Debate over free speech erupts after S.C. employees fired

A wave of firings broke across South Carolina and the nation in recent days as scores of everyday Americans lost their jobs for comments made in the hours after conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s shocking Sept. 10 murder.

At least 10 of the firings to date have involved college and local government employees in the Palmetto State, including professors at Clemson, the University of South Carolina and Coastal Carolina University, as well as four Greenville County educators and public safety workers.

The S.C. dismissals are taking place amid what critics call a larger Trump administration crackdown on free speech — and follow threats by Republican leaders to defund state institutions that refuse to act against workers whose social media posts celebrated or made light of Kirk’s killing.

Pace

“Clemson faculty is inciting violence against conservatives,” S.C. Rep. and Freedom Caucus Chair Jordan Pace, R-Berkeley, wrote in a Sept. 13 social media post that was shared by President Donald Trump. “It’s time for a special session to end this. Defund Clemson.”

On Sept. 15, S.C. Attorney General and GOP gubernatorial candidate Alan Wilson wrote a letter to Clemson President James Clements arguing the controversial comments were not speech that was protected by the First Amendment in the context of state employment.

“The First Amendment protects freedom of speech, but it does not shield threats, glorification of violence or behavior that undermines the mission of our state institutions,” Wilson said. “Clemson, and any state university in South Carolina, should not be paralyzed by fear of prosecution when dealing with employees who publicly endorse political violence.”

Following Clemson’s Sept. 16 decision to fire three employees, Gov. Henry McMaster told reporters that the school “handled it appropriately.”

But S.C. free speech advocates argued the dismissals were a clear violation of the U.S. Constitution.

“The First Amendment protects people from being punished by the government for speech,” ACLU of S.C. spokesman Paul Bowers told Statehouse Report on Sept. 18. “And for the past week, the most powerful politicians in South Carolina have been using the power of the state to punish their perceived political enemies.”

In the days since Kirk’s murder, that age-old American debate — personal accountability versus the right of Americans to speak their minds — has raged among lawmakers, business leaders and citizens across the Palmetto State.

The case for ‘action’

In a Sept. 18 interview, Greenville Republican Rep. Stephen Frank, a member of the hard-right S.C. Freedom Caucus, called his response to Kirk’s death “unexpected.”

“I was really surprised by my own emotional reaction,” Frank said. “I didn’t know Charlie Kirk, but felt something deeply and strongly about his assassination.”

That feeling, he told Statehouse Report, arose from a sense that Kirk was killed for saying things that he and other conservatives believe.

“So when you see responses celebrating, defending, justifying his assassination, on a human level it’s just horrific,” Frank said.

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That’s why he’s demanded action to punish state employees, particularly teachers and college professors, whose “repulsive” social media comments crossed that line, he said.

“I think what you’re seeing is the appropriate human response when educators are defending or even celebrating murder, which is to push back and hold these folks accountable,” Frank said.

That said, Frank noted that he is not among those who’ve called on private companies to take similar action.

“The free market can handle that,” Frank said, noting that boycotts and other consumer actions, such as the recent pushback against changes to Cracker Barrel restaurant branding and decor, are common on both sides of the political aisle.

Defending free speech, even when it’s ‘tasteless’

Since its founding in 1999, the nonpartisan Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) has defended the right of both conservatives and progressives to speak freely on college campuses and beyond.

In a Sept. 12 letter citing multiple court precedents, FIRE’s Charlotte Arneson called on Clemson’s Clements to resist demands to punish employees for “clearly protected speech,” even that which “some may view as poorly timed, tasteless, inappropriate, or controversial.”

“A university must never reward ‘community outrage,’ however ugly or overwhelming, by curtailing free speech principles, because the value of its faculty’s and students’ freedom to engage in the exchange of ideas is not outweighed by a segment of the public’s subjective feelings,” Arneson wrote.

In a Sept. 18 interview, FIRE’s Zach Greenberg called Clemson’s decision to fire the employees “a shame,” noting that “the First Amendment protects their right to talk about public issues in their private capacities” on social media.

“These institutions are supposed to protect faculty members’ rights and instead they’re throwing them under the bus for expressing their beliefs.” Greenberg said. “And that’s not what free speech is about.”

What’s worse, Greenberg said, is the firings took place at the direction of government officials.

“It’s truly concerning to see legislatures and politicians pressure public universities to violate their faculties’ rights,” he said. “It’s incredibly chilling to free speech.”

‘A lot of angry people on both sides’

Despite the seemingly universal GOP calls for punishment, at least one S.C. House Republican said he worries too many politicians are turning up the heat when they should be turning it down.

“There’s a lot of angry people on both sides,” Rep. Neal Collins, R-Pickens, told Statehouse Report. “And I think it’s incumbent on the rest of us to calm the waters.”

Collins

And that’s not a partisan issue, he stressed.

“Violence can’t be tolerated on either side, and we’ve seen examples of it occurring on both sides,” he said, noting that a Minnesota Democratic lawmaker was assassinated just weeks before Kirk. “Our words matter.”

Specifically with regard to the calls for firings, Collins said he’d rather leave those decisions to university officials “who are in those positions for a reason.”

“I don’t know that that should be an elected official’s role,” he said.

But with statewide elections right around the corner in 2026, Collins thinks the rhetoric in S.C. will likely get worse.

“My naive optimism is that leaders would know their roles and act accordingly,” Collins said. “But that’s just not the political climate we’re in these days.”