Gloating Over Kirk, and the Right's Mirror

A Gibson Southern High School English teacher, who has since left the job, shared an image of Charlie Kirk with the words "HUMANITY IS NOW A BETTER PLACE." The same teacher reposted a line attributed to Mark Twain: "I've never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." A South Bend teacher wrote, "With all due disrespect, Charlie Kirk can suck it." Reading those posts made me sick.

Kirk was shot and killed Sept. 10, 2025, while speaking at Utah Valley University. Days later, Attorney General Todd Rokita invited the public to submit educators' posts to his "Eyes on Education" portal. This week, Rokita said his office had referred 25 licensed educators to the Indiana Department of Education and seen no action. "@GovBraun, more than a year has passed. When will your administration act?" he wrote.

The governor set the expectation himself. In September 2025, Braun said "calls for political violence are not freedom of speech and should not be tolerated," and he said Secretary of Education Katie Jenner's office would review statements that "celebrate or incite political violence." On Nov. 10, he told 21Alive the remarks were "crass and probably regrettable" but said license action requires meeting a legal threshold. "Otherwise, it'd be arbitrary. And it also starts to, you know, get to the issue of freedom of speech," Braun said. This column argued on Nov. 10, in "A Wake-Up Call, Then Tel Aviv," that Braun and the IEDC should put the invoices and donor names behind an Israel trip on the table. The same standard applies here.

Mockery of an assassination is disgusting. Kirk built much of his career on college campuses, and a gunman killed him at one. A Riley High School teacher in South Bend allegedly wrote, "I'm not saying it's right, but I'm saying it's only fitting." Rokita put the classroom stakes plainly: "How can [students] feel safe and respected in a classroom led by someone who publicly states that the world would be better off without people like them?"

Honesty requires a harder look at the right. In January, federal agents killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis who federal officials say were obstructing immigration enforcement. An ICE agent shot Renee Good on Jan. 7, and Border Patrol agents shot Alex Pretti on Jan. 24. As of October, Minnesota investigators had made no charging decision in either case. Matt Walsh of the Daily Wire called Good a "lesbian agitator" and wrote, "The most disgraceful and humiliating end a person could possibly meet." Laura Loomer called her a "communist carpet-muncher who FAFO." About Pretti, Megyn Kelly asked, "Do you know why I wasn't shot by Border Patrol this weekend? Because I kept my ass inside and out of their operations." In 2020, a month after George Floyd died, a Scottsdale, Ariz., councilman declared "I can't breathe" multiple times at an anti-mask rally. Brendan O'Neill, a longtime critic of the woke left at the British magazine spiked, put it bluntly: "It used to be the woke left that revelled in the death of its opponents – now the digital right does the same."

That record does not excuse the Indiana posts. A public school teacher answers to children assigned to the room, including children whose families admired Kirk. A teacher who greets a murder with "HUMANITY IS NOW A BETTER PLACE" has told those students what that teacher thinks of people like them. That venomous joy can't be overlooked. The Supreme Court's 1968 Pickering decision weighs a public employee's speech against the employer's interests, and in 2025 the federal appeals court covering Indiana rejected the First Amendment claim of an Illinois teacher fired over Facebook posts that substantially disrupted her school. At least four Indiana K-12 educators resigned after their posts became public.

The free-speech side deserves equal honesty. Ball State University agreed to pay $225,000 to settle an ACLU of Indiana lawsuit by an employee fired over a private Facebook post that called Kirk's death a "tragedy" while criticizing him. A Triton Central Spanish teacher was placed on leave and agreed to retire over a post calling Kirk "neither a martyr nor a hero." That is political criticism, and the First Amendment protects it. Rokita's portal has also had to correct an entry that misidentified a person's employer. A state that punishes criticism along with celebration risks losing in court, with taxpayers covering the bill.

Indiana law already supplies the tool. On Jenner's written recommendation, the department "may suspend or revoke a license for: (1) immorality; (2) misconduct in office; (3) incompetency; or (4) willful neglect of duty," and each case must go through the state's administrative hearing process. As of March, the Office of Administrative Law Proceedings had received no teacher-license case since Kirk's death. Braun should direct the department to decide all 25 referrals before lawmakers return in January. Where a post celebrated the killing and reached students or the classroom, the department should file a formal complaint and let the hearing process decide. Where a post amounted to criticism, the file should close with a public explanation.

Kirk's killing called for grief, and some Hoosier educators answered with glee. Conservatives who want them held to account should apply the same standard at home. Braun said calls for political violence "should not be tolerated." He now owes Hoosiers 25 answers, each reached through due process.