Texas education officials are reviewing more than 180 complaints about social media comments made by Texas educators after Charlie Kirk’s murder. Those educators could lose their licenses. Teachers’ union leaders are pushing back on the investigation.
The state’s largest teachers’ union says the commissioner’s actions are unprecedented. A professor who studies harmful online content says there are two reasons for the rhetorical riff in the country.
One being social media and the other being messages from our society’s leaders.
Big picture view:
Last week’s killing of conservative voice Charlie Kirk is touching all parts of society.
On Sunday, a moment of silence was announced at AT&T Stadium before the Dallas Cowboys played the New York Giants.
The stadium announcer stated, “This kind of tragic, deadly violence can have no place in our society, and we condemn all violence in our communities.”
Charlie Kirk, as with all change agents, is both popular for some and polarizing for others. Politics for all.
Local perspective:
Texas American Federation of Texas (AFT) President Zeph Capo refers to Texas Education Agency (TEA) commissioner Mike Morath’s letter to superintendents warning he would evaluate and send to investigators posts from public school teachers and staff that are negative or insensitive regarding the killing of Charlie Kirk.
“It’s a shame it reeks of politics and, instead of acting as a public servant that is non-political, or that should be non-political, and helping to give guidance to all public employees in the best way, our commissioner decided to add fuel to the fire and light a match,” said Capo.
In a statement today, the commissioner tells us TEA’s Educator Investigations Division has already begun its review, and he will be recommending to the state board of educator certification that such individuals have their certification suspended and be rendered ineligible to teach in a Texas public school.
“That is frankly unprecedented. I’ve been in education for almost 30 years now. I’ve never seen a commissioner send a letter like that saying that they’re starting investigations en masse of the entire education community,” said Capo.
What they’re saying:
Northeastern University Professor Laura Edelson says the murder of Charlie Kirk, and before that, the killing of democratic lawmakers in Minnesota, suggests we are entering a sad season of political violence.
“This is such an unfortunate time in the American political cycle.”
Edelson is an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on the understanding of harmful content through social media.
She says social media and technology are contributing to the temperature in our country.
“That’s because they reward the most polarizing content, the most extreme speech. That’s what gets clicks if you’re on X or Instagram,” she said.
Edelson also says the nature of the platforms enhances extreme voices on both sides.
“The reality is, this is a bi-partisan phenomenon and a terrible one, but if you just cherry-pick facts, you don’t necessarily get a complete view, and social media are absolutely great at cherry-picking facts, and it does that structurally. This isn’t like a person deciding, ‘I’ll show you this, I’ll show you that,’ It’s going to show you things that you like and engage with because that is what sells adds and then these are the results that we see.”
Edelson believes social media platforms must be held accountable and so too, those in positions where their voices are both heard and believed.