An Indiana university has agreed to pay $225,000 to settle a federal lawsuit brought by a former employee who claimed she was unlawfully fired over a private Facebook post criticizing conservative activist Charlie Kirk following his death.

The settlement, announced Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union, resolves a lawsuit filed last year on behalf of Suzanne Swierc against Ball State University president Geoffrey Mearns.

Swierc previously served as Ball State’s director of health promotion and advocacy at the university’s campus in Muncie, Indiana. She was terminated last September after university officials cited a Facebook post she made regarding Kirk’s killing, claiming the comments caused “significant disruption” on campus.

According to the ACLU, the firing violated Swierc’s constitutional protections because the post represented speech made in her capacity as a private citizen on a matter involving public debate and political concern.

Swierc’s firing violated her constitutional rights because she was “speaking as a private citizen on a matter of public concern,” said Stevie Pactor, an ACLU attorney in Indiana.

“The First Amendment does not allow government institutions to retaliate in those circumstances, and this settlement reflects that,” Pactor said in a statement.

Mearns defended the university’s decision in a statement distributed Tuesday to campus leadership and later shared with The Associated Press by a university spokesperson.

According to Mearns, the backlash triggered by Swierc’s social media comments threatened the university’s fundraising efforts and future enrollment numbers. He also argued that the settlement payment was significantly smaller than the projected cost of continuing to fight the lawsuit in court.

Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was shot and killed by a gunman on September 10 while visiting a university campus in Utah. Prior to his death, Kirk had become one of the country’s most influential conservative youth activists and was widely credited with helping energize younger conservative voters during President Trump’s successful reelection campaign.

Swierc was one of several employees in both government and private-sector positions who lost their jobs after posting online reactions, comments, or memes related to Kirk’s assassination. Her case is also not the first to end in a financial settlement.

Earlier this month, a Florida state agency agreed to pay $485,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a former state biologist who had been fired after reposting a meme claiming Kirk would not care about children killed in school shootings.

In another case earlier this year, Austin Peay State University reinstated a professor and agreed to pay a $500,000 settlement after he sued the school over his firing tied to a social media post sharing a 2023 headline that read: “Charlie Kirk Says Gun Deaths ‘Unfortunately’ Worth it to Keep 2nd Amendment.”

Several other lawsuits involving employees dismissed over comments related to Kirk’s death are still pending.

In the Facebook post at the center of the Ball State case, Swierc referred to Kirk’s killing as a “tragedy,” while also criticizing his rhetoric and public influence.

She wrote that the killing was a “reflection of the violence, fear, and hatred he sowed.” She also added: “If you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends.”

Swierc’s attorneys argued that her Facebook account was set to private and that her comments were never intended for broad public distribution. However, someone reportedly took screenshots of the post and circulated them widely online.

According to Ball State officials, the controversy quickly triggered an avalanche of angry messages directed at the university. Mearns said administrators received numerous hostile emails and phone calls, with some individuals threatening to withhold donations and at least one parent allegedly saying she planned to remove her children from the school. He also said some callers issued threats of violence.

“The reaction was extraordinarily damaging to our University’s reputation and image, and it was exceptionally disruptive to our mission and our people,” Mearns said in his statement.

{Matzav.com}