Woman fired by Indiana university over Charlie Kirk post to receive US$225,000 legal settlement

A student enters Ball State University campus in Muncie, Ind., Sept. 10, 2020. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)

A woman fired by an Indiana university over her Facebook post criticizing conservative activist Charlie Kirk after he was killed will receive US$225,000 to settle a lawsuit that accused her former employer of violating her free-speech rights, the woman’s attorneys said Tuesday.

The American Civil Liberties Union announced the settlement in a federal lawsuit it filed last year on behalf of Suzanne Swierc against Ball State University President Geoffrey Mearns.

Swierc worked as director of health promotion and advocacy at Ball State’s campus in Muncie, Indiana, before she was fired last September. Ball State cited Swierc’s private Facebook post about Kirk as the sole reason for her termination, saying it caused “significant disruption” to the campus.

Swierc’s firing violated her constitutional rights because she was “speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern,” said Stevie Pactor, an ACLU attorney in Indiana.

“The First Amendment does not allow government institutions to retaliate in those circumstances, and this settlement reflects that,” Pactor said in a statement.

Mearns defended firing Swierc in a statement sent Tuesday to campus leaders, which a Ball State spokesperson shared with The Associated Press.

Mearns said backlash over Swierc’s post threatened to harm the school’s student enrollment and fundraising. He said the settlement’s “modest monetary payment” to Swierc was substantially less than fighting her lawsuit would have cost.

Kirk, founder of the conservative organization Turning Point USA, was killed by a gunman Sept. 10 on the campus of a Utah university. Before his death, Kirk was credited with galvanizing the conservative youth vote to help President Donald Trump win a second term.

Others fired for Kirk posts have won six-figure settlements

Swierc was among a wave of workers who lost their jobs in both the public and private sector after posting social media comments and memes about Kirk’s assassination. And she isn’t the first to win a legal settlement in court.

Earlier this month, a Florida state agency agreed to pay $485,000 to settle a lawsuit by a former state biologist who was fired after she reposted a meme that claimed Kirk wouldn’t care about children being shot in school.

In January, Austin Peay State University in Tennessee reinstated a professor and paid him a $500,000 settlement after he sued over his firing for posting a 2023 news headline that read: “Charlie Kirk Says Gun Deaths ‘Unfortunately’ Worth it to Keep 2nd Amendment.”

Lawsuits by other fired workers are still pending.

Ball State says employee’s post led to a flood of outrage

In her Facebook post, Swierc referred to Kirk’s killing as a “tragedy.” But she also called it a “reflection of the violence, fear, and hatred he sowed.” She wrote: “If you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends.”

Swierc’s attorneys said her Facebook page’s privacy settings walled off her posts from the general public, but someone took a screen shot of her comments on Kirk that was shared widely online.

Ball State’s president said Swierc’s post resulted in a flood of outraged phone calls and emails to the university. Some warned they would withhold donations and at least one parent said she planned to withdraw her children from the school. Some callers threatened violence, Mearns said.

“The reaction was extraordinarily damaging to our University’s reputation and image, and it was exceptionally disruptive to our mission and our people,” Mearns said in his statement.

Russ Bynum, The Associated Press

Bynum reported from Savannah, Georgia.