By SHAYLA ESCUDERO/Lincoln Chronicle
A local Republican organization, parents and community members are pressuring the Lincoln County School District to discipline a Taft High School social studies teacher over an online comment made about the death of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.
Taft administrators are investigating social studies teacher Trent Adams after receiving complaints regarding a comment attributed to him on Facebook about Kirk, who was shot and killed Sept. 10 while speaking at Utah Valley University.
Kirk was the founder and chief executive officer of the conservative youth organization, Turning Point USA and a close ally to President Trump. He was credited for bringing conservatism to younger generations through his “prove me wrong” debates with college students and frequently made inflammatory comments about marginalized groups.
In the days after his death, campaigns to highlight and punish people making potentially negative comments and posts about Kirk’s death began to take shape online, including a site called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” that has requested names and profiles of people to create a searchable database.
A Washington Post opinion columnist was fired over social media posts she made following the killing of Charlie Kirk. On Wednesday, ABC indefinitely pulled Jimmy Kimmel’s late night talk show following comments he made during his show about conservative responses to Kirk’s death.
Teachers across the country have also been fired or placed on leave ahead of investigations into social media comments critiquing Kirk or implying approval of his death. In Oregon, a teacher in Forest Grove teacher was put on paid administrative leave and investigated following his comments and students at Thurston High School in Springfield staged a walk out in protest of a theater teacher’s comment on a news article about Kirk’s death.
What happened here?
This week similar efforts to discipline a Taft 7-12 teacher took shape online when screenshots circulated on community Facebook groups of a comment attributed to Adams.
Adams’ account is no longer active on Facebook, but screenshots of the interaction have been shared widely online. “He did deserve to die, he was a fascist,” the comment read.
Several Facebook posts encouraged other users to email school officials and file complaints. Lincoln County Republicans posted its own statement after being contacted by parents and community members, encouraging people to write, call and show up at the next school board meeting.
“Our teachers should be instilling respect, discipline, and love of country. Not hatred. Not political bias. And certainly not cheering political violence,” the Sept. 16 post read.
Taft 7-12 is handling the complaints at the building level, a Lincoln County School District spokesperson told the Lincoln Chronicle. “We do not publicly discuss personnel investigations,” the statement said.
Process and policy
When handling public complaints, grievances follow a process that starts at the teacher or employee level, and is brought to the principal or supervisor to be resolved. If they are still not able to reach a resolution the complaint will go to the superintendent, and lastly, the school board to issue a decision.
The school does have some restrictions on social media conduct, according to its policy on personal electronic devices and social media.
“Staff actions on social media websites, public websites and blogs, while on or off duty, which disrupt the school environment, are subject to disciplinary action up to and including dismissal,” the policy reads. A disruption includes parents threatening to remove their children from school or negative impact to the learning environment, according to the policy.
“This is still an ongoing investigation,” Taft principal Nick Lupo told the Lincoln Chronicle on Friday.
The teacher’s union, Lincoln County Education Association, said they did not currently have any information to share at the time. Adams did not respond to requests for comment.
- Shayla Escudero covers Lincoln County government, education, Newport, housing and social services for Lincoln Chronicle and can be reached at Shayla@LincolnChronicle.org
Kirk’s assassination is being used as an excuse to suppress free speech in this country and persecute those who would dare to exercise their right to free speech.
I personally do not think anyone deserves to be murdered but I also believe that Kirk’s assassination does not and should not shield him for criticism for his very obvious, longstanding and persistent racism and homophobia. He was basically a hate monger. And the right of free speech gave him the ability to express that.
If you really support freedom of speech in this country you support it no matter who is making that speech, whether it’s Kirk rantings or a less than judicious comment by a teacher.
This country is indeed country is trending toward fascism. The rabid mob backlash by supporters of the extremist right-wing Kirk against anyone who criticizes him is currently exhibit one. And lowering flags to half staff in honor of this denigrates our flag.
Thank you for your comment. It’s refreshing to hear from someone who looks at the situation clear eyed and gives us thoughts that are worth listening to.
Well said. I agree.
Well said. Couldn’t agree more.
Kirk argued that a few gun deaths are the price of having a protection like the 2nd Amendment. According to his own philosophy, his death should be seen as a sign of, and an inevitable consequence of, liberty. At the moment of the rifle shot, he also was in the middle of trying to shut down a questioner on the very topic. Now the death of this so-called “free speech advocate” is being used as the excuse to curtail free speech. Too much irony for one week.
The First Amendment prohibits the government from abridging the speech of individuals, including certain activities that are related to speech. The teacher in this instance allegedly published a post that said “He [Charlie Kirk] did deserve to die, he was a fascist.” As a citizen he is protected in his right to state his belief, right or wrong, that Kirk was a fascist and that he deserved to be assassinated for his beliefs. The Oregon’s Teacher Standards and Practices Commission requires a standard of professional and ethical conduct that can lead to the loss of one’s license to teach if an educator were to breach its requirements. (See TSPC Division 20 Standards for Competent and Ethical Performance of Oregon Educators).
It’s likely that the community response to this teacher’s post would be different in Eastern Oregon than it would be in Portland, and so if a formal complaint to TSPC is made, it will be a judgement call as to whether the ethical standards will be deemed to have been breached or not. The question is not whether the teacher has a right to free speech. He does, unequivocally. The question for the Lincoln County School District and the TSPC is: Has the teacher by publicly posting his viewpoint (which in itself could be defined as “fascist” in that it negates Kirk’s First Amendment right to free speech and to life) offended a significant percentage of the community’s stakeholders? Further, has he demonstrated competency in his subject matter as evidenced by his post? At minimum, the Social Studies teacher should provide the primary source evidence he relied upon to determine that Kirk was a fascist, as well as the constitutional basis he is relying upon for the execution of Charlie Kirk by a person who was not a law enforcement officer, when Kirk’s guilt was neither established nor a sentence of death imposed by a court of law. If he can do that, his case for keeping his job and his TSPC teaching licensure will have been bolstered.
Teacher discipline, up to and including dismissal, has been upheld by the courts if a teacher’s social media posts, while on or off duty, disrupt the school environment. Just last month, a federal appeals court in Illinois (7th Circuit) upheld a school district’s dismissal of a teacher for anti-BLM posts made on the teacher’s personal Facebook page. The appellate court ruled that school districts can fire a teacher over their speech without violating the First Amendment if a “disruption” to the learning environment is triggered by students or others within the school unhappy with the teacher’s speech. That would now appear to be the issue before LCSD under its social media policy referenced in this article.
Exactly. The knife should cut both ways. If that teacher had said that George Floyd deserved death, then he would have already been fired.
I think using the word “conservative” to describe people like Kirk and the current crop of MAGA Republicans is a fallacy of equivalence. Dwight D, Eisenhower was a conservative, but the word becomes a euphemism when applied to Charlie Kirk. The wind is blowing the Republican party in a new direction, and it is time to drop the euphemisms and call their dark ideology what it is.