In the days following the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, numerous workers have been fired for their comments on his death, among them MSNBC political analyst Matthew Dowd.
Several conservative activists have sought to identify social media users whose posts about Kirk they viewed as offensive or celebratory, targeting everyone from journalists to teachers. Right-wing influencer Laura Loomer said she would try to ruin the professional aspirations of anyone who celebrated Kirk’s death.
It’s far from the first time workers have lost their jobs over things they say publicly — including in social media posts. But the speed at which the firings have been happening raises questions about worker rights versus employer rights.
In the U.S., laws can vary across states, but overall, there’s very little legal protection for employees who are punished for speech made both in and out of private workplaces.
“Most people think they have a right to free speech…but that doesn’t necessarily apply in the workplace,” said Vanessa Matsis-McCready, associate general counsel and vice president of HR Services for Engage PEO. “Most employees in the private sector do not have any protections for that type of speech at work.”
Add to that the prevalence of social media, which has made it increasingly common to track employees’ conduct outside of work and to dox people, or publish information about them online with the intent of harming or harassing them.
Employers have a lot of leeway
Protections for workers vary from one state to the next. For example, in New York, if an employee is participating in a weekend political protest, but not associating themselves with the organization that employs them, their employer cannot fire them for that activity when they return to work.
But if that same employee is at a company event on a weekend and talks about their political viewpoints in a way that makes others feel unsafe or the target of discrimination or harassment, then they could face consequences at work, Matsis-McCready said.
Most of the U.S. defaults to “at-will” employment law, which essentially means employers can choose to hire and fire as they see fit, including over employees’ speech.
“The First Amendment does not apply in private workplaces to protect employees’ speech,” said Andrew Kragie, an attorney who specializes in employment and labor law at Maynard Nexsen. “It actually does protect employers’ right to make decisions about employees, based on employees’ speech.”
Kragie said there are “pockets of protection” around the U.S. under various state laws, such as statutes that forbid punishing workers for their political views. But the interpretation of how that gets enforced changes, he notes, making the waters murky.
Steven T. Collis, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin and faculty director of the school’s Bech-Loughlin First Amendment Center, also points to some state laws that say employers can’t fire their workers for “legal off-duty conduct.” But there’s often an exception for conduct seen as disruptive to an employer’s business or reputation, which could be grounds to fire someone over public comments or social media posts.
“In this scenario, if somebody feels like one of their employees has done something that suggests they are glorifying or celebrating a murder, an employer might still be able to fire them even with one of those laws on the books,” Collis said.
For public employees, who can range from school teachers and postal workers to elected officials, the process is a bit different. That’s because the First Amendment plays a unique role when the government is the employer, Collis explains. The Supreme Court has ruled that if an employee is acting in a private capacity but speaking on a matter of public concern, they could be protected. Still, he noted that government employers can discipline a worker if they determine such conduct will interfere with the government’s ability to do its job.
Some in the public sector have already worked to restrict speech in the aftermath of Kirk’s death. For instance, leaders at the Pentagon unveiled a “zero tolerance” policy for any posts or comments from troops that make light of or celebrate the killing of Kirk.
The policy, announced by the Pentagon’s top spokesman Sean Parnell on social media Thursday, came hours after numerous conservative military influencers and activists began forwarding posts they considered problematic to Parnell and his boss, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
“It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American,” Parnell wrote Thursday.
A surge of political debate
The ubiquity of social media is making it easier than ever to share opinions about politics and major news events as they’re unfolding. But posting on social media leaves a record, and in times of escalating political polarization, those declarations can be seen as damaging to the reputation of an individual or their employer.
“People don’t realize when they’re on social media, it is the town square,” said Amy Dufrane, CEO of the Human Resource Certification Institute. “They’re not having a private conversation with the neighbor over the fence. They’re really broadcasting their views.”
Political debates are certainly not limited to social media and are increasingly making their way into the workplace as well.
