In his argument to the court, USD art professor Dr. Michael Hook, through his lawyer Jim Leach or Rapid City, makes this really important argument about the public value of his commentary on Charlie Kirk’s shooting:
Professor Hook’s speech deals with profound and timely public issues: Who was Charlie Kirk? What is his legacy? Should we applaud or decry what he promoted? How should we react to his murder? How does the reaction to his murder compare with reaction to the recent murders of Minnesota House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband Mark Hortman, and the attempted murders of Minnesota State Senator John Hoffman and his wife Yvette Hoffman? How does it compare with the reaction to the shootings at Evergreen High School in Colorado that occurred the same day? Or with all the previous school shootings? How does it compare with the decision to pardon all the people who assaulted police officers on January 6, 2021, to try to overthrow an election? What lessons should we take to heart from these questions? How should these questions, and their answers, inform what we say and do? [Plaintiff’s Memorandum in Support of Motion for Temporary Restraining Order, Phillip Michael Hook v. Tim Rave, Sheila K. Gestring, and Bruce Kelley, Case No. 4:25-cv-04188, United States District Court of South Dakota, Southern Division, 2025.09.23, pp. 8–9].
Instead of taking such swift headhunting offense, Governor Rhoden and Speaker Hansen should have engaged the public in a discussion of those very important issues.
In calling for Dr. Hook’s dismissal, Governor Rhoden said “We need more Charlie Kirks on campus and less hatred like this.” Really, Larry? We need more people on campus saying things like this?
Mr. Kirk was a public figure. In 2016, he established a “Watchlist” of allegedly “leftist” university teachers that “Made Some Professors’ Lives a ‘Living Hell.’” Complaint Ex. 1. He decried the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as “awful.” Complaint Ex. 2 at 10. He said that Catholic charities “are one of the biggest reasons why we have the open border crisis on the southern border,” and that they “train the sex traffickers how to smuggle the women across the border.” Complaint Ex. 2 at 11. He called the Civil Rights Act an “anti-white weapon.” Complaint Ex. 2 at 11. He claimed that FBI agents executing a search warrant at Mar-A-Lago were “doing the work that brown shirts would do. That’s how you get Auschwitz.” Complaint Ex. 2 at 11. He alleged that federal employees are “worthless parasites.” Complaint Ex. 2 at 13. And on and on and on and on. Complaint Ex. 2 at 8 to 19 [Plaintiff’s Memorandum, 2025.09.23, pp. 10–11].
Dr. Hook doesn’t argue in court about the validity of Kirk’s hateful and vile statements. Hook instead contends, with far greater equanimity and fealty to the Constitution than Governor Rhoden and Speaker Hansen express, that the First Amendment protects Kirk’s statements as much as it protects Hook’s response to them:
Whether Mr. Kirk’s statements were true is irrelevant. Mr. Kirk was a public figure speaking about matters of public and political concern. So Professor Hook’s Facebook posts about Kirk were about matters of public concern. They are entitled to the highest level of First Amendment protection. Speech that can “be fairly considered as relating to any matter of political, social, or other concern to the community” involves matters of public concern. Connick v. Myers, supra, 461 U.S. at 146. Whether speech is—in the view of some—“inappropriate” or “controversial” is “irrelevant to the question whether it deals with a matter of public concern.” Rankin v. McPherson, 483 U.S. 378, 387 (1987). [Plaintiff’s Memorandum, 2025.09.23, p. 11].
Hook also notes that his speech is far less dangerous than the speech of another guy whom Rhoden and Hansen love who went to Charlie Kirk’s funeral to promote hatred and brag about himself:
Professor Hook’s speech pales in comparison to the speech of the President of the United States, who regularly praises and encourages political violence against his real and perceived enemies. Memorandum Ex. 2 at 1-6. The President’s threats have real-world consequences, including on prosecutors and judges, yet he keeps making them. Memorandum Ex. 2 at 6-7 (“within minutes of his attacks, his acolytes respond. . . [leading to] dozens of potentially violent threats directed at [Georgia prosecutor Fani] Willis and her family”). Judges in the President’s cases “have faced persistent threats to their personal safety, including ‘swatting’ calls directed at their homes and a racist voicemail threatening murder.” Memorandum Ex. 2 at 7. The President’s comments about right-wing political violence have been mild at best. Memorandum Ex. 2 at 20-24. And he pardoned everyone who attacked the Capitol and its police officers to capture and hang the Vice-President on January 6, 2021.
