SAN ANTONIO – The head of the Texas Education Agency says his agency is already reviewing complaints about educators’ social media posts on the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and he will recommend teachers who “call for and incite further violence” have their certification suspended.
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath told Texas superintendents on Friday the TEA would investigate “reprehensible and inappropriate content” shared or posted on social media by Texas educators about the assassination of the conservative political activist for “sanctionable conduct.”
In an email response to KSAT on Monday afternoon, a TEA spokesperson said the agency had already received approximately 180 complaints. The email also included a quote attributed to Morath.
“While all educators are held to a high standard of professionalism, there is a difference between comments made in poor taste and those that call for and incite further violence - the latter of which is clearly unacceptable. TEA’s Educator Investigations Division has already begun its review, and I will be recommending to the State Board for Educator Certification that such individuals have their certification suspended and be rendered ineligible to teach in a Texas public school.”
Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath, emailed statement Sep. 15, 2025
Kirk was shot and killed during a Sept. 10 college event in Utah on his “American Comeback Tour.” He was engaging in a debate with students on Utah Valley University’s campus when the attack took place.
The suspected 22-year-old shooter, Tyler Robinson, is in custody. FBI Director Kash Patel said Monday that Robinson’s DNA was found on a towel wrapped around a rifle found near the scene and that DNA evidence linked him to a screwdriver recovered from the rooftop where the fatal shot was fired.
The Texas chapter of the American Federation of Teachers released a statement Friday calling Morath’s letter a “political witch hunt against Texas educators.”
Speaking with KSAT Monday morning, Texas AFT President Zeph Capo said he wasn’t aware of an education commissioner taking similar steps.
“I mean, maybe during the McCarthyism era this happened, but certainly not in our recent history,” he said.
Capo questioned why it was only happening in this case of political violence, saying Morath had not sent out a similar message when a gunman shot two Minnesota lawmakers and their spouses.
He also pointed out the Florida education commissioner had made similar comments about sanctioning teachers.
“I think this is about the governor of Florida and the governor of Texas trying to ride a political wave for their next — for their political ambitions, the same thing that we saw out of southeast Houston with a state rep trying to ride the backs of teachers on a national outcry to stair-step to his next position as a member of Congress,” Capo said in an apparent reference to state Rep. Briscoe Cain (R-128).
“That is why we think that these things are a witch hunt and coming down from the top, rather than allowing them to come up from our local communities and do the job that they have always done, at least for the last several decades that I’m aware of."
Cain, who plans to make a congressional bid in 2026 and represents a portion of east Harris County, had posted screenshots of what he said were social media posts by local teachers he believed were mocking or celebrating Kirk’s death.
One was a Texas AFT member at Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School, whom Capo said has since been suspended, pending a termination hearing.
In screenshots Cain shared on his own Facebook profile, the teacher appeared to ask, “could this have been the consequences of his actions catching up with him?” in one post. In another, she appears to say “someone ‘fact-checked’ him and found his ‘facts’ inaccurate,” ending the post with “#karma is a b----.”
In an email Monday afternoon, Capo said the only post of the teacher’s he thought “maybe crossed the line into disciplinary” was the one with the comment about karma if it had happened after the shooting. He couldn’t be sure, he said, because the screenshot lacked a date.
Capo said the context of all the teacher’s posts “still seems to be asking of her followers to engage in civil debate about this issue.”
“I don’t see it crossing into stoking violence,” he wrote. “I’m not sure I would define any of it as vile or repulsive in the same way that I have seen comments on a host of other issues and murders such as the Minnesota politicians, George Floyd, or Trayvon Martin. I just heard earlier today that Mr. Floyd’s life didn’t matter because he was petty criminal. He was still someone’s son, brother, father. Why just now?”
In the San Antonio area, Jourdanton ISD posted a statement Friday on Facebook that “a recent social media post by one of our teachers regarding this tragedy does not reflect the values, mission, or expectations of Jourdanton ISD.” The statement did not identify the teacher or what was said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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