“The gamification of the way we communicate in the workplace, Slack and Teams, chat and all these things, they’re very similar to how you might interact on Instagram or other social media, so I do think that makes it feel a little less formal and somebody might be more inclined to take to take a step and say, ‘Oh, I can’t believe this happened,’” Matsis-McCready said.
Employers are not ready
In the tense, divided climate of the U.S., many human resource professionals have expressed that they’re unprepared to address politically charged discussions in the workplace, according to the Human Resource Certification Institute. But those conversations are going to happen, so employers need to set policies about what is acceptable or unacceptable workplace conduct, Dufrane said.
“HR has got to really drill down and make sure that they’re super clear on their policies and practices and communicating to their employees on what their responsibilities are as an employee of the organization,” Dufrane said.
Many employers are reviewing their policies on political speech and providing training about what appropriate conduct looks like, both inside and outside the organization, she said. And the brutal nature of Kirk’s killing may have led some of them to react more strongly in the days that followed his death.
“Because of the violent nature of what some political discussions are now about, I think there is a real concern from employers that they want to keep the workplace safe and that they’re being extra vigilant about anything that could be viewed as a threat, which is their duty,” Matsis-McCreedy said.
Employees can also be seen as ambassadors of a company’s brand, and their political speech can dilute that brand and hurt its reputation, depending on what is being said and how it is being received. That is leading more companies to act on what employees are saying online, she said.
“Some of the individuals that had posted and their posts went viral, all of a sudden the phone lines of their employers were just nonstop calls complaining,” Matsis-McCready said.
Still, experts like Collis don’t anticipate a significant change in how employers monitor their workers' speech, noting that online activity has come under the spotlight for at least the last 15 years.
“Employers are already and have been for a very long time vetting employees based on what they’re posting on social media,” he said.
After years of complaints from the right about “cancel culture” from the left, some conservatives are seeking to upend the lives and careers of those who disparaged Charlie Kirk after his death. They’re going after companies, educators, news outlets, political rivals, and others they judge as promoting hate speech.
A campaign by public officials and others on the right has led just days after the conservative activist’s death to the firing or punishment of teachers, an Office Depot employee, government workers, a TV pundit, and the expectation of more dismissals coming.
A door security camera captured footage of the suspect in the Charlie Kirk assassination driving through an Orem, Utah neighborhood before leaving his vehicle and walking by foot on the day of the shooting.
This past weekend, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy posted that American Airlines had grounded pilots who he said were celebrating Kirk’s assassination.
“This behavior is disgusting and they should be fired,” Duffy said on the social media site X.
As elected officials and conservative influencers lionize Kirk as a warrior for free expression who championed provocative opinions, they’re also weaponizing the tactics they saw being used to malign their movement — the calls for firings, the ostracism, the pressure to watch what you say.
Such tactics raise a fundamental challenge for a nation that, by many accounts, appears to be dangerously splintered by politics and a sense of moral outrage that social media helps to fuel. For his part, Trump on Sunday suggested he was already using the government to look into his political adversaries when asked if he would investigate them after Kirk’s death.
“They’re already under major investigation, a lot of the people that you would traditionally say are on the left,” Trump told reporters.
The aftermath of Kirk’s death has increasingly become a test of the public's tolerance for political differences. Republicans are pushing not only to punish the alleged killer but also those whose words they believe contributed to the death or dishonored it. At the same time, some liberals on social media have criticized those, such as actress Kristin Chenoweth, who expressed sympathy online over Kirk’s death.
Kirk was killed Wednesday during an outdoor debate event on campus. Students who witnessed his assassination are reckoning with trauma and grief. Kirk, the CEO and co-founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point USA, was a top podcaster, culture warrior and ally of President Donald Trump. (AP video by Thomas Peipert)
“This pattern that we’ve seen for decades seems to be happening much more now and at this moment than it ever has before,” said Adam Goldstein of the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression. He dates the urge to persecute people for their private views on tragedies at least to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. “If there was ever a time to support the better angels of our nature, it’s now.”
