Free-speech organizations are sounding the alarm after a series of high-profile firings over online comments sparked by the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last week.
In the days following Kirk’s deadly shooting at Utah Valley University, officials across the Trump administration — aided by a veritable army of conservative social-media sleuths — have vowed to identify and shame Americans who mocked or publicly cheered the killing. Some of those targeted by this public retribution campaign have even been fired, leading many advocates who spoke with NOTUS to voice concerns about First Amendment violations and a chilling effect on constitutionally protected speech.
“The number of firings and suspensions all at one time is chilling everybody’s speech,” Adam Goldstein, a First Amendment specialist at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told NOTUS. “We are creating the exact culture of fear that we should be trying to work against.”
Employees at both the state and federal level have been reprimanded for their social media posts, and a number of private sector employees have been targeted by right-wing personalities.
“It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American,” Department of Defense spokesperson Sean Parnell posted Thursday on X. “The Department of War has zero tolerance for it.”
“We are tracking all these very closely — and will address, immediately. Completely unacceptable,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth responded. The U.S. Coast Guard, Navy and Air Force have all said they’re probing some employees’ posts after Kirk’s death. The Navy’s secretary, John Phelan, said uniformed and civilian employees at the Navy and Marine Corps “displaying contempt” on social media toward Kirk “will be dealt with swiftly and decisively.”
I am aware of posts displaying contempt toward a fellow American who was assassinated. I want to be very clear: any uniformed or civilian employee of the Department of the Navy who acts in a manner that brings discredit upon the Department, the @USNavy or the @USMC will be dealt…
— Secretary of the Navy John C. Phelan (@SECNAV) September 12, 2025
Middle Tennessee State University said it fired an employee on Wednesday over “inappropriate and callous comments on social media concerning the horrific and tragic murder of Charlie Kirk,” according to a statement from the university’s president. So did the University of Mississippi.
Public grade-school teachers are also being disciplined and fired, including teachers put on leave in Massachusetts last week.
At the state level, the Florida Department of Education said Thursday that it would investigate teachers that made “despicable comments on social media” about Kirk’s death. And Ryan Walters, Oklahoma’s secretary of public instruction, has said his department is investigating teachers as well.
“We will not allow any teacher in charge of our kids to celebrate the assassination of anyone,” Walters said Saturday. “Charlie Kirk’s death is a tragedy for our entire country. Any teacher celebrating his death will be banned from teaching.”
Popular right-wing accounts on X, including Libs of TikTok and Mostly Peaceful Memes, have been identifying posts from teachers, military members and other government employees, calling for their swift termination.
It’s a tactic that Kirk himself helped to popularize. Turning Point USA, the youth-focused conservative advocacy organization that the 31-year-old founded, led campaigns against professors that members deemed as too left wing. TPUSA still lists a public “professor watchlist” where students can report university employees with opposing viewpoints.
But even if these teachers and public sector employees are fired, it remains unclear whether their termination would be legal.
“Teachers can talk about politics and news as private citizens, but if posts are seen as celebrating violence, threatening or creating school disruption, schools may discipline, even fire, employees,” said Allison Matulli, a First Amendment fellow at Freedom Forum, a freedom of speech advocacy nonprofit. “The First Amendment gives protection, but it’s not absolute for public school teachers.”
“There is that gray area. I think social media blurs the line a lot,” Matulli said. “A post you think is personal can spur very quickly and look like you’re speaking in your official capacity as a government employee.”
David Keating, the president of the Institute for Free Speech, told NOTUS that institutions should meet with First Amendment specialists about employees’ posts and tell the public they’re investigating in the meantime, rather than “firing first and thinking about it later.”
“Because it’s going to be a case-by-case thing, they should resist public pressure,” Keating added. “I think just making a rapid-fire announcement without thinking it through is a bad idea.”
Freedom of speech experts told NOTUS that employees at private companies can be fired for any lawful reason, but some public employees may have winnable wrongful termination cases that will come down to several factors: whether they said something on the job or in their official capacity, if what they said rendered them unable to do their job or the institution unable to function, if the post brought up matters that concern the public, or even what state the employee was in.
“Where they said it, who they said it to and what they said will all come into play there,” Goldstein said.
“At the same time, I have to remind people, the law is not meant to tell us what to do. It’s meant to be the lowest level of behavior before our society ceases to function,” Goldstein added.
President Donald Trump was an early contributor to the campaign against those criticizing Kirk after his death, saying Wednesday night in a video on Truth Social that his administration “will find each and every one of those who contributed to this atrocity and to other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it.”
Just a day later, the State Department asked social media users to flag posts made by immigrants on the matter, with Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau saying, “Foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country.”
“That struck me as unprecedented and fairly remarkable,” Goldstein said of the State Department potentially reviewing immigrants’ legal statuses over their opinions. “I couldn’t think of an analogy historically for that. All legal persons in the United States have First Amendment rights, so I don’t necessarily see a way to review the legal status of immigrants for their speech in ways that doesn’t implicate their First Amendment rights.”
National Republicans have taken to social media to hold employees accountable as well. Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks posted about a teacher in her district who wrote “1 Nazi down” online after Kirk’s death. Miller-Meeks said she contacted the school’s superintendent, who then started taking steps to fire the teacher.
But Miller-Meeks is far from the only Republican lawmaker chiming in. Florida Rep. Carlos Giménez on Thursday called for Palmetto Bay council member Steve Cody to resign after he posted that Kirk’s death was a “fitting sacrifice to our Lords Smith & Wesson,” referring to the gun manufacturer.
Sen. Dave McCormick said the University of Pennsylvania should take immediate action against professor Michael Mann for his social media posts following Kirk’s death. And Rep. Derrick Van Orden, who said he believes Kirk’s death was the media’s fault, has shared public sector employees’ posts that make light of Kirk’s death, often accompanied by the caption “Zero Federal Funding.”
Rep. Clay Higgins took it a few steps further than other lawmakers.
I’m going to use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk. If they ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous murder of…
— Rep. Clay Higgins (@RepClayHiggins) September 11, 2025
“I’m going to use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” Higgins posted Thursday. “I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers licenses should be revoked.”
Higgins’ comments were not received well by free speech advocates.
“The First Amendment not only protects against direct censorship, like banning speech, it also guards against government action or threats that discourage people from exercising their right to speak,” Matulli said when asked about Higgins’ post.
Some Democrats even see the Republican campaign against those who criticized Kirk or celebrated his death as an excuse to flex their power and crush the opposition party — regardless of the facts at hand.
“The right has been looking for a pretext to destroy their opposition for a long time. Increasingly, the right views the left as an existential threat to a white, Christian majority nation and thus must be destroyed, as Michael Anton wrote, at any cost,” Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut wrote in a lengthy thread on X. “I hope I’m wrong. But we need to be prepared if I’m right.”