In the year since Kirk’s killing, dozens of lawsuits have been filed across the country by people fired for their comments about the activist, arguing their terminations violated their rights to free speech. The suits have led to substantial pay outs in some cases.
Brown agreed to a $485,000 (£355,000) financial settlement – about 12 times Brown’s annual salary.
Darren Michael was reinstated by the Austin Peay State University and in January, the school agreed to pay him $500,000 to settle legal claims. The school did not respond to a request for comment.
In the largest settlement reviewed by the BBC, the University of Tennessee agreed to pay $1.9m to resolve a lawsuit brought by anthropologist Tamar Shirinian, over her “better off” comment. As part of the settlement, she will not be reinstated and has agreed to not reapply for future positions at the school.
Recently, an arbitrator ordered The Washington Post to rehire, with back pay, opinion journalist Karen Attiah, who was fired for her online posts that said in part she was not going to engage in “performative mourning for a white man that espoused violence”.
Several other lawsuits remain pending, the BBC found.
Most of the legal actions have been pursued by employees of government institutions, or unionised workers, who have some free-speech protections.
But in the US, most private sector employees work under “at-will” contracts, which means they can be can be fired without reason.
Even those who have scored some victories don’t see it as a win.
“All I wanted was my job back,” biologist Brown said. “How much taxpayer money did they waste on this when I barely made $40,000 a year? So no, it does not feel like justice.”
Shirinian told the BBC she too had wanted to return to her job but felt a legal case could be a lengthy affair.
“I took a settlement because this allows me to move on with my life,” she told the BBC. “The one small regret that I have is that I will not see my day in court and justice will not be served in that way. But I think that the number of the settlement actually speaks to that anyway.”
The University of Tennessee and Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission did not respond to the BBC’s request for comment.
