An Indiana educator — fired after being targeted by the right-wing X account Libs of TikTok and the attorney general of Indiana for making private remarks on Facebook about the killing of Charlie Kirk — is suing Ball State University for violating her right to free speech.
Brought in conjunction with the state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, the lawsuit claims that the woman’s social media post was “fully protected by the First Amendment” and that “her firing was unconstitutional.”
Suzanne Swierc was the university’s Director of Health Promotion and Advocacy — an administrative post, not a member of the faculty — and developed health and wellness programming for students. Ball State is a public institution based in Muncie, Indiana, about 50 miles from Indianapolis.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s assassination, Swierc reacted with a post on her personal Facebook account, with the distribution limited to her “friends.” As hot takes go, the spice level of Swierc’s post was more banana pepper than habanero. “Let me be clear: if you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends,” she wrote. Swierc called the death “a tragedy,” expressed empathy for Kirk’s wife and kids, and even insisted that she would “pray for his soul.” But Swierc opined that the shooting of Kirk also served as “a reflection of the violence, fear, and hatred he sowed” — clarifying that this “does not excuse his death.” After highlighting other high-profile killings — including the June assassination of Democratic state Rep. Melissa Hortman in Minnesota, and school children in Colorado who were killed the same day as Kirk’s murder — Swierc did add a kicker: “Charlie Kirk excused the deaths of children in the name of the second amendment.”
This last line appeared to reflect her view of provocative remarks Kirk had made in 2023 insisting that “it’s worth [it] 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.”
We live in an age of snitches. And someone with access to Swierc’s private Facebook posts screenshotted the take, juxtaposed it with a screenshot of her online university profile, and posted that two-image mashup to right-wing channels where it went viral. It was soon posted by Libs of TikTok, an X account that makes sport of pillorying progressives whose appearance, views, or actions the account deems ideologically suspect. That X post, which snitchtagged Ball State, was later retweeted by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, a former U.S. congressman, who wrote that Swierc’s post was “vile” and “outrageous” and “should make people question someone’s ability to be in a leadership position.”
The image of Swierc and her post, replete with a Libs of TikTok watermark, was also uploaded to Rokita’s state-run snitch site, Eyes on Education. As Rolling Stone has previously reported, this portal presents itself as apolitical but in fact serves to make life miserable for individual educators whom Rokita and right-wing citizens of the state believe are producing “woke” curricula, or “socialist indoctrination,” that is at odds with “normal society.”
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After Kirk’s murder, Rokita joined in a right-wing scalp hunt that sought to get Americans fired for speech critical of Kirk — at the same moment Kirk was being memorialized as a champion of free speech. The attorney general posted on X that Eyes on Education would now be soliciting “evidence” of educators who have sought to “celebrate or rationalize the assassination.” The elected official declared: “These individuals must be held accountable — they have no place teaching our students.”
The state compilation of supposed anti-Kirk offenders includes, for many of the entries, how to best contact the presidents or superintendents overseeing the institutions where the educators work. In Swierc’s case, Rokita’s office listed the email and phone number for the president of Ball State University, as well as when the university holds its next board meeting.
Amid this state-supported backlash against her writing, Swierc was fired by Ball State within the week. The university even made the decision public in an X post, writing that it had terminated Swierc due to the “significant disruption” her post caused the institution. The move was feted by Rokita: “BSU made the right decision in firing her. Hope her vile comments were worth it.” (Ball State has publicly posted it has nothing more to say about this “personnel matter.”)
The ACLU of Indiana and Swierc sued the university’s president Monday with the simplest of legal claims: “The termination of Ms. Swierc violates the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.”
It argues that Swierc’s decision to make social media post was private, protected conduct because: Kirk’s death was a matter of “public concern”; her post had “nothing to do” with Ball State or the university’s leadership or policies; and neither her job duties nor the university’s core functions were undermined by her expression. The lawsuit alleges the termination was made with “malicious and/or made with callous indifference to Ms. Swierc’s rights.” (The lawsuit name-checks Rokita four times, but the state official is not a party to the suit.)
Stevie Pactor, a Senior Staff Attorney with ACLU of Indiana, explained the cause of action: “People do not forfeit their First Amendment rights when they are hired by government institutions,” she said, adding: “Public employees are free to speak on matters of public concern, so long as they are speaking as private citizens. Swierc’s Facebook post clearly meets these criteria, and her termination was unconstitutional.”
In a call Monday, Swierc told reporters: “I do not regret the post I made, and I would not take back what I said.” But she said that she felt “violated” by the betrayal of “someone on my Facebook friends list” who decided to screenshot the post and make it public. Occasionally sipping from a Stanley mug with a Ball State sticker on it, Swierc described the personal consequences of being brigaded by right wing-trolls — including those whipped up by Rokita, whose role in this controversy she told Rolling Stone is “not something I ever would have expected from any party.”
Rokita’s press office responded to a request for comment by forwarding a six-page letter from the attorney general to Indiana superintendents and public university administrators about free speech and teacher terminations. The letter mixes dense legal citations with broad proclamations about the state’s supposed interest in policing educator expression. ”As a matter of morality,” Rokita writes, “this moment demands decisive action from public officials to address noxious speech from government employees that undermines public confidence in our schools and corrodes public discourse.”
Speaking to reporters, Swierc recounted a flood of insulting calls, voicemails, and Facebook messages ranging from “vulgar” to “harassing” that went far beyond the content of her post and questioned her ability to “do my job because of my appearance.” She also described one “true threat of violence” that he said she reported to the police — a voicemail on her cell phone in which the caller detailed a bevy of identifying information about Swierc, and then suggested that “maybe I deserve what Charlie got.”
Pactor, the ACLU attorney, claimed that Ball State had punished Swierc for routine, protected speech, owing to a controversy not of her client’s making. She accused the university of bending to what is known in legal precedent as the “heckler’s veto” — which seeks to shout down, and shut down, protected speech. In short, the university fired Swierc not for misconduct, the lawyer said, but because “they got negative feedback from other people. And that’s just not an injury to them that the First Amendment tolerates.”
From Rolling Stone US
