A Nashville Fire Department paramedic is on administrative leave after making a post about Charlie Kirk, the right-wing media personality killed during an appearance at Utah Valley University.
The employee is the second person in the region to face adverse actions after making posts following Kirk’s death. Middle Tennessee State University fired Assistant Dean of Students Laura Sosh-Lightsy hours after Kirk’s death for posts she made on social media.
While the First Amendment protects people’s right to speak in most circumstances, it does not prevent employers from creating social media policies that regulate the speech of staff members.
In a statement Sept. 11, the Nashville Fire Department said leadership is aware of a social media post made by one of their personnel.
“In accordance with Civil Service Rules, the employee has been placed on paid administrative leave pending the outcome of an internal fact-finding process,” the statement said. “While this review is underway, we will not be providing any additional information in relation to this onging matter.”
The department did not name the employee, but said they are a paramedic and has been with the department since January 2004.
“It is important to emphasize that the personnel of Nashville Fire Department remain committed to our mission of delivering high-quality fire, medical, and rescue emergency response, as well a community support services,” the statement ended.
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The post was shared by a former West Virginia state representative. The name on the post matches that of a person employed as a paramedic with the department, according to publicly available Nashville salary records.
Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was on the Utah campus hosting his “prove me wrong” table at his “The American Comeback Tour.” During the event, he invited audience members to debate him in a public setting.
A single gunshot rang across the outdoor event shortly after noon local time, striking Kirk in the neck. He was rushed to the hospital by his security team but was pronounced dead there.
The FBI released two images of a person of interest in the case, but as of 6:45 p.m. Sept. 11, no one had been arrested.
This is not the first time the Nashville Fire Department has bumped up against free speech issues. Former fire captain Tracy Turner was awarded $1.7 million in damages earlier this year after he was demoted from his rank in 2020 for comments he made on social media about the murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Turner sued Metro in 2021, arguing that his demotion was retaliation for exercising his First Amendment right to “political expression as a private citizen.” In 2024, the Metro Council voted 31-0 against settling the case for $105,000.
In 2022, firefighter Joshua Lipscomb, better known as the comedian Sir Joshua Black, recieved a $450,000 settlement after he was suspended for calling members of the Metro Nashville Council “white supremacists” in a social media post after they approved a pilot program for license plate reader technology. The council did approve that settlement 23-1 with eight abstentions.
“The (Nashville Fire Department) punished me for speaking out against racism,” Lipscomb wrote in a tweet after the vote. “I stood my ground, fought back, and won. I believe that the Black people who were attacked by firefighter’s hoses during the civil rights movement would be proud of today’s victory.”
It’s unclear if the department made changes to any social media policies for their employees after those two lawsuits.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Nashville Fire suspends employee after Charlie Kirk post