the process of addressing the matter.”The Little Egg Harbor Township School District superintendent, Lisa Antunes, also released a public statement addressing the calls that have been received.The district respects “the constitutional rights of free speech afforded to all individuals, including our staff members. We also recognize that these rights come with responsibilities — particularly for those trusted with the education and care of our students,” she said. “Some of these posts attributed to members of our staff have drawn public concern and are currently under review by the district.”New Jersey Project’s posts have also highlighted comments made by three professors, a U.S. Postal Service employee, and one health care worker.Similar social media campaigns targeting teachers for their comments have spread nationwide following Kirk’s death, with some educators already fired in other states.A teacher and a tutor were recently fired from their jobs at two districts for Kirk-related posts, according to the Texas Tribune, which also reported that the Texas Education Agency is investigating more than 280 complaints against teachers across the Lone Star State.On Monday, Governor Greg Abbott weighed in on social media after the TEA initially announced that it had received about 180 complaints.“The Texas Education Agency is investigating Texas teachers whose actions called for or incite violence following the Charlie Kirk assassination,” he said on X. “Those educators — more than 100 — will ‘have their teacher certification suspended and be ineligible to teach in a Texas public school.'”TEA’s commissioner, Mike Morath, said that he would recommend to the State Board for Educator Certification that it suspend the licenses of all teachers who are disciplined for their actions.“While all educators are held to a high standard of professionalism, there is a difference between comments made in poor taste and those that call for and incite further violence — the latter of which is clearly unacceptable,” Mr. Morath said in a statement to the Tribune.Critics in Texas have spoken out against the crackdown, calling the initiative “authoritarian.”“What started with lawmakers weaponizing their platforms against civil servants has morphed into a statewide directive to hunt down and fire educators for opinions shared on their personal social media accounts,” Texas’s American Federation of Teachers president, Zeph Capo, said to the Tribune.On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Teachers Association called upon school districts to avoid punishing staffers who made positive comments online about Kirk’s assassination after two teachers at Peabody Veterans Memorial High School were placed on leave for social media posts that allegedly violated “district policies and procedures.”MTA’s president, Max Page, and vice president, Deb McCarthy, are urging districts and public colleges to partner with unions to defend educators and protect their rights.“The ongoing campaign by extreme-right conservatives to discredit and defund public education has grotesquely exploited the shooting death of Charlie Kirk to launch attacks against people commenting on this public figure’s beliefs and statements,” Mr. Page and Ms. McCarthy said in a joint statement.“Attacks against educators and others have included death threats and the promise of violence.”

Conservative Groups Targeting More Teachers Over Comments on Charlie Kirk Assassination

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