One of Texas’ largest teacher unions wants a federal court to block Education Commissioner Mike Morath and the state education agency from investigating teachers accused of making inappropriate remarks about conservative activist C*****e K**k’s assassination on social media, saying the act violates legally protected speech.
A lawsuit the Texas American Federation of Teachers filed Jan. 6 argues that Morath “unleashed a wave of retaliation and disciplinary actions against teachers” when he urged school districts to report “reprehensible and inappropriate” content about K**k’s killing last year.
Texas AFT also wants the court to require that Morath retract his policy calling on school leaders to report any instances of “inappropriate content” related to K**k’s death posted to teachers’ social media accounts. The lawsuit also asks the judge to require that Morath issue new guidance making clear to superintendents that districts do not have to report such conduct to the state if the alleged speech is legally protected.
The Texas Education Agency has dismissed hundreds of complaints or found them unsubstantiated. On Jan. 5, the agency said it was still investigating 95 complaints.
[…]
The union cites the cases of four members who it believes faced unfair disciplinary action for private social media remarks related to K**k’s death. Those actions include termination, being subjected to investigations, or having their employment records negatively marked.
In each of those cases, the teachers faced discipline “solely for their speech, without any regard to whether the posts disrupted school operations in any way,” according to the complaint. The teachers’ comments ranged from criticizing K**k for statements he made about Black Americans to condemning the activist’s stance on immigration, the suit states.
The lawsuit describes Morath’s letter asking superintendents to report inappropriate social media posts as “vague” and “overbroad” because it does not ask school leaders to evaluate such posts’ impact on the school environment.
The lawsuit notes that the letter has led to arbitrary and inconsistent enforcement across districts.
It adds that the education agency did not issue similar letters with respect to teachers who posted about the assassinations of Democratic Minnesota lawmakers Melissa Hortman or John Hoffman. A gunman killed Hortman and her husband at their home last year while wounding Hoffman and his wife at their residence.
“Instead, the TEA appears to mandate investigations only for school personnel voicing criticism of the Commissioner’s preferred political figure,” the lawsuit says.
Numerous Texas AFT members have since deleted their social media posts and accounts. The lawsuit says the latter shows that teachers “remain fearful” about sharing their opinions on matters of public concern if their viewpoints do not align with those of the Texas state government.
Someday I’m going to get tired of observing how the “free speech warriors” have been awfully quiet about this sort of thing – well, except when they’re cheering it on – but today is not that day. I’m just glad to see action being taken here, and I wish everyone who was affected by this hysteria all the best. And no, I’m not going to use that guy’s name on my site. The Chron and TPR have more.
I’ll be curious to see exactly what was said in each case, because the RWNJs have adopted a very broad definition of “celebrating someone’s death” that includes “accurately quoting what the guy said” or “calling out the RW for exploiting it”. The Jimmy Kimmel controversy was the prime example. Here is what he said:
““We had some new lows over the weekend with the Maga gang desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered CK as anything other than one of them and with everything they can to score political points from it.”
Then he showed video of the fool in the WH asked to say something about his dear departed friend but choosing instead to brag about the ballroom boondoggle. That was the real mocking of someone’s death, and it wasn’t Kimmel who did it. I’m so glad the fascists lost that particular 1A battle, and I hope they fare the same here.