Image Credit: Franklin High School / Facebook
The Tennessee Conservative [By Olivia Lupia] –
A Williamson County teacher who was suspended from her position over comments made about the death of Charlie Kirk has been reinstated with back pay, though she resigned soon after and her federal lawsuit against the school is still ongoing.
Emily Orbison, a science teacher at Franklin High School, landed in the national spotlight after her Instagram posts caught the attention of The Federalist for mocking Kirk’s manner of death. “Guess there wasn’t a good guy with a gun there,” she wrote. “Don’t mourn his death. It’s just the price of doing business.”
Subsequently, Orbison was placed on unpaid suspension and banned from all district campuses, including her five-year-old daughter’s. She then filed suit against the district, specifically naming Superintendent Jason Golden and claiming several school board members were responsible for making her posts public by circulating the Federalist article and screenshots of her remarks as they otherwise would have disappeared from her Instagram story within 24 hours.
Besides alleging violations of her protected speech under the First Amendment, she also claims her post was intended as “political satire” and protested critiques from board members and elected officials who called her comments “despicable”. Along with reinstatement, her suit requested a right to contact school officials and have access to her daughter’s school activities, like the book fair or planning field trips.
The judge granted an injunction against the blanket ban after the suit was filed in October, allowing Orbison to access her daughter’s education, but she was not officially reinstated by the school until Nov. 11. Per the reinstatement letter from school attorneys, Orbison’s “actions did not justify employee discipline” so she was restored to her teaching position and promised backpay from Sept. 15. However, on Nov. 17, the district confirmed that Orbison had resigned.
Williamson County Schools filed the letter as evidence in their motion to dismiss the case, stating that the school’s internal investigation into whether she violated the district’s code of conduct did not infringe of Orbison’s constitutional political speech rights.
“The decision to return Plaintiff to her job does not mean that the suspension pending investigation unlawfully infringed upon Plaintiff’s protected speech- it was necessary to balance the competing interests before returning Plaintiff to a potentially volatile environment,” read the filing. “Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s death and Plaintiff’s comments, where community reaction was volatile, and the risk of disruption was highest, the balance weighed in favor of the employer’s interest in protecting students and staff and avoiding disruption.”
At this juncture, it appears Orbison will continue in her federal suit as the judge considers the district’s motion to dismiss, and her attorney declined to comment.
Two other educators are also seeking reinstatement and compensation after being suspended or terminated over their Charlie Kirk comments, an elementary school teacher in Rutherford County and an assistant professor at University of Tennessee Knoxville (UTK).
The Rutherford teacher, Susannah O’Brien criticized the President’s decree to lower flags in Kirk’s honor and shared a disrespectful post circulating on social media. After her suspension and firing, she filed a federal suit demanding reinstatement and compensation for damages for violations of her constitutional rights.
At a higher education level, UTK cultural anthropology assistant professor Tamar Shirinian filed suit with similar demands against the university after her appeal letter was unsuccessful in reversing her suspension pending termination proceedings.
There have been no updates on either case as of this writing.
About the Author: Olivia Lupia is a political refugee from Colorado who now calls Tennessee home. A proud follower of Christ, she views all political happenings through a Biblical lens and aims to utilize her knowledge and experience to educate and equip others. Olivia is an outspoken conservative who has run for local office, managed campaigns, and been highly involved with state & local GOPs, state legislatures, and other grassroots organizations and movements. Olivia can be reached at olivia@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
2 Responses
Of course she was reinstated. Her First Amendment rights were violated. Her suspension was just knee-jerk reaction from people who were offended by what she posted. Charlie Kirk himself said, “It’s worth 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. That’s a prudent deal. It is rational.” How awful that he became one of those gun deaths.
I believe in Free Speech. If she had said those thing while at work, I think her employer had the right to fire her. But she was fired for Instagram posts. I assume she did those posts on her own time. If so, I agree that she had the right to do so.