It’s pretty scary to find out that a private thought you shared online with a few friends has been copied, edited, shared, and given to government officials—all before your boss calls you in for a meeting where you can’t bring your lawyer. That’s pretty much what happened to Suzanne Swierc, who used to work at Ball State University. What happened next makes me uncomfortable when it comes to how public institutions sometimes react to political pressure.
Even though Charlie Kirk had died, Swierc still wrote on her private Facebook page on September 10, 2025. The post was calm, even careful. She talked about how sad she was about his death and the culture she thought he had helped create. Someone took a picture. It then spread. It was picked up by Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita, who put the changed picture on his “Eyes on Education Portal,” a website he uses to collect social media posts about Kirk’s death. Within days, Swierc started getting threatening messages. One said she should “get what Charlie Kirk got.”
She told her bosses about the threats. There was a meeting planned. Then another. Ball State President Geoffrey Mears fired her on September 17, and the firing took effect right away. Don’t bother. There is no lawyer there. The ACLU of Indiana’s complaint says that the letter of termination only gave one reason: the Facebook post.
It’s tough not to notice the order here. Someone who is not public posts on a public account. It gets worse when a state official adds her professional name to it and makes it the main topic of conversation in public. Then she is fired for it by her job at a public university, which means it is for the government. On September 22, 2025, the ACLU of Indiana sued, saying what everyone else already knew: this was a violation of the First Amendment. When someone works for the government, they don’t give up their rights as a private citizen. There is no gray area there. Courts have said this many times.
The settlement with Ball State University was made public earlier this week. Swierc will get $225,000. Employees of Ball State University can be her professional references, and if asked, her bosses will talk about how she has helped promote health and advocate for it at the university. People might not see it as a dramatic vindication, but settlements aren’t usually that way. It does prove, at least in a practical sense, that the university’s decision was so bad that it wasn’t worth going after the case any further.
Senior Staff Attorney at the ACLU of Indiana Stevie Pactor made it clear: working for the government does not take away people’s First Amendment rights. Swierc was talking as a private person about something that other people cared about. The law on this is not new or different. There’s a chance that the university’s leaders moved too quickly, reacting more to how things looked politically than to what the law said. It seems like online anger and the public platform of a state official put pressure on an institution to make a choice it couldn’t ultimately defend.
It’s still not clear what will change structurally at Ball State or at other public universities that are keeping an eye on this case. The $225,000 doesn’t come from the people who made the call; it comes from somewhere in the institution’s budget. That difference is important. Swierc, on the other hand, had to deal with harassment, losing his job suddenly, and the stress of a lawsuit for months. These are things that a settlement amount can help with but can’t completely erase.
Social media posts are made every day by government workers. A lot of people don’t think twice about it. Some might after this case. The First Amendment was created to stop this chilling effect, which is when people quietly stop speaking out after being retaliated against. The settlement with Ball State University is a reminder that there is protection, even if schools forget to use it.