By contrast, Professor Hook never has and never would suggest or promote violence as a solution to anything. His post angered the wrong people: Governor Rhoden, Speaker Hansen, the Board of Regents, and some who share their political views. But the state may not punish speech it dislikes. “Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors.” NRA of America v. Vullo, 602 U.S. 175, 180 (2024). This is not a novel idea. “Six decades ago, this Court held that a government entity’s ‘threat of invoking legal sanctions and other means of coercion’ against a third party ‘to achieve the suppression’ of disfavored speech violates the First Amendment.” NRA of America v. Vullo, id., quoting Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan, 372 U.S. 58, 67 (1963). So Professor Hook’s Facebook posts are protected by the First Amendment [Plaintiff’s Memorandum, 2025.09.23, pp. 13–14].
Dr. Hook posed valid questions about the merits of a public figure’s speech and conduct and the reactions of public figures to violence in our society. Governor Rhoden, Speaker Hansen, and the Board of Regents sought to punish Dr. Hook for asking questions that they apparently don’t want us to discuss, perhaps because they don’t like what that discussion might reveal about their favored political figures.
How is concealed carry on the USD campus not a symptom of hate, violence and paranoia?
Charlie Kirk made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, not! He was way worser than what was printed above.
So…we have a constitutional right to free speech, and we also have
laws prohibiting hate speech. Comments, explanations, anyone?
What hate speech laws are you referring to Mr. Arndt?
According to google, one can be convicted of hate speech if the speech incites violence or leads to a hate crime. (I don’t know how a hate crime is differentiated
from some other crime.) To me, it seems quite subjective, one prosecutor might
proceed with a case and another will let it go. I can’t give you where the law is located,
which page , which paragraph, etc.
In England and Canada the laws are much broader.
So, Charlie Kirk must be guilty of hate speech since it led to the hate crime that took his life, right?
No, according to Google you can’t be convicted for “hate speech”. Yes, you can be convicted for inciting violence, msking a true threat, or harassment. You can also be convicted for yelling “Fire!” in a crowded theater. How are those determined? In a court. Usually the bar for the prosecution is quite high.
You can cite a hate speech law because we don’t have them here. England and Canada do have less free speech. In that you are correct.
*can’t cite
Saying it’s OK to punch or kill Nazi’s and then calling everyone you you disagree with Nazi’s is what the left has been doing for the last ten years. If a professor can’t have a rational discussion and just immediately resorts to name calling and celebrating the death of someone who he admittedly knows nothing about. Now that his job is on the line, he all of a sudden wants a rational conversation. He has as much business teaching students as Alex Jones. Fire him, and anyone who acts like him, left or right. Freedom of Speech has its limits, and it doesn’t protect you from being fired by employers who don’t want their name tarnished by your childish behavior. As for the what-about-ism, no one on the right celebrated the deaths of the Minnesota Democrats that were slain by another unstable radical, and the only relation their deaths should have to Charlie Kirk’s is the fact that we shouldn’t be having this much political violence. Everyone advocating for violence are only doing it out of ignorance. They have main character syndrome, and they don’t think the violence will affect them. They’re wrong. The pendulum always swings back the other direction, so be careful how far you push it.
Isn’t it funny, how one side will say not to hate, but at the same time, they taught us how to hate? Always loved the do as I say, not as i do logic, brought out by the democrats, time and again. Don’t say that, its hate speech. But you showed me its ok. You hate Trump. Yes, but thats ok, orange man bad. Why?
Oh, the tired and lazy both-sidesism.
Where did I say it’s o.k. to punch or kill Nazis?
There is a fundamental difference between promoting hate, as Nazis do and Charlie Kirk did, and opposing that hate-spreading, as I and other good Americans do.
Even more tired and lazy both-sidesism. See my reply to Jon.
The rise of the MAGA factions in the US political world has been literally built on ginning up fear and hatred of relatively defenseless groups of people. People who are hurting and seek a better life in the USA have little or no ability to fight back when MAGA labels them as “illegal” people. And of course the term “illegal” is then used to create such terrible images of those so labeled that too many voters began to fear (and consequently hate) people so labeled. MAGA has successfully manipulated this fear by using the power of the government to openly inflict harm on the so-called “illegals” by literally rounding them up, imprisoning them, and then deporting them, in turn destroying their families and hope for a decent life. The marketing of fear and hate has effectively caused otherwise decent, caring and compassionate people to turn a blind eye to such MAGA behavior, and for too many folks to even cheer it on.
Here are three simple questions for those who have accepted such MAGA government without objection:
1. Just as no human being can control what color his eyes are at birth, no human being can control where he is born. Should we have laws that only apply to people based solely on the color of their eyes, such as requiring these people to register and have documentation to justify their presence in the USA?
2. One of the reasons listed in the Declaration of Independence for objecting to the actions of King George was:
“The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world. . . . .
