Firings, Harassment and Threats from Government Officials Adding to a Chilled Climate
Facts are still emerging about the horrific shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University last week. But in the ensuing days, a broad campaign has emerged to police speech about the incident online, leading to a spate of suspensions, firings, harassment, and doxing, some of it at the behest of elected officials.
While this follows a trend we have seen in the wake of other divisive national incidents in recent years, the current campaign is notable for its speed and scope — already leading to dismissals of educators and journalists, and smear campaigns against authors — as well as the way that it has been quickly organized and coordinated. Look no further than an anonymously registered website, “Expose Charlie’s Murderers,” which launched within a day of the shooting, to chronicle allegedly offensive posts, along with users’ names, locations, and employers, and which has announced it is developing a “searchable database.”
Especially concerning has been the involvement of a number of high-ranking government officials, who have fanned the flames of this campaign and proposed to use the power of their offices to punish free thought. They have used Kirk’s murder as a pretext to crack down on speech in clear violation of the First Amendment.
For example, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau wrote on X last week that he was “disgusted” to see posts “making light” of Kirk’s shooting, and said he had directed consular services to take “appropriate action” against any foreigners making such comments. U.S. Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana said he would “use congressional authority” and influence with big tech platforms to immediately pursue lifetime bans from social media for any users that “belittled” Kirk’s assassination, as well as pursue revocations of individuals’ business licenses and drivers’ licenses.
In Florida, the state education commissioner sent a memo to superintendents saying he intended to investigate teachers if they posted anything “despicable” about the incident. Ditto in Oklahoma, where the state superintendent has already launched such an investigation. In Indiana, the state attorney general has similarly called for citizens to report educators making comments that “celebrate or rationalize” Kirk’s assassination directly to the government. Many public school teachers and university professors across the country have also been fired or suspended.
These McCarthy-like threats can’t be taken lightly, coming amid a federal administration that has already demonstrated its willingness to imprison international students for their speech, scrutinize social media posts, and crack down on dissent from protestors, journalists, universities, and media outlets.
Other chilling incidents where people have been punished for their speech involve private actors, and do not implicate protections from the First Amendment. But in the aggregate, they contribute to an emerging climate of fear and violate the spirit of free expression that has and should anchor a democratic society.
In the media and journalism sector, Matthew Dowd, a veteran MSNBC commentator, was fired over remarks he made on air suggesting that Kirk’s hateful rhetoric led to the climate in which his shooting took place. Karen Attiah, a columnist for the Washington Post, said she was fired after posting on social media about gun violence and racial dynamics in the aftermath of the killing. Several other reports have been disciplined, including a Florida reporter who was suspended for asking Florida Representative Randy Fine about his position on gun control and an Arizona sportswriter who was fired for criticizing Kirk’s positions on guns and calling him “evil.”
The chill is spreading to the cultural and literary spheres as well. South Park was blasted by some online commentators for a recent episode satirizing Kirk, which originally premiered in August and in the past week has been pulled from airing on cable. The feminist online site Jezebel took down a satirical post about casting a curse on Kirk which it had published only a few days before Kirk was shot. And DC Comics announced it was cancelling further publications in a new “Red Hood” series, a spinoff of Batman, because of the author’s comments on her social media account about Kirk’s shooting, which the company deemed offensive and against its standards of conduct. Other writers and artists have also reported receiving threats or being doxed for their comments about the incident.
While the details of these incidents vary, collectively this unfolding campaign poses numerous threats to free expression: chilling the space for open discourse, normalizing punitive responses to speech that some find aberrant, and intimidating people through targeted harassment to silence them. This is about more than just incidents of individuals facing punishment or harassment for their speech — terminations, doxing, public shaming, and online abuse and threats send a chilling message for everyone that you can only express certain ideas. These are well-worn tactics of intimidation, designed to chill speech and exert control over not just the individuals targeted, but also over the public marketplace of ideas.
It is precisely at these moments of highly charged national debate that a democratic society needs a broad exchange of ideas and the ability for people to share their opinions, even if they are unpopular. While we can hope that people engage with each other responsibly and civilly, we must fight back against political attempts to weaponize this moment to crack down on free speech and silence disfavored viewpoints. Left unchecked, this kind of coordinated campaign can create a climate of fear that affects everyone.
