AUSTIN, Texas—In the latest right-wing violation of the U.S. Constitution’s 1st Amendment freedom of speech, and of teachers’ rights as workers, the Texas Federation of Teachers and its parent union, the Teachers/AFT, sued the state’s far-right Republican school superintendent, Mike Morath, for disciplining teachers—and ordering local districts to do so—for their private social media postings about assassinated right-wing influencer Charlie Kirk.
The suit, filed January 6 in U.S. District Court in Austin, demands a judge order Morath to withdraw an order he issued after Kirk’s murder, saying any private social media postings about Kirk that Morath deemed “vile” would be referred to investigators for potential discipline.
“This is about muzzling protected speech,” Teachers/AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a joint 45-minute press conference with Texas teachers’ President Zeph Capo.
The unions also demand that Morath stop retaliating against the teachers involved and “write a different memo,” overriding his prior anti-free speech order. They don’t seek monetary damages.
Morath’s discipline has so far affected 95 teachers statewide, Capo told the press conference in Austin. Some teachers also started getting death threats, he added. “Some of them are terrified.” Those who get fired could lose their teaching licenses, too. Morath’s agency has started 350 investigations, not counting local school district probes.
Teachers needed guidance from Morath and his agency on how to deal with student questions about the shooting of Kirk and others, said Weingarten. Teachers did not need to be threatened, vilified, or have their rights stripped away. Those actions have “a chilling effect,” she added.
“Instead, they got blame and shame in a Star Chamber,” said Weingarten, referring to a secret judicial proceeding against supposed enemies, run by kings in medieval England.
“There is a difference between liking or disliking someone’s speech and defending one’s right to speak. That is the essence of what America is about,” added Weingarten, a New York City civics teacher who also has a law degree.
Morath has a reputation statewide, and to some extent nationally, for his heavy-handed imposition of far-right dictates and mandates on school systems throughout Texas. In the most-notorious case, he fired the entire elected school board of the Houston Independent School District, the state’s largest, on the grounds that its schools were failing the students.
In reality, the Houston schools had vastly improved, rising from a “D” grade in Morath’s department’s own findings to a “B-“. But the school district educates mostly students of color, and the board was majority female and people of color. Morath replaced it with his own hand-picked board, mostly white, which promptly closed several “underperforming” schools in the middle of the year, dislocated thousands of students, and fired dozens of teachers.
This time, the suit says, he’s gone way too far.
Morath told local school districts “he would refer any educators whose Kirk-related posts he personally considered ‘vile’ to the Texas Education Agency’s (TEA) Educator Investigations Division,” the lawsuit says. After Kirk’s killing, Morath established a hotline for anonymous complaints about transgressing teachers.
Morath’s attitude was “report them so we can fire them,” Capo said. The only other state with such a law on the books, including anonymous tipsters, is another deep-red Southern megastate, Florida.
“Morath mandated superintendents across Texas do the same, directing as follows: ‘If you are made aware of additional instances of inappropriate conduct being shared, it should be reported to the agency through TEA’s Misconduct Reporting Panel.’”
Morath’s order did not “identify or define inappropriate conduct, or provide any other guidelines or protections to ensure due process and free speech rights of educators are preserved and protected. Texas AFT members are subject to the TEA Policy,” the lawsuit adds.
At least four teachers contacted the Texas union about Morath’s order. Capo, in turn, tried several times to meet Morath to work out the problem. Morath never replied. The teachers are anonymous to prevent further retaliation from TEA.
“One popular high school English teacher, Teacher 1, was fired after a politician used her [social media] posts–which simply raised questions about the circumstances of Kirk’s death and did not promote violence in any way–as the centerpiece of his election campaign, encouraging his supporters to call for Teacher 1’s dismissal. Tellingly, only two members of the school board voted for Teacher 1’s termination; the remaining five present members abstained in protest.”
The two unions also filed suit because they literally had no alternative after Morath refused to even discuss his order. Texas is not only a right-to-work state but also bans collective bargaining for public sector workers. Unions representing them—such as the Texas Federation of Teachers, which has 66,000 members statewide–may only “meet and confer” with officials on overall working conditions, including pay and benefits. They may also file grievances, but that’s all.
“Although public school teachers and other employees are public servants, they do not surrender their First Amendment rights simply by virtue of their employment, especially with respect to their activities as private citizens outside of the school environment,” the suit says.
“More specifically, the First Amendment rights granted to all American citizens, including public school teachers and other employees, protect their ability to comment on current events through their personal accounts on social media.”
“You don’t lose your constitutional rights when you decide to become a teacher—the Constitution, for it to have any meaning at all, has to work for all Americans, not just some,” Weingarten concluded. No trial date has been set yet for the Texas lawsuit
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