Goldstein noted that it’s unpopular speech, like people praising the assassination, that stands as the greatest test of acceptance of the First Amendment — especially when government officials get involved. “The only time you’re really supporting free speech is when it’s unpopular,” Goldstein said. “There’s no one out there trying to stop people from loving puppies and bunnies.”
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, a Republican, has cautioned that the motive for the assassination has not been confirmed. He said the suspect in custody clearly identifies with the political left and had expressed dislike of Kirk before the shooting. But he and other authorities also say the suspect was not known to have been politically engaged.
Kirk was seen as an architect of President Donald Trump’s 2024 election win, helping to expand the Republican outreach to younger voters. That means many conservatives see the remarks by liberals as fomenting violence, rather than as acts of political expression.
“I think President Trump sees this as an attack on his political movement,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., on NBC as he noted the two assassination attempts against Trump as well as Kirk’s killing. “This is unique and different. This is an attack on a movement by using violence. And that’s the way most Republicans see this.”
Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., who is running for governor, called on social media for the firings of an assistant dean at Middle Tennessee State University and professors at Austin Peay State University and Cumberland University.
All three lost their jobs for comments deemed inappropriate for expressing a lack of sympathy, or even for expressing pleasure, in the shooting of Kirk. One said Kirk “spoke his fate into existence.”
Some NFL teams chose on Sunday to hold a moment of silence for Kirk. Football teams have in the past chosen to memorialize victims after school shootings or an attack on a house of worship. They have also marked notable deaths of public figures, weather-related disasters, and international crises such as Hamas’ attack on Israel in October 2023.
Because conservatives previously felt canceled by liberals for their views, Trump, on his first day back in office signed an executive order prohibiting everyone in the federal government from engaging in conduct that would “unconstitutionally abridge the free speech of any American citizen.”
In February at the Munich Security Conference, Vice President JD Vance criticized the preceding Biden administration for encouraging “private companies to silence people who dared to utter what turned out to be an obvious truth” regarding the pandemic. He assailed European countries for censoring political speech.
“Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,” Vance said at the time.
Still, the Trump administration has also cracked down on immigrants and academics for their speech.
Goldstein noted that Trump’s State Department, in the minutes after Kirk’s death, warned it would revoke the visas of any foreigners who celebrated Kirk’s assassination. “I can’t think of another moment where the United States has come out to warn people of their impending cancellation,” Goldstein said.
The glimmer of bipartisan agreement in the aftermath of the assassination was in the sense that social media was fueling the violence and misinformation in dangerous ways.
“I can’t emphasize enough the damage that social media and the internet are doing to all of us,” Cox said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” He said “the most powerful companies in the history of the world have figured out how to hack our brains, get us addicted to outrage.”
But many Republican lawmakers have also targeted traditional news media that criticized Trump for contributing to a toxic political climate with his consistent rhetoric, painting anyone against him as an enemy.
On Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” Sen. Katie Britt, R-Ala., blamed news outlets for having guests on who called Trump a “fascist” or compared him to the Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
Such statements have been borne out of Trump’s attempt to overturn his 2020 election loss, his pardoning of Jan. 6 rioters, and a range of policy differences. Among them are his deportations, deployment of the National Guard, mass firings of federal employees, and his scorn for the historic limits on the power of the presidency.
But for Britt, those expressions were unfair, inaccurate, and triggered violence.
“There must be consequences about people spewing that type of hate and celebration in the face of this,” Britt said. “And I believe that there will be.”
The suspect in the assassination of the conservative American activist Charlie Kirk espoused left-wing views, Utah’s governor has said, amid heightened tensions and recriminations over surging political violence in the United States.
