A judge recommended that a Florida teacher suspended for a post celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination receive back pay, in the latest case of drawback from the crackdown on violent rhetoric following the conservative activist’s killing.
Division of Administrative Hearings Judge Andrew Manko went beyond reversing Three Oaks Middle School teacher Mariah Roller’s suspension, ruling that she should receive back pay for the time she was suspended.
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“Ms. Roller’s private Facebook post on her personal Facebook page was not unethical, and it was not her action, but that of a third party, that resulted in its dissemination,” he ruled in a filing Aug. 14, adding that she had caused “minimal” disruption to the Lee County School Board.
Roller made the post that resulted in her suspension on Facebook the day Kirk was fatally shot in the neck on Sept. 10.
“What’s that about the cost of the Second Amendment being ‘some gun deaths every year,’? Bye Charlie,” she wrote alongside a waving emoji and two fire emojis, a message widely understood as a mix of mockery and celebration.
After the post spread, then-Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas announced the suspensions of her and several other teachers for related comments.
“It has been brought to my attention that some Florida educators have posted despicable comments on social media regarding the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk,” he wrote. “These few are not a reflection of the great, high-quality teachers who make up the vast majority of Florida’s educators. Nevertheless, I will be conducting an investigation of every educator who engages in this vile, sanctionable behavior.”
The assassination of Kirk led to a deluge of public posts from political rivals celebrating the event, including hundreds of people in sensitive fields such as education and administration. Hundreds were suspended or fired over their posts celebrating or justifying the act of political violence, a relatively rare case of inflammatory rhetoric from the Left leading to “cancellations” rather than from the Right.
The outpouring of grief and solidarity among conservatives around the country led to a brief moment of understanding from institutions that usually lean left politically.
CHARLIE KIRK WAS MURDERED FOR WINNING THE WAR OF PUBLIC PERSUASION
This moment of solidarity didn’t last long, however. Less than a month after the conservative activist’s death, outlandish conspiracy theories began taking hold in online right-wing circles, largely spearheaded by commentator Candace Owens, who used to work for Turning Point USA, the nonprofit organization founded by Kirk. The theories shifted blame away from the alleged shooter, Tyler Robinson, to a cacophony of supposedly malicious actors she claimed were truly behind the killing, ranging from Kirk’s widow to Israel, the French Foreign Legion, the CIA, time travelers with ancient Sumerian technology, and Angola. The disparate theories grew highly popular among the online right.
The spread of memes online about Kirk and his murder also helped to dissipate the passion around the assassination, and nearly one year later, attention has largely shifted elsewhere.
