Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, REMEDIES, DAMAGES—N.D. Fla.: State agency employee fired after Charlie Kirk post denied preliminary injunction, (Nov 17, 2025)

By Kathleen Kapusta, J.D.

“Courts have long recognized that re-posting memes or other content from other creators, without further comment, is akin to one’s own speech.”

A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) scientist who, while on vacation out of state, reposted from her personal phone a statement about Charlie Kirk as a story on her private Instagram account, and who was subsequently fired as a result, failed to show her free speech interests outweighed the interests of her former employer. Denying her motion for a preliminary injunction, a federal district court in Florida explained that “At this early stage, Plaintiff has not yet demonstrated that her interests tip the scales. Only time will tell if this changes on a more developed record” (Brown v. Young, No. 4:25cv419-MW/MJF (N.D. Fla. Nov. 13, 2025)).

Reposted, fired. In September 2025, the FWC employee, a biological scientist, reposted a statement from a third-party’s account on her private Instragram story that read “the whales are deeply saddened to learn of the shooting of charlie kirk, haha just kidding, they care exactly as much as charlie kirk cared about children being shot in their classrooms, which is to say, not at all.” Four days later, someone on X posted a screenshot of the employee’s Instagram story and a screenshot of her public LinkedIn profile that listed her employment at the FWC. That individual urged swift retribution against the employee, who was fired less than 24 hours later.

Alleging that she was fired in retaliation for speech protected by the First Amendment, the employee sued two weeks later. She moved for a preliminary injunction seeking reinstatement.

Private speech on a matter of public concern. Although FWC argued that the repost was not private speech on a matter of public concern, the court disagreed. While her post was not original content, “Courts have long recognized that re-posting memes or other content from other creators, without further comment, is akin to one’s own speech.” Nor was the court persuaded by FWC’s attempt to recharacterize the employee’s speech as mere “association” with another’s speech, explaining that she “spoke when she re-posted the third-party’s speech as her own on her Instagram story. Full stop.”

Her Instragram story was also not unprotected government speech that owed its existence to her job or was even remotely related to her work, said the court, noting that she primarily monitored imperiled shorebirds and seabirds, duties she primarily performed independently in the field. “For good reason,” the court observed, “Defendants do not contend that Plaintiff’s work as a biological scientist required that she post about current events generally, or Charlie Kirk specifically, on her personal Instagram account.”

Relatedly, said the court, the employee did not post from her work phone or even during work hours. Rather, she re-posted a post from her personal phone, on her private Instagram account, on the weekend, while she was on vacation out of state. Indeed, the court observed, when “Plaintiff spoke by re-posting the post on her Instagram story, she was as far away from work as one could be, literally and figuratively. In short, Plaintiff was speaking as a private citizen and not a government employee when she posted the Instagram story.”

Public disdain. As to FWC’s contention the employee’s post did not touch on a matter of public concern because it conveyed only “personal disdain” rather than “civic commentary,” the court explained that a public employee’s negative opinion about a public figure who has nothing to do with the employee’s job is generally not the sort of speech touching on a personal interest that garners no First Amendment protection. Considering the content, form, and context of her speech, “a re-post on her private Instagram account that satirically criticized Charlie Kirk’s position regarding gun control by juxtaposing his murder with the murder of children in school shootings,” the court found she sufficiently established she spoke as a citizen on a matter of public concern.

Fired for speech. Rejecting next FWC’s assertion it fired the employee because of the public’s reaction to her post, not because of her post, the court pointed out that the agency admitted in its own posts on X that it fired her for her speech. Indeed, FWC wrote that “Upon learning of the social media post, FWC leadership took swift action, terminating the individual. We expect all our employees to conduct themselves with the utmost professionalism and always keep the public’s trust in mind.”

Competing interests. Turning finally to the crux of the case—whether the employee established that her free speech interest outweighed her employer’s interest in the effective and efficient fulfillment of its responsibilities—the court noted that “weighing both sides’ competing interests involves a nuanced, fact-intensive determination.” Here, the court pointed to an unrebutted declaration submitted on behalf of FWC detailing the swift and largely negative public reaction to the employee’s Instagram story that “disrupted agency operations, required diversion of staff resources to manage responses, and raised legitimate concerns about the agency’s credibility and public trust.”

Although the court agreed with the employee that the declaration was short on specifics and largely conclusory, it pointed out that she chose not to seek expedited discovery to depose the declarant or to cross-examine her at a hearing to explore flaws in FWC’s position. On the limited record before it, the court found the employee failed to show her free speech interests outweighed FWC’s legitimate interests and thus she failed to demonstrate a substantial likelihood of success on the merits at this early stage of the case.

The case is No. 4:25cv419-MW/MJF.

Judge: Walker, M.

Attorneys: Michelle Morton (ACLU Foundation of Florida) for Brittney Brown. Taylor Hampton Greene (Lawson Huck Gonzalez) for Roger A. Young.

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