Westhampton Beach Teacher Says She Was Fired Over Charlie Kirk-Related TikTok
A former music teacher from the Westhampton Beach Union-Free School District has filed a lawsuit, claiming she was wrongfully fired because of a TikTok she posted related to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, according to multiple news outlets.
Laura Mara was a music teacher in the district when she posted a TikTok on Sept. 11, 2025 – just one day after Kirk’s assassination – discussing the political divide over gun control brought about by Kirk’s murder.
“‘It sickens me that you’re celebrating his death, he was a father,'” Mara said in the TikTok video, paraphrasing Kirk’s supporters. “We’re not celebrating his death. We are responding to his death the way he responded to children getting pew-pewed in schools. And that response is thoughts and prayers. I guess that’s the price you pay to freely bear arms in the United States of America.”
Several reports state that one day later, Mara was given a letter by district administrators saying she was on administrative leave and barred from the high school’s campus. She was then officially let go in November. The lawsuit argues that her firing violated labor law and state human rights protections, as well as targeted Mara for her sexual orientation and for exercising her First Amendment rights off school property.
Mara is being represented by Smithtown-based attorney Austin Smith. The Westhampton Beach UFSD did not return a request for comment, but told Newsday it does not comment on pending litigation.
Charlie Kirk was an American conservative political commentator and the founder of Turning Point USA, a nonprofit organization aimed at conservative activism on high school and college campuses. Kirk was assassinated on Sept. 10, 2025 during a talk he was giving at Utah Valley University. Following a brief manhunt, Tyler James Robinson was arrested and charged with Kirk’s murder. He has pleaded not guilty.
Many political figures on both sides of the aisle strongly condemned Kirk’s killing, including President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and former Presidents Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.
Online, some critics of Kirk pointed out the April 2023 remarks Kirk had made with regards to gun rights, saying, “I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God‑given rights,” which is what Mara appeared to reference in her TikTok video.
Such comments drew strong criticism from Kirk’s supporters.
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