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither,. . . ”
Were the founders wrong in objecting to King George’s attempts to restrict immigration?
3. Some of the people we have labeled as “illegals” have actually committed serious crimes – has the USA become so fearful and incompetent that we now fear putting serious criminals in our own prisons, but instead send them somewhere else to be someone else’s problem?
Isn’t it interesting how spreading fear and hatred of relatively defenseless people can cause good people to look the other way when a government begins to exercise oppressive power.
Bearcreekbat brings good questions. So do Professor Hook’s original FB post and his lawsuit, arguments which Jon and Joseph are keen to ignore with their formulaic whatbaoutism, which is designed to distract from their unwillingness to condemn Charlie Kirk and the fascist regime he helped return to power.
Tell us, Jon and Joseph, how you respond to the vital questions of public interest Professor Hook raises.
Do you applaud or decry the hateful statements that Charlie Kirk made? Do you accept the pardons of people who violently attacked Congress on January 6, 2021?
Do you at least agree that Professor Hook’s statements are protected by the First Amendment, just like Charlie Kirk’s and Donald Trump’s?
And, Jon and Joseph, do you recognize any difference between Dr. Hook’s expression of disdain for Charlie Kirk and his right-wing ideology, Charlie Kirk’s regular podcasting of messages inciting fear and hatred of various groups and individuals, and Donald Trump’s regular incitement of violence against public officials?
My comment wasn’t directed specifically to you Cory, but I guess you desperately need the attention. I condemn radicalism on both sides. Period. It’s not about both sides-ism, it’s about curbing radical behavior in every form. As I clearly stated in my original comment, the left has been labeling everybody they don’t like as Nazi’s and saying it’s OK to punch or kill them. Pretty much since Richard Spencer, and actual self-proclaimed Neo-Nazi, came on the scene and was actually punched on camera. There were memes and everything. You’ve probably said it too, just not in this article. Charlie Kirk has been called a Nazi, specifically by the professor that you wrote this article about. Are you such a terrible writer that you completely forgot that you included a quote calling someone a Nazi? Or are you just so desperate for attention that you need to make this all about you? Get over yourself. You’re a nobody writer for a mediocre online paper in South Dakota. You’re barely two steps above writing a blog that only your grandma reads. Nobody in the comments cares about what you said. If you can’t have an actual conversation without resorting to name calling, then stop writing.
As foe your question in another comment, Professor Hook’s First Amendment rights have not been violated. He has not been forcibly silenced. He is free to speak his mind, but he does not have a right to be employed anywhere. Since the dawn of social media, thousands upon thousands of people have been terminated for posts that their employer deemed inappropriate, and no one has ever complained about it until now. There’s even federal case law, from the Supreme Court, that says people can be terminated for inappropriate online behavior. We had this whole thing called cancel culture over what people were tweeting back in 2000s.
Charlie Kirk was forcibly silenced. His rights were violated. If you can’t tell the difference, then there’s nothing more I can add to this that would make you understand. Maybe you should go back to college, you obviously didn’t learn anything the first time.
Nazist is a better descriptor, innit? Something, something blood of patriots….
“Nobody in the comments cares about what you said.”
Jon, who had been in the comments section once, showed his lack of care by posting not one, but two more posts about what Cory has had to say.
Welcome, Jon Hansen.
Good eye, Porter, Jon Schaff has better English skills than using apostrophes where they’re stupid.
No Ben, I care about subject at hand, Professor Hook and his firing, which has been the subject of all of my comments. If I cared what Cory said, I’d be digging through all of his articles and I’d be digging up all of his old tweets or whatever other social media, but I haven’t because I’m focused on the subject at hand.
Why does a professor or or a coder or even a lawyer need a liberal arts education especially when the Holy Bible and The Turner Diaries are all you need to read, right Jon?
“Are you [CORY] such a terrible writer that you [CORY] completely forgot that you [CORY] included a quote calling someone a Nazi? Or are you [CORY] just so desperate for attention that you [CORY] need to make this all about you [CORY]? Get over you[CORY]rself. You[CORY]’re a nobody writer for a mediocre online paper in South Dakota. You[CORY]’re barely two steps above writing a blog that only you[CORY]r grandma reads. Nobody in the comments cares about what you [CORY] said. If you [CORY] can’t have an actual conversation without resorting to name calling, then stop writing.”
Jon [Hansen?], you’re clearly a bad faith actor and could have gone many other places to discuss this subject you so deeply care about, but you came here, Cory’s mediocre blog, whose opinion you so do not care about, to do it. I will be ignoring you [Jon [Hansen?]] from now on so good day to you [Jon[Hansen?]].