The head of Florida’s statewide teachers union condemned what he described as doxxing efforts that have emerged online after Florida’s top education official threatened to investigate teachers for what they write on their personal social media pages.
“We certainly condemn anyone who makes inappropriate comments, who makes threats, who doxes individuals — all of that is inappropriate in a time when we need calm and we need to come together to solve challenges that so many families and so many communities face today,” Florida Education Association president Andrew Spar, a former music teacher, told Orlando Weekly.
Florida Department of Education commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas, a right-wing appointee of Gov. Ron DeSantis, on Thursday issued a memo to school superintendents, warning that any teacher who makes “despicable” comments about the killing of conservative activist Charlie Kirk could be in violation of professional conduct guidelines and would be subject to investigation and the potential revocation of their teaching license.
Kirk, founder of youth conservative group Turning Point USA, was gunned down Wednesday afternoon during a college event at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah. The 31-year-old, who leaves behind a wife and two small children, was a controversial figure as a staunch Trump ally, a supporter of gun ownership rights and “traditional marriage,” and a political commentator who rallied younger generations to the right-wing MAGA movement.
“Teachers are held to a higher standard as public servants and must ensure their conduct does not undermine the trust of the students and families they serve,” Kamoutsas shared on X Thursday, referencing allegations of comments made by teachers on social media. “We will hold teachers who choose to make disgusting comments about the horrific assassination of Charlie Kirk accountable,” he added. “Govern yourselves accordingly.”
The Florida Department of Education ignored Orlando Weekly’s request for examples of “despicable” comments made by teachers. However, a department spokesperson told the Weekly that Kamoutsas “will use all of his power” to hold educators responsible for comments made online, including revoking their educator certificate.
“I think at the end of the day, teachers are held to a higher standard,” Spar agreed. “But that doesn’t mean someone gets to silence them.”
“Teachers are held to a higher standard, but that doesn’t mean someone gets to silence them.”
Andrew Spar, president of FEA
The Florida Education Association represents more than 120,000 teachers and school staff across Florida, a state that’s home to some of the largest school districts in the country. It’s also a state that ranks near dead-last in average teacher pay, spends less per student than the national average, and has been a battleground for a host of education policies that have affected teachers’ working conditions and academic freedom.
“We know that educators in Florida have felt an enormous amount of stress and pressure over the last few years,” Spar pointed out. “We know that they continue to be burdened by archaic rules, as well as rules intended to limit the learning of our students. We know that this has led to a massive teacher and staff shortage in the state of Florida,” he said.
Public education in Florida, the home-base of the conservative “parental rights” group Moms for Liberty, has for decades struggled with disinvestment. So much so that Florida teachers in 1968 launched the first-ever teachers strike documented in the U.S. over (in part) funding disparities, even after state leaders had already made it illegal for them to do so under state law.
Even more, state lawmakers and Gov. DeSantis in recent years have advanced a costly school-privatization agenda, siphoning funding from public education to pad the pockets of private interests who are less accountable to anti-discrimination protections and other regulations that affect universal access to a quality, cost-free K-12 education. As the investigative newsletter Seeking Rents recently reported, both charter school operators and billionaires like Ken Griffin have wielded the puppet strings in Tallahassee on this issue to get legislative leaders to fall in line.
Spar said teachers in Florida deserve due process when faced with accusations and investigations into their professional conduct by the state. Due process, he explained, is looking at the evidence, speaking to the individual accused, gathering information from the person or people making the accusation, and then comparing all of that evidence and the circumstances surrounding that evidence to the professional practice code of ethics that teachers are held to in Florida.
Education commissioner Kamoutsas, described in his official government bio as a “conservative leader in all major education policy efforts,” was chosen by the state board of education earlier this year to replace former Commissioner Manny Diaz Jr., who left the job to lead the University of West Florida as interim president. He stated in his memo Thursday that, while Florida educators do have free speech rights under the U.S. Constitution, “these rights do not extend without limit into their professional duties.” What an educator posts online publicly, he argued, “may undermine the trust of the students and families that they serve.”
The memo states that Florida law allows Florida’s education commissioner “to find probable cause to discipline an educator who, ‘upon investigation, has been found guilty of personal conduct that seriously reduces that person’s effectiveness as an employee of the district school board.’”
So far, at least one elementary school teacher in Clay County has reportedly been suspended over a social media post in which the teacher allegedly “celebrated” the death of Turning Point USA activist Kirk. According to the Orlando Sentinel, Clay County confirmed this suspension. The teacher had reportedly posted on their personal social media page, in response to Kirk’s killing, “This may not be the obituary we were all hoping to wake up to, but this is a close second for me.”
Kirk himself, an ardent debater, was known in part for his controversial stance on gun control, another issue very close to the hearts of educators.
“I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” Kirk argued at an event organized by TPUSA Faith, a division of Turning Point USA, in 2023.
“That is a prudent deal. It is rational,” he said.
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