Ball State University Settles for $225,000 Over Charlie Kirk Social Media Posts
The Indiana university becomes the latest institution to pay workers who lost their jobs for criticizing the conservative activist after his assassination.
Ball State University in Indiana has agreed to pay $225,000 to a former administrator who was fired for her Facebook post accusing Charlie Kirk of spreading fear, the latest legal settlement awarded to a worker dismissed for criticizing the conservative activist after he was assassinated. The American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana, which sued on the administrator's behalf, announced the settlement this week.
"As a public university, Ball State cannot fire an employee for protected speech made as a private citizen," the ACLU of Indiana said in a statement. The case involved a health care administrator for the university named Suzanne Swierc, who became one of many Americans targeted in a campaign by Kirk's followers, including Vice President JD Vance, to expose and retaliate against those who had spoken critically of Kirk after his assassination last fall on a Utah university campus.
Swierc wrote on her Facebook page several hours after Kirk was killed: "If you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can't be friends." Her post expressed disdain for Kirk's loyal fans but also condemned his death as the kind of violence she said was too common in American politics. Her settings were private, but one of her followers took a screenshot without her knowledge and sent it to others.
Scores of people—health care workers, lawyers, journalists, waiters and waitresses—were fired or faced other repercussions for their negative comments about Kirk, igniting a debate over how far employers can go in restricting employees' political expression that occurs outside the workplace. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression said it was tracking 13 lawsuits in federal court from people who had been disciplined or terminated for their comments about Kirk.
Employers in several states have also settled with or reinstated workers who faced similar retaliation. The Ball State settlement represents part of a broader legal reckoning over the boundaries of free speech in the workplace, particularly regarding political expression on social media platforms by public employees.
