The Texas branch of the American Federation of Teachers sued the state’s education agency in federal court on Tuesday, challenging investigations against scores of teachers in the state over comments they made after the killing of the conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
The union’s lawsuit was among the first to oppose a broad effort by conservatives on social media, and some Republican state leaders, including Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas, to punish educators and others who criticized Mr. Kirk or his views in the aftermath of his killing Sept. 10.
In the lawsuit, the union argues that the state’s education department, the Texas Education Agency, violated the free speech rights of public school teachers by directing state officials and school districts to investigate comments about Mr. Kirk made mostly on their own private social media accounts and outside of work.
The state’s policy represents an “unconstitutional viewpoint-based restriction on speech,” the lawsuit argues.
“This was a state-sponsored attack on teachers because of what they expressed privately to their friends and colleagues and family,” Randi Weingarten, the president of the national American Federal of Teachers, said in a phone interview. She traveled to Austin on Tuesday to support the local union in its suit.
“You can’t have First Amendment rights for some and not for all,” Ms. Weingarten said. Even if some of the statements about Mr. Kirk were “noxious,” she added, “people have to have this fundamental right to express themselves.”
The suit names the state education agency and its commissioner, Mike Morath, as defendants. In a letter to superintendents soon after Mr. Kirk’s killing, Mr. Morath said the agency had seen “reprehensible” and “vile” postings by some teachers and instructed superintendents to report other “inappropriate” content to the state agency. He said the postings could violate the state’s code of ethics for teachers.
A spokeswoman for the Texas Education Agency did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
State officials in Texas, along with those in Florida, have been among the most aggressive in their efforts to curtail the speech of teachers after Mr. Kirk’s death, Ms. Weingarten said.
Mr. Abbott, in a social media post in September, said that the state was investigating more than 100 teachers “whose actions called for or incite violence following the Charlie Kirk assassination.”
Several Republican lawmakers also called for individual teachers to be fired, including one teacher who suggested that Mr. Kirk’s killing “could have been the consequences of his actions catching up with him.”
“FIRE HER NOW!” State Representative Briscoe Cain, a Republican from outside Houston who is running for Congress, wrote on social media.
The lawsuit describes actions taken against several teachers in several different school districts. None of the teachers are named in the suit. Ms. Weingarten said that anonymity was necessary to prevent further harassment against the teachers, who have seen sensitive information about them published online.
The state’s investigations could strip teachers of their certifications, preventing them from teaching, said Zeph Capo, the president of the Texas AFT. The lawsuit filed on Tuesday asks a federal court, in the Western District of Texas, in Austin, to stop the state agency from taking that step and to halt its ongoing investigations.
According to the suit, Mr. Morath said in a meeting that principals and superintendents who did not report “inappropriate content” to the agency could face discipline as well.
At least two teachers from districts in the Houston area have been fired because of their comments, according to Mr. Capo, and others have been placed on a “do not hire” list, which he said was usually reserved for people who may be ineligible to teach or have been flagged for past criminal conduct.
“This was supposed to be for people who were hurting kids,” he said of the do-not-hire list. Instead, Mr. Capo said, certified teachers were “being persecuted and compared to sex offenders” because of their private political speech.
J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma.
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