In an interview with NBC News’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Utah Governor Spencer Cox said the arrested suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, had a “leftist ideology” despite growing up in a conservative family.end of list
“We can confirm that, again, according to family and people that we’re interviewing, he does come from a conservative family. But his ideology was very different than his family, and so that’s part of it,” Cox said.
Cox, a Republican, did not elaborate on Robinson’s suspected motive, but said the suspect had spent time in “dark places” online.
“We do know, and again, this has been well publicised, that this was a very normal young man, a very smart young man,” Cox said.
According to public records, Robinson registered as a nonpartisan voter in Utah, while his parents are registered Republicans.
In a separate interview with CNN’s State of the Union, Cox said the information about Robinson’s left-wing views had come from interviews with family members and friends.
“I really don’t have a dog in this fight. If this were MAGA, and a radicalised MAGA person, I would be saying that as well,” Cox said, referring to US President Donald Trump’s Make America Great Again movement.
“That’s not what they’re sharing.”
Cox also confirmed reports that Robinson had a romantic relationship with his transgender roommate, who was transitioning from male to female.
“This partner has been incredibly cooperative, had no idea that this was happening, and is working with investigators right now,” he said.
Cox said he was not aware if Robinson’s relationship had any relevance to the assassination, but that authorities were investigating.
“We’re trying to figure it out. I know everybody wants to know exactly why, and point the finger, and I totally get that. I do too,” he said.
Kirk, the leader and cofounder of youth activist group Turning Post USA and a close ally of Trump, was shot dead on Wednesday during a speaking appearance at Utah Valley University.
A key figure on the political right, Kirk was described in media profiles as a “rock star” among young conservatives, and played a pivotal role in driving the youth vote in Trump’s November re-election.
A polarising figure, Kirk was lionised by conservatives as a defender of traditional values and a champion of free speech, but seen by liberals as an incendiary figure who stoked hatred towards racial minorities and members of the LGBTQ community.
While both Republican and Democratic leaders have condemned Kirk’s murder, the killing has drawn attention to the extreme political polarisation pitting everyday Americans against one another.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, some left-leaning Americans took to social media to celebrate, prompting outrage from conservatives and the launch of online campaigns to get people deemed disrespectful of Kirk’s memory fired from their jobs.
On the right, some figures invoked the rhetoric of retribution and war.
“If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die,” tech billionaire Elon Musk said on X.
Trump, who swiftly denounced the rhetoric of the “radical left” after Kirk’s killing, has declined opportunities to stress the need for unity and avoid partisan blame since the assassination.
Speaking on Fox News’s Fox & Friends on Friday, Trump sought to paint left-wing extremism as worse than extremism on the right.
“The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime,” Trump said.
“The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible, and they’re politically savvy.”
In an interview with NBC News on Saturday, Trump said that while he would like to see the country heal, “we’re dealing with a radical left group of lunatics, and they don’t play fair and they never did”.
Kirk’s assassination has prompted fears of further violence amid a documented increase in politically motivated attacks.
According to a tally by the Reuters news agency, the US experienced at least 300 instances of political violence between the January 6, 2021, riot at the US Capitol and the 2024 presidential election, marking it out as the worst period for such violence since the 1970s.
DEFINING THE NARRATIVE
Family and friends of the 22-year-old accused of fatally shooting conservative activist Charlie Kirk described his politics as veering left in recent years as he spent large amounts of time scrolling the “dark corners of the internet,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said Sunday.
Investigators were still piecing together information about the suspect, Tyler Robinson, and were not yet ready to discuss a potential motive. But Cox noted that Robinson, who is not cooperating with law enforcement, disliked Kirk and may have been “radicalized” online.
Kirk founded Turning Point USA to bring more young, conservative evangelical Christians into politics as effective activists, and he was a confidant of President Donald Trump, leading to a flood of tributes that included a vigil Sunday night at the Kennedy Center in Washington. Kirk, a 31-year-old father of two, became prominent in part through his speaking tours, and he was shot Wednesday while speaking at Utah Valley University.
