Teachers, Firefighters, Officials Fired over Kirk Posts

Teachers, firefighters, elected officials and even a cable news contributor have lost their jobs or are under investigation after comments they made about the assassination of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk.

Reports of teachers and school administrators around the country being put on leave proliferated Thursday less than 24 hours after Kirk’s death. School employees in Tennessee, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Mississippi, Ohio were all being investigated for posts made on social media.

At least one teacher in South Carolina was fired for a post about Kirk’s death that read: “Thoughts and prayers to his children but IMHO America became greater today. There I said it.”

A teacher and city councilor in Cornelius, Oregon, wrote the assassination “really brightened up my day,” landing him in hot water.

A public relations employee for the National Football League’s Carolina Panthers was terminated, according to The Athletic, after reportedly posting on his personal Instagram account: “Why are yall sad? Your man said it was worth it,” with an image of the Wu-Tang hit “Protect Ya Neck.”

Matthew Dowd, an MSNBC contributor, was also fired by the network for comments he made on the air during breaking news coverage on Wednesday.

Another social media influencer, who posts under the account Libs of TikTok, was also on the case. A firefighter in New Orleans had posted an Instagram comment, which she later deleted, suggesting Kirk deserved to die and the bullet was “a gift from god.” But the deleted comment had been screenshotted and shared on Libs of TikTok, drawing the attention of the fire department’s superintendent and the Louisiana attorney general.