Hope McMath, an artist and art history teacher who until recently taught at the Douglas Anderson School of the Arts in Jacksonville, Florida, was removed from the classroom in September in connection with social media posts she made following the assassination of Charlie Kirk that month. Although an investigation by Duval County Public Schools has since concluded, McMath told local public radio station WJCT on Monday that the district has refused to reinstate her.
Investigators, according to McMath and her attorney John Phillips, substantiated a finding related to the “use of profanity” on McMath’s private social media accounts but found no evidence to support a series of other allegations raised in the original complaint.
“We were hopeful that would be a little slap on the hand and I would be back in the classroom,” McMath told WJCT.
However, in a letter informing McMath that the district’s investigation had concluded and was deemed “non-disciplinary,” DCPS said that because she is subject to a concurrent investigation by the state education board, she would not be reinstated.
Asked by Anne Schindler, host of WJCT’s First Coast Connect, why the state case has continued to drag on, Phillips was blunt. “Political weaponization,” he said.
McMath announced in December that she was suing DCPS, state education officials, and the conservative nonprofit Moms for Liberty—which has said its local chapter holds a majority on the DCPS board—over her removal. At the time, McMath and Haley Bartlett, another district employee who was also removed and has filed suit, said their removals were “part of a larger campaign which targeted similarly situated teachers across the country over protected speech found disagreeable.” McMath further accused Moms for Liberty of falsely claiming that she had “improperly violated the law or school policies.”
On Monday, Phillips framed McMath’s case as a free speech issue, citing the 1968 Supreme Court decision Pickering v. Board of Education, which held that teachers retain the right to free speech on matters of public concern, provided they do not knowingly or recklessly make false statements. (In that case, a teacher was dismissed after writing a letter to a local newspaper.) Teachers’ free speech rights are generally considered more limited in the classroom.
“There has never been a scintilla of an allegation that Hope did anything wrong in the classroom, or that any student or parent complained about her,” Phillips said. “This case was generated by a 501(c)(4), Moms for Liberty, which is aligned with the political views of Charlie Kirk’s organization, Turning Point,” he claimed.
Notably, nearly all of the social media posts cited in Moms for Liberty’s complaint to DCPS—provided to TV station Action News Jax in September—predate Kirk’s assassination and address LGBTQ+ issues, COVID, and racial justice. These subjects also appear in McMath’s artwork, which she has frequently shared online. McMath has said she instructed students not to follow her social media accounts, blocked students who attempted to do so, and never discussed her political views in the classroom. She has also said that other teachers in the district regularly post inflammatory right-wing content on social media without facing repercussions.
In December, a school district spokesperson declined to comment, citing pending litigation. The Duval County chapter of Moms for Liberty did not respond to ARTnews’s request for comment at press time.
McMath also previously served as director of Jacksonville’s Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens.
