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Posted on 11/15/2025 9:50:32 AM PST by simpson96
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV) - A former assistant dean at a Tennessee university has filed lawsuit claiming her rights were violated when she was fired for her comments on Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
Laura Sosh-Lightsy was fired by Middle Tennessee State University in September after posting the following message in the wake of the far-right activists’ murder: “Looks like ol’ Charlie spoke his fate into existence. Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy.”
Sosh-Lightsy‘s attorneys said in the suit filed this week that her First Amendment rights were violated. She wants a jury trial and financial compensation for damages.
The former administrator’s post sparked controversy with some calling her reaction “callous.” Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn caught wind of the mixed reactions and condemned her message, urging the university to remove her.
MTSU announced Sosh-Lightsy’s firing after Blackburn’s reaction, saying her comments “were inconsistent with our values and have undermined the university’s credibility and reputation with our students, faculty, staff, and the community at large.”
Sosh-Lightsy was one of many in public and private positions fired over their reactions to the conservative speaker’s death.
Two Tennessee teachers have also filed free speech suits after being punished over their comments on Kirk’s assassination.
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One ugly POS.
Do you EVER have a conservative opinion?
Axing for a friend...
MTSU sure has changed since the early 70s.
Never trust name - name
What Conservatives have to get across to their political and media friends is that it is a lie, an outright lie, to say Charlie Kirk was, politically “far” right. The entire origin and use of that idea originates on the left with their attempt to slander Charlie Kirk, as if he was some extremist. He was anything but an extremist. Total belief in true free speech and the ability to promote true free speech is not any sort of “extremist” view. And Charlie’s own views on many topics were more main stream than “extremist”.
Noteworthy difference: The prior case from 1987 cited in your link involved a private conversation, whereas the current case involves a public statement posted on social media.
Exactly right. MTSU has the right to protect their reputation and brand. The concept of academic freedom has been warped beyond recognition.
May I now sue the public schools that fired me for my conservative commentary? Someone let me know when and I’ll get a lawyer. Literally.
It’s not necessarily about free speech. Her posts connect her to the university she works for which can choose not to be associated with murder advocates in its high positions. She should have posted anonymously.
You are so correct. The bill of rights is our rights within our government. So, you have the right to say anything per the first amendment, without the GOVERNMENT taking action against you. There is nothing stopping your employer from taking any action they deem appropriate.
If this was not true, you could be the national spokesman for a company, say for example Coca-Cola. Pepsi-Cola could pay you, under the table, to say Pepsi is better and Coke would have no right to fire you.
slan·der
Law
the action or crime of making a false spoken statement damaging to a person’s reputation.
Looks like a case she may face?.
“posting an opinion used to be recognized by all of us as protected speech.”
Not totally correct. it is only protected from government action against the individual. A private company and organization can fire someone for their speech if it violates their policy. The 1st Amendment applies only to the government, but with our non-educational system, that is not taught very well.
She has freedom of speech - she doesn’t have freedom for the consequences of that speech. I have ‘zero sympathy’ for her. Maybe she thinks saying ugly things about conservatives doesn’t count as ‘bad’...
“How we’ve gone from this to cheering the termination of her employment would have been, at one time, absolutely repulsive to libertarians and conservatives.”
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Lot’s of freepers don’t believe in free speech. Neither do they like libertarians who have mostly been chased away from here to the forum’s detriment. The quality of posters here have been on a downward trend for some time unfortunately.
They didn’t say she didn’t have freedom to speak her opinion. They said she wasn’t free to work there anymore. At-will Employment is the law of the land in every state accept Montana. You can always be fired for any reason. She is an educator who celebrated a school shooting. What school wants to pay for that?
I’m not saying the school didn’t have a legal right to fire her just that their actions could be considered an attack on academic freedom. I may disagree with what she said but will defend her right to say it without her losing her job over it. In the same way I wouldn’t want a conservative professor fired after making a similar partisan remark. We have to stop with this cancel culture bs instead we have some on the right who want to join in with the left in silencing people. This is not what America is about.
I don’t think Sosh-Lightsy is going to get very far with this line of argument.
I don’t mean to be argumentative, but if the Left is playing this sort of punishing game (and they are) and if the Right is highly principled and refuses to play this game, then we are disarmed and they win and we lose. The Right does this all the time.
If the Left vows to stop cancel culture, and if there is evidence that they really have stopped, then — at that point — I would be horrified if the Right were to cancel people.
But if the Left is still doing this (they are) then I’d feel like a surrender monkey if the Right failed to join the party.
This is not about free speech. Nobody limited or restricted your right to speak or to say what you wanted to say, but there are consequences to free speech dumbass
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