(Austin) — A major teachers’ union is suing the Texas Education Agency for investigating teachers’ social media comments following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
Texas AFT President Zeph Capo says the federal lawsuit was filed this week and claims Education Commissioner Mike Morath initiated a wave of retaliation when he directed school district officials to report “inappropriate” comments made after last year’s killing of the conservative activist.
“The TEA policy was announced in September of 2025, just days after the assassination. In the months since, the consequences for our members have run the gamut from written reprimands and administrative leave to doxxing and termination from their jobs,” said Capo.
The lawsuit claims the actions of the TEA represent clear violations of the First Amendment.
“We’re suing TEA today for violating our members’ First Amendment rights and targeting them for their protected speech. The policy itself is fundamentally flawed. It asks school districts to punish public school teachers for exercising their First Amendment rights and subjects those educators to serious and unfair consequences. Even if our educators wanted to comply with this bad faith policy, TEA’s overly broad language makes it nearly impossible to know what is and isn’t acceptable,” Capo said.
Whether people agree with the teachers’ words or not, Capo says they should not have been targeted for comments made outside the school day.
“To be clear, we are not talking about an educator walking into their classroom and sharing their thoughts on the assassination with their students. The educators under investigation commented 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’re 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,” said Capo.
The plaintiffs are asking the court to block the investigation, claiming it violates free speech protections. As of Monday, the state agency said it was still investigating 95 complaints, after having already dismissed hundreds of others.