Monica Meeks v. Carter Lawrence

Monica Meeks is a Tennessee state employee terminated solely because of a Facebook comment she made about conservative activist Charlie Kirk following his assassination. After 20 years of U.S. Army service, including a tour in Iraq, Monica joined the Tennessee Department of Commerce & Insurance in 2016 and consistently received strong performance reviews. 

In her private life, Monica is politically engaged and even ran for the Tennessee House of Representatives in 2022 as an independent candidate. In her free time, she enjoys joking around and trading hot takes with her old Army “battle buddies” on Facebook. After the assassination of Kirk, Monica responded to a friend’s post about Kirk with the remark, “The way you tap dance for White Supremacist should be studied!”

Despite no workplace misconduct, no performance issues, and no disruption to the department’s operations, Commissioner Carter Lawrence fired her within hours of calls for her dismissal on social media.

FIRE’s lawsuit argues that Monica was punished solely for her off-duty, private-speech political expression, which did not disrupt her working environment—a clear violation of her First Amendment rights. FIRE is proud to stand with Monica as she seeks to vindicate her constitutional rights to ensure that no public employee loses their livelihood simply for participating in the political conversation as a private citizen.