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A former Eastern New Mexico University security guard is suing school officials, saying he lost his job over a Facebook post he made in the wake of the death of right-wing political activist Charlie Kirk.
Oswaldo Nava’s lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court, says conservative school officials violated his free speech and due process rights when they forced him out after his social media post made him the target of doxing and other harassment by Kirk supporters, including Gays for Trump co-founder Scott Presler.
The school’s decision to place Nava on administrative leave in connection with the comment and its aftermath was in no way related to his job performance or a reasonable concern for university security at the Roswell campus where he worked, his lawsuit says.
“Rather [school officials] viewed the content of the post as ‘negative’ and acted in response to an external, coordinated national political campaign organized by a person outside New Mexico … calculated to chill the speech of and punish public employees across the nation” who were critics of Kirk “regardless of their competency at their jobs,” according to the complaint.
The lawsuit names ENMU-Roswell President Shawn Powell, ENMU President and Chancellor James Johnston, director of marketing Martha Staab, and four other school officials as defendants and seeks an unspecified amount of actual and punitive damages.
None of the defendants responded to emails or messages seeking comment for this story.
Nava made the post on his personal Facebook account Sept. 13, a few days after Kirk — a political firebrand known for polarizing and often racially charged rhetoric — was shot and killed while speaking at a Sept. 10 event at Utah Valley University.
It read: “I woke up today and guess who didn’t??? Charlie Kirk, lol.”
A few days later, the lawsuit says, Nava was caught up in a nationwide campaign led by Kirk supporters — and endorsed by senior Trump administration officials — to punish people who made posts that were “critical of Mr. Kirk or that did not demonstrate sufficient sorrow over his death,” Nava’s complaint says.
Republican lawmakers allied with “influencers” and mobilized them to lash out at Kirk critics and get them fired from their jobs, Nava’s lawsuit says.
“Vice-President [JD] Vance urged supporters of Mr. Kirk to inflict consequences on such persons, stating, inter alia: ‘Call them out, and, hell, call their employer,’ ” the lawsuit says.
When his post came to Presler’s attention, the influencer and Republican Party activist — who has approximately 3 million followers across multiple social media platforms — posted Nava’s phone number and address and urged his followers to take action to get Nava fired.
“How can anyone who celebrates Charlie Kirk’s assassination continue to serve as a security officer in charge of protecting lives?” Presler wrote in a Sept. 15 Facebook post.
Numerous people who follow Presler immediately began posting harassing and threatening comments about Nava on social media, his lawsuit says. In addition to being the subject of about 100 Facebook posts, he received about 20 calls or text messages, most or all from outside Roswell and even outside New Mexico, the lawsuit says.
Nava deleted the post on Sept. 16 and called his supervisor — who Nava knew from prior discussions to hold beliefs that didn’t align with his own — to alert him that he was being “doxed,” according to his lawsuit.
His supervisor didn’t answer, Nava’s lawsuit says, because unbeknownst to Nava, he was at that moment meeting with the university’s top brass about Nava and his post.
After the meeting, Nava’s supervisor told him he was being placed on administrative leave in connection with the post and told him school officials had received calls asking them to fire Nava.
The letter he received putting him on leave stated he was “under investigation for violating a law or ENMU policy” but, according to Nava’s complaint, there was no social media policy at the school and his speech did not violate any law.
Having freely admitted to his supervisor that he made the post and had since deleted it, Nava’s lawsuit says, he knew there was nothing to “investigate” and that placing him on leave was “a pretextual prelude” to his termination intended to pressure him to resign.
Nava said he also knew from his supervisor’s comments that it was “not looking good” for him and that Nava should “do what’s best for you, your family and everyone around you,” and that he was likely to be terminated if he didn’t resign first.
He knew having an involuntary termination on his record would jeopardize his future employment prospects, so he decided to resign.
Nava’s lawsuit calls the separation a “constructive discharge” and says he was effectively fired for exercising his First Amendment right to free speech.
According to his lawsuit, Nava began working in the university security department as an intern in 2019 while pursuing an associate degree in criminal justice and was hired on after completing his degree in 2020.
He was promoted several months later and routinely received positive performance reviews during his six years of employment there, Nava’s lawsuit says, adding the administration’s actions violated the university’s own employment policies, which require the use of progressive discipline.
Nava’s lawsuit says he made the post because he was offended by Kirk’s political ideology and history of inflammatory remarks, including “disparaging comments he made about gay people and other people.”
Nava was also “extremely disturbed by the repeated mass shootings that had occurred throughout the country and was offended by Mr. Kirk’s position that such deaths were an unfortunate but acceptable price for society to pay to ensure gun rights,” the lawsuit says.
He was “particularly upset about the fact that many supporters of Mr. Kirk had not gotten upset about the mass shootings of school children, but were up in arms over his shooting death,” the lawsuit says.
