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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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She isn’t being silenced at all. She simply can’t say anything she wants that the school doesn’t like as long as she works there. She’s still free to hang out on the street corner and scream Nazi all she wants or go to bluepedo and say what she wants. For that matter she can walk up to DJT and call him a Nazi if she wants. Her speech isn’t being silenced. She’s not being allowed to embarrass her employer.
Looks like a LinkedIn page. She has 3 connections, next to no one likes her, or wants to be associated with her. No surprise.
“I think she might have a case if the school gets any federal funding.”
She was fired by Middle Tennessee *State* University. I’m not a lawyer, either, but this is my (layman’s) understanding of the relevant issues. First Amendment protections *generally* extend to state government employees as long as the speech pertains to “matters of public concern” and does not involve either workplace grievences or speech spoken as part of the employee’s official duties of employment. This is the so-called “Pickering balance test.”
However, there are notable case-law exceptions involving the advocacy of political violence and the potential for the speech to result in workplace disruption. These exceptions seem (to me) to provide an avenue for the university to fire the employee.
I suspect there is also a matter of differences in the employment protections associated with university employment categories. For example, a staff member likely has fewer free-speech protections than a tenured professor.
For those who want to delve into the weeds, here is an interesting article:
She didn't celebrate anything in that post; she simply said she had no sympathy. There was no endorsement of violence.
How about a state university?
A state university did, which is probably why she will win bigly.
She probably has a case; they can’t fire her for speaking her mind, but they can fire her for bringing bad publicity to the college.
And as late as the early 80s when I used to climb the side of the dormitories to retrieve people's Frisbees and stuff.
This woman was a Dean of Students - I suspect one of the legion of DEI hires who've helped bloat college costs throughout the nation - who should have policed her own opinions just as hard as her cohorts police those of the paying students'.
A case where the dragon ends up swallowing it's own tail.
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