“There clearly was a leftist ideology,” Cox said on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” citing interviews with Robinson’s relatives and acquaintances. “Friends have confirmed that there was kind of that deep, dark internet, the Reddit culture, and these other dark places of the internet where this person was going deep.”
He pointed to references found engraved on the ammunition used to kill Kirk, which included anti-fascist and meme-culture language. Court records show that one bullet casing had the message, “Hey, fascist! Catch!”
A Republican who has called on all partisans to tone down their rhetoric following the attack, the governor added, “I really don’t have a dog in this fight. If this were a radicalized MAGA person, I’d be saying that as well.”
Utah’s governor says a motive still isn’t pinned down
Cox stressed on several Sunday morning news shows that investigators are still trying to pin down a motive for the attack on Kirk, a Trump confidant. The governor said more information may come out once Robinson appears in court on Tuesday.
Cox said the suspect’s partner was transgender, which some politicians have pointed to as a sign Robinson was targeting Kirk for his anti-transgender views. But authorities have not said whether it is relevant as they investigate Robinson’s motive.
“The roommate was a romantic partner, a male transitioning to female,” Cox said. “I can say that he has been incredibly cooperative; this partner has been very cooperative, had no idea that this was happening.”
Investigators have spoken to Robinson’s relatives and carried out a search warrant at his family’s home in Washington, Utah, about 240 miles (390 kilometers) southwest of Utah Valley University.
State records show Robinson is registered to vote but not affiliated with a political party and is listed as inactive, meaning he did not vote in the two most recent general elections. His parents are registered Republicans.
The suspect grew up in southwestern Utah
Robinson grew up around St. George, in the southwestern corner of Utah, between Las Vegas and natural landmarks including Bryce Canyon and Zion National Parks.
He became a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known widely as the Mormon church, at a young age, church spokesperson Doug Andersen said.
Online activity by Robinson’s mother reflects an active family that traveled widely. In one photo, a young Robinson can be seen smiling as he grips the handles of a .50-caliber heavy machine gun outside a military facility.
A high school honor roll student who scored in the 99th percentile nationally on standardized tests, he was admitted to Utah State University in 2021 on a prestigious academic scholarship, according to a video of him reading his acceptance letter that was posted to a family member’s social media account.
But he attended for only one semester, according to the university. He is currently enrolled as a third-year student in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College in St. George.
Tributes emphasize Kirk’s religious faith
The vigil at the Kennedy Center was among numerous tributes to Kirk that also included moments of silence at professional sporting events. The line of mourners in Washington wrapped around the center. Some people wore suits or summer dresses, while others were dressed in jeans and wore “Make America Great Again” caps.
Seventeen-year-old Domiano Maceri and his mother drove about 50 miles (80 kilometers) from Purceville, Virginia, to attend the Kennedy Center event. He said Kirk helped him find a way to better talk with friends who hold different opinions.
“I definitely feel like I was inspired in different ways,” Maceri said as he waited to get inside. “It definitely gave me confidence to speak to my friends about my beliefs more.”
Speakers included White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, two House members whose remembrances of Kirk were briefly stalled when they teared up, and House Speaker Mike Johnson.
“Father, help us remember the principles of your word that Charlie worked every day -- to advance that we not return evil for evil but we overcome evil with good,” Johnson prayed.
At Dream City Church in Phoenix, where Kirk hosted one of his “Freedom Night in America” gatherings, attendees viewed clips of the conservative activist discussing his desire to be “remembered for courage for my faith.”
During a question-and-answer session, a church pastor, Angel Barnett, called on the crowd to honor Kirk by carrying on his message.
“The left is nervous,” Barnett said. “And they’re concerned because they’ve lost control. Charlie started that, and we will continue it.”
Added church panelist Brandon Tatum: “These cowards thought that they could end or eliminate the movement.”
“They just made it bigger. They just made it stronger.”