AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps
Conservative activist Charlie Kirk speaks during a town hall Monday, March 17, 2025, in Oconomowoc, Wis.
Several Houston-area educators are facing criticism and calls for their dismissal over comments they allegedly made about the Wednesday assassination of Charlie Kirk, a well-known conservative activist and podcaster.
The comments — which came in the form of social media posts that have been circulated by right-leaning politicians and pundits — prompted denouncements from local school districts.
Kirk, 31, was shot and killed at Utah Valley University while speaking during a debate hosted by Turning Point USA, a political student organization he led. On Thursday, authorities recovered a high-powered rifle and released images of a person suspected to be the shooter.
The shooting represents an act of violence amidst heightened political tensions across the United States in recent months.
Houston-area state Reps. Briscoe Cain (R-Deer Park) and Terri Leo-Wilson (R-Galveston) took to social media on Wednesday to call for the firing of a teacher at Goose Creek Consolidated Independent School District in Baytown. It happened after the teacher reportedly suggested Kirk’s death could have been “the consequences of his actions catching up with him,” according to screenshots posted on Cain’s Facebook page.
Utah Gov. Spencer Cox called Kirk’s death a “political assassination” and said Wednesday was “a tragic day for our nation.”
“I’ll bet if the victim had been Black or Brown or a Democratic influencer, [Cox would] have been singing a different tune,” the teacher also wrote on social media, according to the screenshots posted by Cain, who has called out other local educators for allegedly making similar remarks.
In a memo to families on Thursday, Goose Creek CISD Superintendent Randal O’Brien said the district doesn’t tolerate hateful or violent rhetoric from anyone representing the district’s schools. He said such language is “inconsistent with our mission and has no place in our learning community.” The teacher’s employment status wasn’t immediately clear Thursday.
Another post that circulated on X in the aftermath of the assassination appeared to be from a substitute teacher in Dickinson ISD who allegedly wrote that Kirk condoned gun violence and “died in his belief.” The district responded to a flurry of backlash on social media and claimed the post was made by a former substitute teacher who last worked in the district in 2022.
“We share in the community’s deep concern and disappointment, and we want to assure our families that we do not condone, endorse or excuse comments of this nature,” Dickinson ISD Superintendent Rebecca Brown wrote in a statement posted on X.
Brown added that district administrators and staff are “heartbroken and disturbed by the hateful and offensive nature of the comment.”
In another statement on Wednesday from Pasadena ISD, also located southeast of Houston, Superintendent Toni Lopez said the school district was made aware of insensitive comments about Kirk’s death that were made by an employee.
Lopez said the situation was being addressed administratively.