About 40 people stood with signs Tuesday evening before the Lee County Board of Education meeting in support of three teachers whose jobs are on the line for comments they made on their Facebook pages following the death of Charlie Kirk.
Justin Ward, a teacher at Lehigh Senior High School, was one of those supporters.
"I'm here to stand up for the teachers who got fired or supposedly are about to get fired for their free speech rights." Ward said.
Madelon Stewart of Fort Myers was another protester calling for free speech plus transparency.
"We're not saying they should have hate speech and having read what I think they wrote on their posts, I don't believe it was hate speech, and it seems like all of this is kind of jumping ahead of the game," she said. "We really need to know what did the teachers say? How did anybody find out what they said? Are they trolling teachers' Facebook pages? And what is the due process that everyone's entitled to before they fire them?"
Although neither the names of the teachers nor their Facebook posts were officially made public, school administrators and more than a few parents expressed concern that the teachers’ remarks about Kirk’s assassination were insensitive or even celebratory.
Retired educator Patricia Daly wondered what the implications of the teachers’ firing could mean.
"I am a person who believes in the fact that all of us have a right to have an opinion. I think it needs to be respectfully submitted, but I think we shouldn't be condemned for having an opinion, even if you don't agree with it. If we lose our right to have an opinion and speak it freely, we've lost something that we may never get back, and I think that's the fight," she said.
To the protesters, this was a free speech issue. Others were quite vocal in their disagreement, some yelling that the teachers were "Godless" and "evil."
To Jennifer Alvarez of Cape Coral, it was a matter of professional conduct gone awry.
"I’m here to support the school board and because it is not freedom of speech, and it doesn't belong in the workplace," Alvarez said. "It's unethical. And obviously, if they got this hate on social media, they probably have the hate in the classroom."
The board did not act on Superintendent Denise Carlin’s recommendation. It’s expected to take the matter up at a later date.
WGCU is your trusted source for news and information in Southwest Florida. We are a nonprofit public service, and your support is more critical than ever. Keep public media strong and donate now. Thank you.
