Fired for Kirk criticism: Some win settlements, others start over

Gerald Bourguet was 35 years old and living what he thought was his permanent life. He and his wife had just bought a house with a pool. Their baby boy was four months old. He was writing about professional basketball full-time, the work he had always wanted to do. Then, on September 10, 2025, conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University in Utah.

Hours after Kirk's death, Bourguet posted a series of messages online. He called Kirk an evil man. He said Kirk had spent his life promoting hatred. He criticized Kirk's supporters for their silence on school shootings. Bourguet had watched the immediate response to Kirk's death—the eulogies, the lionizing—and it moved him to speak. What he did not anticipate was that screenshots of his posts would spread rapidly across social media, that his address would be exposed, that threatening text messages would arrive at his phone, or that his employer, PHNX Sports, would fire him.

Frightened for his family's safety, Bourguet packed up his four-month-old son and his wife and left the state. Months later, they returned only to sell the house they had bought and relocate permanently. A year after posting those messages, Bourguet said his life would never be the same. At 35, he is starting over. He has struggled to find work in sports journalism—a small world where his name carries weight he did not want. He started a podcast, though he doubts it will pay the bills. Leaving the country is now something he considers seriously.

Bourguet was one of hundreds of people fired or disciplined in the weeks and months after Kirk's assassination. A Reuters count last November found more than 600 instances of people losing their jobs or facing workplace punishment for comments about Kirk or his death. That number is almost certainly incomplete, because many cases never reached the press. The reasons for termination varied widely. In Tennessee, anthropology professor Tamar Shirinian was suspended and then fired for a Facebook comment saying the world was better off without Kirk. A Delta Air Lines flight attendant was fired for posting "good riddance." An Office Depot employee was fired for refusing to print flyers for a Kirk vigil. Others were punished for things only tangentially related to Kirk: a theatre professor was fired for reposting a 2023 news article about Kirk's gun control speech; a biologist was fired for sharing a meme satirizing Kirk's position on gun violence.

The pressure to punish Kirk's critics came from multiple directions. Laura Loomer, a right-wing commentator with nearly two million followers on X, warned that critics should "prepare to have your whole future professional aspirations ruined." Vice-President JD Vance said days after the assassination: "When you see someone celebrating Charlie's murder, call them out. And hell, call their employer." A White House spokesperson said anyone who "engages in or endorses political violence or assassination culture must be condemned in the harshest terms possible." A Republican state representative in South Carolina called for defunding universities that did not discipline employees who made comments about Kirk. That post was reshared by President Donald Trump.

Some of those fired have won substantial settlements through lawsuits. Biologist Brittney Brown, who was fired by Florida's Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, agreed to a $485,000 settlement—about twelve times her annual salary. Theatre professor Darren Michael was reinstated by Austin Peay State University and received $500,000 in a settlement. The largest settlement was $1.9 million, paid by the University of Tennessee to anthropologist Tamar Shirinian. Opinion journalist Karen Attiah was ordered rehired by The Washington Post with back pay after an arbitrator's ruling. But these victories have come almost exclusively to government employees or unionized workers who have some legal protection for free speech. Most private sector employees in the United States work under at-will contracts, meaning they can be fired without cause and without legal recourse.

Even those who won money do not feel they have won. Brown said all she wanted was her job back. "How much taxpayer money did they waste on this when I barely made $40,000 a year?" she asked. "So no, it does not feel like justice." Shirinian said she took the settlement to move on with her life, but she regretted not seeing her day in court. Bourguet, as an at-will employee at a private company, has no realistic path to legal recovery.

Yet despite the wreckage—the lost jobs, the displaced families, the exposed addresses, the threatening messages, the permanent career damage—those who spoke to the BBC said they do not regret what they said. Brown said she has a right to say what she wants. Shirinian said she does not regret the sentiment behind her comment, only its tone. Bourguet said he does not regret his line of thinking or the way he expressed it. "I think it's important to push back on things that are steeped in hatred," he said. What he does regret are the ripple effects—the impact on his career, his family, his son. A year later, he is still trying to figure out what comes next.