A conservative legal group has sent a demand letter to the state Department of Education because of a classroom discussion about conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
A middle school history teacher at a Hawaiʻi public school alleges that the department violated her First Amendment right to free speech.
The teacher is being represented by the American Center for Law and Justice, a conservative legal organization led by Jay Sekulow, one of President Donald Trump’s lawyers.
The ACLJ sent the demand letter to the DOE in October and posted a petition to its website about the case, which has been signed by more than 26,000 people.
Nathan Moelker, a senior associate attorney with the ACLJ, spoke with The Conversation about his client's allegations, which he said stem from a class discussion about free speech.
"This is just a student making a quick comment that the teacher, of course, agreed with: Charlie Kirk was murdered. The teacher agreed with that, and then gave students other examples of people who had been murdered for the things they said, then continued the rest of the lesson," Moelker said.
Moelker said a parent of a student — who was not in the class — reported the interaction.
"Our client, she was actually issued a formal letter finding that what she did was improper, that she needs to shut down controversial student speech," Moelker said. "So she's kind of left at an impasse of not knowing what to teach, because the school has now said no controversial topics."
Moelker said that the teacher did not endorse Kirk's or a political party's views.
The ACLJ's demand later states, "One student mentioned that someone tried to kill President Trump for his speech, to which another student responded with words to the effect of 'that wouldn't be so bad.' Ms. [redacted] immediately corrected the student, explaining that calling for the death of the president and calls to violence are not protected speech and that you can't kill people because you disagree with their speech."
The DOE has until Thursday to respond to the ACLJ's letter. The department did not respond to HPR's request for comment.
The Hawaiʻi State Teachers Association said it had not been contacted by any teacher about the incident and is gathering more details.
This story aired on The Conversation on Nov. 4, 2025. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. Sophia McCullough adapted this story for the web.
