A Detroit area teacher and coach said he was fired for two tweets, one that expressed support for President Donald Trump and another retweet calling for the reopening of schools in the fall.
Justin Kucera, a social studies teacher and varsity baseball coach in the Walled Lake Consolidated School District, told the Washington Free Beacon he was called into a closed-door meeting after the July 6 Twitter postings and told to resign or he would be fired.
"I was required to meet with (human resources), the superintendent, and my principal,” he said which happened on July 10. “They initially took my statement on why I tweeted those tweets and they told me they would have a decision about my future employment in the upcoming days.
When they completed the meeting, I was told I had the option to either be fired or resign."
The district did not respond to the Free Beacon’s request for comment, but Superintendent Kenneth Gutman on July 7 appeared to address the issue in a Twitter post that was retweeted by the district.
“@WalledLkSchools advocates for social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion for all,” Gutman wrote. “We believe in the importance of discourse, but we will not stand for speech or actions from those that represent our District that seek to divide or demean our staff, students, citizens.”
Many of 64 responses referred to Kucera by name or demanded the termination of an unidentified teacher or defended him.
One of Kucera’s tweets stated: “I’m done being silent. @realDonaldTrump is our president.” The tweet included a red X, like those seen in a voting booth when casting a ballot, and a baseball cap.
The other was a retweet of Trump’s post that read in all caps: "SCHOOLS MUST REOPEN IN THE FALL!!!” which was retweeted 98,000 times and received nearly 451,000 “likes.”
"I know a lot of people are just rooting for Trump to fail, and I don't think that anybody should do that," Kucera told the Free Beacon. "Agree with him or not, you should want the president to do well. I apologized that (my tweet) brought so much negative attention, but I'm not sorry for what I said."
The Free Beacon characterized Kucera as apolitical, quoting Walled Lake graduates, students and parents.
It also pointed out that two teachers, now one retired, had posted comments on social media critical of Trump without any repercussions. One, kindergarten teacher Nicole Estes, called Trump a “sociopath” and a “narcissist” on Facebook in 2016. She is still employed by the district, the Free Beacon said, and did not respond to a request for comment.
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