The Texas American Federation of Teachers (Texas AFT) on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and Commissioner Mike Morath for ordering an investigation into teachers who made denigrating comments about TPUSA Founder Charlie Kirk after his assassination.
In the aftermath of the shooting, many people lost their jobs or faced criticism for celebrating and mocking Kirk’s death. Some states looked into teachers and professors who made inappropriate comments about his death on social media.
AFT president Randi Weingarten announced the lawsuit on Tuesday in a post on X in which she characterized TEA’s actions as “a state-sponsored attack on teachers of what they thought were private comments to friends and family.”
In another post, Weingarten said teachers “need support & clarity, not shaming, star chambers & state-run snitch lines.”
Educators devote themselves to meeting the needs of kids. They need support & clarity, not shaming, star chambers & state-run snitch lines. Sadly, TX officials decided to exploit Mr. Kirk’s heinous murder & fire teachers for their non classroom speech https://t.co/mnsb6udQjz
— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇸 🖇️👩🎓📚 (@rweingarten) January 6, 2026
TX educators faced discipline solely for their speech, without any regard to whether the posts disrupted school operations in any way. This is a state-sponsored attack on teachers of what they thought were private comments to friends and family. @TexasAFT https://t.co/yfqqTewOJT
— Randi Weingarten 🇺🇸 🖇️👩🎓📚 (@rweingarten) January 7, 2026
The lawsuit claims TEA and Morath violated the First Amendment rights of the state’s educators by investigating them. The union argues that the agency punished teachers for comments made “on their own time and using their own resources” on social media pages including “online profiles or pages tthat are ‘private,’ and can be viewed only by individuals who have been specifically approved by the account owner.”
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The complaint further alleges that the TEA policy “violates the First Amendment rights of Texas AFT members because it is impermissibly vague, overbroad, and chills their protected speech.”
After Kirk’s assassination, Morath issued a letter claiming TEA learned that “some Texas public school educators” posted “reprehensible and inappropriate content on social media related to the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”
In the letter, Morath wrote, “In response to such posts, I am referring all documentation of educators that have proliferated [sic] such vile content to TEA’s Educator Investigation Division.” He instructed that “[i]f you are made aware of additional instances of inappropriate content being shared, it should be reported to the agency through TEA’s Misconduct Reporting Portal.”
The lawsuit claims that over 350 teachers were reported or investigated and faced disciplined “for expressing their views about Mr. Kirk and other matters of public concern in social media posts.”
The plaintiffs demanded that the court block the policy and reverse its effects. They seek “a permanent injunction…enjoining defendants enforcing the TEA Policy in any matter; compelling Defendants to retract the Policy; compelling Defendants to terminate all investigations referred to TEA following the Policy’s publication related to posts regarding Charlie Kirk; and compelling Defendants to issue a new letter advising superintendents that the TEA does not requires reports to the Misconduct Reporting Portal regarding the conduct targeted in the TEA Policy.”
In his letter, Morath argued that the anti-Kirk posts could violate the state’s Educator’s Code of Ethics, according to The Texas Tribune:
