Florida biologist fired over Charlie Kirk post wins $485,000 settlement

Florida officials agreed to pay $485,000 to biologist Brittney Brown after she was fired by the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for reposting a meme on her personal Instagram. The meme claimed Charlie Kirk would not care about children being shot in classrooms. Brown sought reinstatement, saying the agency was the regulatory body for her bird conservation research specialization and that she struggled to find other work. She signed a settlement covering backpay, damages, and attorney costs, and agreed not to seek future employment at the agency. Her firing followed a broader pattern of job losses tied to social media reactions to Kirk’s shooting death, with lawsuits pending in multiple cases.

"Florida officials have agreed to pay nearly half a million dollars to a biologist who was fired by a state agency for criticizing conservative political activist Charlie Kirk on social media after his shooting death. The state's fish and wildlife conservation commission (FWC) fired biologist Brittney Brown in September after she reposted a meme on her personal Instagram account that claimed Kirk wouldn't care about children being shot in their classrooms. She filed a lawsuit seeking reinstatement, saying she struggled to find other work because the state agency is the regulatory body for her research specialization in bird conservation."

"Brown on Thursday signed a $485,000 settlement agreement with agency directors that covers backpay, damages and attorney costs. She agreed as part of the deal to not seek future employment at the agency. FWC officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Brown was among a wave of workers in both the public and private sector who lost their jobs over comments about Kirk's assassination on a Utah university campus on 10 September. Lawsuits are pending over many of those firings."

"Before his death, Kirk and the organization he founded, Turning Point USA, galvanized the conservative youth vote to help Donald Trump win a second presidency. Kirk's supporters combed social media after the killing for posts they viewed as celebrating his death. Influencers like Laura Loomer pledged to ruin the careers of people who made light of the killing, and the conservative social media account Libs of TikTok shared the identities and workplaces of many who posted with its audience of millions."

"Libs of TikTok posted about Brown, and she was fired the next day, according to her lawsuit. Brown said someone then alerted Libs of TikTok about her termination only about 10 minutes after it happened and before it was made public. In a rare instance in Tennessee, a retired police officer was jailed for 37 days over a Facebook post joking about K"

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