Teacher Union Sues Texas Agency Over Charlie Kirk Comment Policy

The Texas Education Agency‘s policy of punishing teachers and public school employees for commenting about conservative political activist Charlie Kirk following his assassination is unconstitutional, according to a suit filed Tuesday in federal court.

The policy violates the First Amendment rights of school employees because it is impermissibly vague, overbroad, and chills protected speech, Texas American Federation of Teachers told the US District Court for the Western District of Texas. The court should force the agency to retract the policy and terminate investigations into school employees related to comments about Kirk, the union says.

“A few well-placed Texas politicians and bureaucrats think it is good for their careers to trample on educators’ free speech rights,” Zeph Crepo, president of the union, said in a Tuesday press release. “They decided scoring a few cheap points was worth the unfair discipline, the doxxing, and the death threats targeted at Texas teachers.”

The agency, which oversees primary and secondary public education in the state, declined to comment.

Kirk was shot and killed on Sept. 10 while speaking at an outdoor event at Utah Valley University. Tyler Robinson of Utah has been charged with his murder.

After Kirk’s, public school educators—on their own time—posted about the event on their personal social media accounts, the complaint says, and suffered professional consequences as a result.

The education agency Sept. 12 announced a policy requiring school districts to report employees posting or sharing what the agency called “reprehensible and inappropriate content” about Kirk. School districts then referred union members to the agency for investigation, and began to discipline for social media posts made on both public and private accounts, the complaint says.

More than 350 teachers are the targets of investigations as a result of the policy, the union says.

Overbreadth Asserted

The policy is an unconstitutional viewpoint-based restriction on speech, the complaint says, because it specifically targets expressions with which agency commissioner Mike Morath disagrees.

The agency didn’t issue a similar policy with respect to school personnel who posted about the assassinations of Democratic Minnesota lawmakers Melissa Hortman or John Hoffman in July 2025, the union says. The Kirk policy appears to mandate investigations only for personnel critiquing Morath’s preferred political figure, the complaint says.

The policy may appropriately restrict some speech that could disrupt a school’s learning environment, the complaint says, but it is unlawfully overbroad because it also targets a “wide swath” of constitutionally protected speech that doesn’t affect school operations.

The overbreadth unconstitutionally chills school personnel from engaging in protected expressive activity, the complaint says, as members are fearful about sharing matters of public concern that may not align with the Texas government.

Steptoe LLP and Deats Durst & Owen PLLC represent the union.

The case is Texas Am. Fed. of Teachers v. Texas Educ. Agency, W.D. Tex., No. 26-cv-24, complaint 1/6/26.