After suspending her without pay in September, the Williamson County school district now says Franklin (Tenn.) High School science teacher Emily Orbison’s conduct, posting abhorrent comments celebrating conservative icon Charlie Kirk’s assassination, “did not justify employee discipline.”
Why the change of heart? Perhaps it has something to do with the lawsuit Orbison filed against the suburban Nashville school district, which, sources tell The Federalist, caved on the advice of legal counsel Lisa Carson.
Orbison was reinstated on Nov. 11, according to Chalkbeat Tennessee, a leftist nonprofit news outlet that reports on education issues. The district’s reinstatement letter informed Orbison she would receive back pay dating to Sept. 15.
Tennessee conservatives are calling the reinstatement a “disgusting” sellout.
‘Don’t Mourn His Death’
As The Federalist first reported in September, Orbison in her Instagram rant highlighted a quote from Kirk in which the slain Second Amendment defender said, “It’s worth to have, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God given rights. That’s a prudent deal. That’s rational.”
Orbison’s post sardonically asserted that it is “prudent” that the Franklin High School teacher should have to go through regular school shooting drills and “Reassure kids that when we get shot at, I will be there to protect them.”
“That we do not immediately leave the building if a fire alarm goes off, because that’s how shooters can get us into the hallways to kill us,” Orbison wrote in the post.
“And don’t even get me STARTED on the vile things this POS has said about women. my blood is boiling just recalling them,” Orbison, reportedly the granddaughter of rock and roll legend Roy Orbison, raged, urging her followers, “Don’t mourn his death. It’s just the price of doing business. Completely rational.”
She posted the comments following Kirk’s assassination on Sept 10 while the Turning Point USA founder was speaking to thousands of students at a university in Utah.
SCREENSHOT OF A STORY FROM ORBISON’S INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT
‘Inappropriate and Unacceptable’
The post outraged members of the community, including Williamson County School Board members.
“Let me be clear: this matter will be taken seriously and addressed promptly. Our students, families, and community deserve respect and professionalism from those entrusted to teach,” Williamson County School Board Member Claire Reeves, wife of Republican state Rep. Lee Reeves, wrote on her Facebook page above a link to The Federalist’s story.
The district subsequently suspended Orbison.
“This employee has been suspended pending an investigation into this serious allegation, which is standard procedure and follows State law requirements,” Carol Birdsong, Williamson County Schools executive director of communications, wrote in a statement to The Federalist.
Birdsong added that “(e)expressions that glorify or trivialize violence, especially in moments of a national tragedy, are inappropriate and unacceptable. They do not reflect the values of Williamson County Schools and undermine the trust and unity we strive to build in our community.”
Orbison was also ordered to stay off school property.
A month later, she sued. The complaint alleges the district violated Orbison’s “constitutional rights by retaliating against her in her role as a public school teacher for expressing her political speech in a purely personal capacity.” Orbison is seeking damages.
After an assassin murdered Kirk as thousands looked on, including his wife and young children, Orbison “felt compelled to satirize Kirk’s political position on social media,” the lawsuit argues. And she would have gotten away with it, too, if it hadn’t been for that meddling Federalist and school board members who found her post despicable, her complaint insists.
“Ms. Orbison’s TEA [union] attorney explained that Ms. Orbison’s post never would have been widely circulated to the public, or reached any of the WCS students Ms. Orbison teaches, if it had not been forwarded to The Federalist by third parties and then publicized by WCS Board members,” the lawsuit asserts.
‘If it Crosses Certain Lines’
The complaint includes two petitions, one signed by 78 adult residents of Williamson County and the second signed by 77 students, demanding Orbison be reinstated. Some of the students defended the STEM teacher’s appalling comments with expressions indicative of the kind of leftist indoctrination embedded in public schools across the country — the liberal groupthink that parents everywhere are fighting back against.
“She was not celebrating what happened, she was expressing how she felt about Charlie. That article was exaggerating to push a hateful narrative,” one student wrote. “Charlie was not the person conservatives are making him out to be right now, Ms. Orbison has every right to be upset that he’s being made a sympathetic guy when he preached that gun violence was necessary to keep our ‘god given rights,’ which it is not and it is awful to even think that. This is also hypocritical when it comes to free speech, I have a suspicion you wouldn’t be doing this to a conservative.”
True, Orbison has every right to say horrible things. But, like so many others have learned the hard way, she doesn’t have a right to keep her job after saying horrible things, even to 400 of her closest friends on social media.
“While protections exist, social media activity can still lead to lawful termination if it crosses certain lines,” the edulaw.com notes in a recent report titled, “Can Teachers Be Fired For Their Personal Social Media?”
“School districts and administrators evaluate such situations by balancing legal considerations, public trust, and the educator’s ability to perform duties effectively,” the analysis states. Social media posts that create a significant disruption or damage the “teacher’s position as a role model or authority figure in the classroom” can be cause for discipline up to and including termination.
As Chalkbeat reported, Williamson County Schools’ attorneys filed her reinstatement letter last week “as evidence in a motion to dismiss [the lawsuit], claiming that the internal investigation into whether she violated the district’s employee code of conduct was not an infringement on her constitutional rights to political speech.”
“The decision to return Plaintiff to her job does not mean that the suspension pending investigation unlawfully infringed upon Plaintiff’s protected speech — it was necessary to balance the competing interests before returning Plaintiff to a potentially volatile environment,” Carson, the district’s attorney, wrote in the filing, according to The Tennessean. “Indeed, in the immediate aftermath of Kirk’s death and Plaintiff’s comments, where community reaction was volatile and the risk of disruption was highest, the balance weighed in favor of the employer’s interest in protecting students and staff and avoiding disruption.”
Despite the disruption, the district is now playing very nice with the science teacher who is suing it.
The Tennessean reported Orbison resigned shortly after being reinstated.
‘Make it Make Sense’
A school board member who previously commented on Orbison’s case did not return The Federalist’s request for comment. School district administrators could not be reached for comment on Sunday evening.
Tennessee Sen. Marsha Blackburn said the district’s move was the “wrong decision.”
“Parents do not want their students taking instruction from teachers who celebrate political assassination,” Blackburn posted on X. “Disappointed in Franklin High School for putting this woman back on the payroll.”
The Tennessee Conservative Coalition called the reinstatement “another sad failure of a liberal bureaucracy that would rather protect its own than do the right thing.”
“It is disgusting that this woke leftist is receiving taxpayer money (including backpay) to spread her glorification of Charlie Kirk’s murder to students. Not only should the teacher be fired, the members of the administration who decided that gleefully celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk for political reasons ‘did not justify employee discipline,’ should be fired as well,” the coalition wrote on Facebook.
Kimberly Calcote, a prominent conservative Republican leader in Williamson County and likely candidate for school board, said the double standard is glaring.
“It’s amazing that students lose scholarships and get disciplined by the schools for things they do on their social media outside of school, but somehow a teacher mocking the death of a public figure doesn’t have the same consequences,” she wrote on Facebook. “I think it’s disgusting that the administration said she did nothing wrong. Make it make sense!!”
Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
