The fallout from the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk has been swift and, for some outspoken employees, very costly.
In Indiana and across the country, people who posted callous or merely critical comments about Kirk have lost their jobs.
For workers fired by private employers, there’s often little recourse. Indiana is an employment-at-will state, and workers’ free speech rights go only about as far as their bosses allow. That’s because the First Amendment protects against government interference with free speech but not against legal private employer sanctions.
The line gets a little blurrier when the dismissal involves government workers, including public school and university employees. That’s why two Indiana cases that emerged last week could sketch in more legal guidance.
At Ball State University, Suzanne Swierc, director of Health Promotion & Advocacy, was fired after writing on Facebook that while Kirk’s killing was tragic, it was also “a reflection of the violence, fear, and hatred he sowed.”
Swierc already has filed a federal lawsuit challenging her dismissal
The Indiana Department of Child Services also announced that a staffer who posted an insensitive comment online was “no longer with the agency.”
Steve Sanders, a professor at the Indiana University Maurer School of Law, explained that when such departures are challenged in court, a legal principle known as the Pickering/Connick balancing test is used to determine if the workers were...
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