BUZZ
‘Parties reached agreement on the material terms to resolve the matter’
Ball State University has reached a settlement with a former employee fired for comments made following the assassination of Charlie Kirk.
According to the Muncie Star Press, details of the deal were not disclosed at an April 7 “settlement conference.”
Last September, posts made by BSU’s then-Director of Health Promotion and Advocacy Suzanne Swierc on her personal (and private) Facebook account included “Let me be clear: if you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends,” Kirk’s death “is a reflection of the violence, fear, and hatred he sowed,” and Kirk “excused the deaths of children in the name of the second amendment.”
A screenshot of her comments subsequently went “viral,” triggering an investigation. The Indiana Lawyer reports that among others, Elon Musk, Rudy Giuliani, and Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita publicly ripped Swierc’s post.
Swierc allegedly “faced derogatory language and even threats from anonymous callers,” while Ball State said it “fielded a ‘deluge’ of complaints, comments and inquiries from the media and public.”
BSU claimed Swierc’s remarks were “inconsistent with the distinctive nature and trust of [her] leadership position […] and that the post caused significant disruption to the University.”
It cited the case Hedgepeth v Britton in which the Seventh Circuit upheld the firing of a teacher who, like Swierc, had made controversial remarks on a private Facebook account (in this case, regarding George Floyd after his killing).
Swierc, with the assistance of the ACLU, eventually sued Ball State for infringement of her First Amendment rights. One of her attorneys questioned what sort of “disruption” Swierc’s post could have caused given she didn’t hold a teaching position.
In a statement, Ball State Vice President for Communications and Digital Strategy Greg Fallon said last Tuesday’s settlement conference was “successful,” and that “the parties ‘reached agreement on the material terms to resolve the matter.’”
The ACLU said it had “nothing further [to] share at this time.”
Graham Piro, faculty legal defense fund fellow for the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (and former College Fix student investigative reporter) noted previously about the case that “the bar for disruption to university operations must be very high in order to protect the right of faculty to express themselves.
“And the burden is on the university to demonstrate that their operations and functions have been significantly disrupted by a faculty member’s speech.”
