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.
So words don't mean anything anymore; let's all think emotionally and talk about what we think they mean.
That one line should get hammered over and over, until her case gets tossed out with tons of laughter.
If you shrug your shoulders as you walk past the body of a drunk who killed himself in a one-vehicle car accident, would you consider your gesture to be one of pleasure that he was dead, or indifference to his death?
If the family was upset that you were indifferent to his death, would they be right to claim you gloated over it?
“Then it isn’t free.”
I disagree. What free speech means is you’re free to say whatever you want, and the government has no right to infringe in any way. However, just because the government can’t impose consequences doesn’t mean the speaker is totally free from consequences. If I work at XYZ corp. and go on Facebook and trash the company as a terrible place to work, I’d rightly get fired.
In this case, this person from MTSU said things her employer didn’t appreciate. She was free to say it, the government didn’t have any impact on what happened to her. The system worked as planned.
More than likely, a bunch of "conservatives" got on the phone and started sniveling to the school, simply because this woman didn't take a knee to Charlie Kirk.
Because free speech has become whatever anyone decides it means at any particular moment.
That’s where it can get complicated, but that wasn’t the comment I was responding to. I would guess a state university would fall under the 1st Amendment but even that would have limits. Statements made in class that don’t follow the curriculum can be cause for firing.
Freedom of speech means the government can’t drag you to the gulag for things you say or write. It doesn’t mean an employer is compelled to retain an employee regardless of how odious the employee’s media statements are.
I get that.
I think the issue here is the sheer irony in Charlie Kirk being gunned down for exercising his free speech on a college campus (an action which is properly condemned here across the board) while an assistant dean on another college campus loses her job for announcing to the world not that she is happy he is dead or that she wishes similar violence on others, but that she is indifferent to Charlie Kirk's demise. For this, a site that used to be recognized as a place where libertarians and conservatives would meet and support the concept of free speech, now has a thread filled with posts by people stating that the dean had it coming.
And the irony seems to be lost on almost everyone.
The school almost certainly reacted to a barrage of phone calls and e-mails from people who tell themselves and others that they are champions of free speech, but there is simply some free speech that happens to be unacceptable (and the "free speech" that upsets conservatives is the most unacceptable of all).
As I said in the beginning of this thread, the Left may have been the first side to stifle free speech, but the Right wasn't far behind.
Well, you’re certainly the opposite of innocuous. You’re full of post digested food.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4246622/posts?page=206#206
Here you are, gargling the Gaytor’s junk and licking up Democrap vomit. A known FR Never-Trumping troll, the Gaytor is, BTW.
“I hope a more mature jury schools her.”
It’s Nashville, so could go either way. It has become purple. Change the venue to the Knoxville area and justice would have a better chance.
“The entire origin and use of that idea originates on the left “
Yes. Charlie’s assassination became a crisis that the left wouldn’t let go to waste. They’re so good at identifying situations they can jump on immediately and form a narrative to plant in the minds of low IQ people.
Maybe in these situations the students’ parents should be polled. Ask them if they do, or don’t, want this person teaching their kids. See what the majority says and then take action.
Maybe. Just an idea.
I expect that even state universities get some measure of Federal money. Even private universities do — unless they decline it as Hillsdale does.
“The school almost certainly reacted to a barrage of phone calls and e-mails from people who tell themselves and others that they are champions of free speech”
I’m guessing that the calls were from alumni, student’s parents, and/or big donors. Those are usually the ones who are the impetus for these actions. Calls from every Tom, Dick, and Harry are easily ignored.
You are right and it’s so weird! I used to live there and it seemed like a conservative haven with churches on nearly every block. It was a beautiful, simple heartland.
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