Administrative judge sides with teacher punished for Charlie Kirk Facebook post

The state should drop charges, including an allegation of gross immorality, against a Duval County teacher who posted about Charlie Kirk after he was killed, an administrative law judge has recommended. 

The decision came last week, addressing charges against Hope McMath, who was an advanced placement art history teacher at Douglas Anderson School of the Arts, a magnet high school in Jacksonville, when Kirk was killed in Utah in September 2025. 

Her Facebook post positioned the shooting as “Karma,” referring to Kirk’s comment, “I think it’s worth 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. That is a prudent deal. It is rational. Nobody talks like this. They live in a complete alternate universe.”

Additionally, according to the state, she “posted or reposted an artist’s rendition of an individual holding the screaming severed head of what clearly is intended to represent the President of the United States, Donald Trump.”

Even so, Administrative Law Judge Garnett Chisenhall wrote that the state provided “no competent, substantial evidence that the social media postings at issue impaired Ms. McMath’s service in the community.”

“The social media postings did not reflect any use, attempted use, or threatened use of violence by Ms. McMath,” the judge wrote, adding that the state “has not argued that Ms. McMath’s post was a legitimate threat to sever President Trump’s head.”

Chisenhall recommended the Education Practices Commission dismiss the charges against McMath, which include gross immorality, personal conduct that seriously reduces effectiveness of an employee, violating the principles of professional conduct required by the Florida Board of Education, reasonably protecting students from conditions harmful to learning, and taking responsible precautions to distinguish between personal views and those of the institution.

Also in September 2025, the school board adopted a policy establishing that an employee’s “inappropriate or unbecoming Material on publicly accessible websites” “has the potential to disrupt the educational process, damage the reputations of the District, it’s [sic] teachers and staff, damages the District’s reputation and stature, and subject the District, its teachers and employees to ridicule.”

McMath’s post did none of that, Chisenhall concluded.

“In short, there is no evidence indicating that anyone could reasonably conclude that Ms. McMath’s sentiments were shared by her employers,” he wrote.

‘I was not celebrating’

The district issued McMath “a verbal warning” with “coaching/counseling,” and “a temporary reassignment to the School District’s Art Resource Center with no teaching duties.”

“I was not celebrating, and the language in that post and the intention behind that post was not celebratory,” McMath said during the proceedings, per the court record. She didn’t post the comments while on the clock at school.

A district investigation did not determine McMath had disrupted district operations. Furthermore, the evidence shows no teacher, administrator, or student complained, and no student viewed the social media posts.

According to the principal at the school, “The content of the posts never came up at the school. Students weren’t talking about it. Teachers weren’t talking about it. Parents weren’t talking about it. They were aware because it was in the news, but nobody ever brought it up as far as a concern of her being in front of their children.”

Shortly after Kirk’s killing, then-Education Commissioner Anastasios Kamoutsas wrote a letter to school superintendents statewide, reminding them that he has the power to discipline educators and sanction their certificates for probable cause, including “personal conduct that seriously reduces that person’s effectiveness as an employee of the district school board.”

McMath, according to the court record, has not been in the classroom since the incident.

“Content that trivializes a homicide and that generally depicts the decapitation of a national figure is a condition harmful to learning and to the mental health of the adolescent students who encounter it,” the state argued.

Chisenhall said he has seen no “persuasive explanation for why” McMath was reassigned away from students.

Federal lawsuit

McMath is plaintiff in a federal lawsuit against the Duval County school district, Florida Department of Education, and Moms for Liberty and its Duval chapter. “While not state entities, they are in some way managed, run or have significant influence on the individual Defendants herein,” that complaint says of the organization.

In that suit, she alleges retaliation, content and viewpoint discrimination, malicious prosecution, defamation, and tortious interference.

In May, the state settled with a state-employed biologist fired after posting about Charlie Kirk after his killing. The state owes half-a-million dollars to the now-former state employee.