A bill that’s cleared a House committee would impose new sanctions for student-led protests and any educator who publicly celebrates assassinations or politically motivated violence — including the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk — would lose their state license.
The legislation would require schools to have a make-up day for every day there’s a student-led protest in a school district. Teachers or administrators who lead a school protest or give advice to students about protesting would lost their state license if the bill becomes law. The bill passed the House Education Committee tonight with the support of 14 Republicans, but none of them spoke in favor of the bill during the meeting.
Representative Elinor Levin, a Democrat from Iowa City, was among the nine committee members who voted against it. “This bill attempts to curtail First Amendment protected free speech,” Levin said. “While we all live in a time when political violence is real and is a serious concern, we cannot be the thought police here in the Iowa Legislature.”
There was a subcommittee hearing earlier in the day on the original version of the bill, which just dealt with revoking educators’ licenses for making public comments celebrating politically motivated violence. Melissa Peterson of the Iowa State Education Association called revoking a teacher’s license blatantly unconstitutional.
“In 1987 the Supreme Court…decided that a public employee could not be held liable for something that they did outside of the workspace,” Peterson said, “outside of their particular job.”
The School Administrators of Iowa and the Iowa Association of School Boards also oppose the move. “We think this is a violation of First Amendment rights. Teachers or whoever should have the right to say what they want when they’re not at school,” said Melissa Johnson, a lobbyist for the Iowa Association of School Boards.
The original two-page bill mentions the “unlawful killing of Charlie Kirk” five times and the policy on revoking educators’ licenses to teach or be a school administrator would take effect on September 10th of last year. That’s the day Kirk was shot to death. Last fall several Iowa teachers were suspended or fired after complaints about comments they made on social media after Kirk’s death.
