Scientist Fired for Kirk Post Loses First Court Bid for Rehiring

A Florida agency won’t be ordered immediately by a federal court to rehire a scientist who was fired after posting online about the Charlie Kirk murder.

Judge Mark E. Walker of the US District Court for the Northern District of Florida turned down Brittney Brown’s request for a preliminary injunction, saying she hadn’t yet shown that her free speech interests outweighed the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s interests in protecting its credibility with the public and preventing disruptions to its operations.

Multiple people have faced negative job repercussions after conservatives criticized their comments about Kirk’s death, including the temporary suspension of late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel. Several lawsuits have been filed in response.

On Sept. 10, Brown re-posted a statement about the murder of the conservative political activist from a third-party account as a story on her private Instagram account. The post stated that “the whales are deeply saddened to learn of the shooting of charlie kirk, haha just kidding, they care exactly as much as charlie kirk cared about children being shot in their classrooms, which is to say, not at all.”

Four days later, a user on X called “Libs of TikTok” posted a screenshot of her story alongside a screenshot of her public LinkedIn profile that listed her commission job.

Less than 24 hours after that, the commission fired Brown, prompting her suit against against executive director Roger A. Young, and Melissa Tucker, Brown’s supervisor.

The First Amendment “is not absolute” and applies differently in the context of the government as an employer compared to regulations of citizens’ speech in general, Walker said Thursday. Government employees must show that their speech played a substantial part in their termination, it involved a matter of public concern, and that their free speech interests outweighed the government’s “interest in effective and efficient fulfillment of its responsibilities,” the judge said.

Brown “has plainly met her burden to demonstrate that she spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern,” by re-posting a message that “satirically criticized” Kirk’s position on gun control “by juxtaposing his murder with the murder of children in school shootings,” the judge said.

While the Florida officials “try to twist the explanation” for Brown’s firing by claiming they fired her based on the public’s reaction to her speech and not because of her speech, “that dog won’t hunt,” Walker said.

“Defendants do not identify a basis, independent of Plaintiff’s speech, on which to base her termination. The public’s reaction to Plaintiff’s speech only exists because Plaintiff spoke,” he said.

Yet Brown failed to rebut Tucker’s evidence that there was a largely negative reaction from the public concerning her post, which “disrupted agency operations, required diversion of staff resources to manage responses, and raised legitimate concerns about the agency’s credibility and public trust,” Walker said.

Because Brown chose not to depose or cross-examine Tucker, the judge said he “cannot conclude on this sparse record that the public’s negative reaction was not disruptive enough to justify the action FWC took.”

“Only time will tell if this changes on a more developed record,” the judge added.

ACLU Foundation of Florida and Gary S. Edinger of Gainesville, Fla. represent Brown. Lawson Huck Gonzalez PLLC represents the defendants.

The case is Brown v. Young, 2025 BL 407164, N.D. Fla., No. 4:25-cv-00419, 11/13/25.