Caitlyn Spencer #

Introduction #

Caitlyn Spencer is a former financial aid advisor at Iowa State University who was fired in September 2025 over a social media post she wrote after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA. In the post, Spencer wrote that given Kirk’s previous comments backing Second Amendment gun rights, “this jackass got what was coming and I’m happy he’s rotting in hell now.” The firing was announced Tuesday, September 23, 2025, after the Iowa State Board of Regents discussed the matter in closed session, and it came amid a wave of Iowa firings over online comments about Kirk’s killing — a wave that followed direct pressure from two Republican state lawmakers on the Regents.

Background Information #

Spencer worked as a financial aid advisor at Iowa State University in Ames, governed by the Iowa Board of Regents, whose social media policy became the yardstick her case was measured against. Kirk was shot and killed on September 10, 2025, in Utah, and within days several Iowans had been fired over social media comments about his death, setting off civil lawsuits and unemployment-benefit hearings across the state. Iowa’s Republican officials moved quickly: state Rep. Taylor Collins of Mediapolis and state Sen. Lynn Evans of Aurelia pressed the Regents to act against employees who had celebrated the killing.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

Allegations. The post quoted here is documented, and the firing is a fact, but the university’s claim that Spencer’s conduct disrupted its operations was never tested in court: no lawsuit was filed, so nothing in this section was adjudicated. Spencer had an appeal right; no public record of its use has been reported.

The post appeared in the days after Kirk was shot and killed: “Given Charlie’s previous comments about their ’necessity’ to protect 2nd amendment rights though, this jackass got what was coming and I’m happy he’s rotting in hell now.” According to The Gazette, the comments went viral “across multiple platforms and attracting millions of views,” drawing a mention from former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

The virality turned a personal post into a legislative matter. On September 13, Collins and Evans penned a letter to the Regents calling for the immediate firing of employees who “publicly celebrated his killing online.” “Each instance of social media posts with cheers, taunting and vile glee is more disturbing than the last,” the letter said. “Such behavior is sickening – no American’s death should be celebrated, especially by those charged with the honorable duty of educating Iowa’s youth.”

At the Board of Regents meeting on September 17, all three universities were directed to immediately investigate any alleged violations of the board’s policy, including Chapter 4.2 on social media use. The board concluded that university presidents have authority to act against employees found in violation, up to and including termination, and authorized its executive director to investigate future violations and place employees on administrative leave. The Regents then met in closed session to discuss the Spencer matter, and on September 23 it was announced that she had been fired.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

The university’s account of why came in a termination letter signed by President Wendy Wintersteen, which claimed Spencer had “violat[ed] the Board of Regents’ ‘freedom of expression’ policy and her ’ethical obligations as a financial aid professional.’” “Iowa State University has determined that your conduct and continued employment has caused, and is reasonably likely to continue to cause, significant disruption, harm, and adverse impact to the efficient and effective operations of the university,” Wintersteen wrote — the university’s assertion of disruption, not a finding any court ever reviewed. The letter noted Spencer could appeal the firing to the ISU Board of Regents, and board policy Chapter 1.7 allows an appeal within 10 days of the final institutional action.

The policy at the center of the case cuts both ways. It states that employees “are free to express personal opinions on their personal social media accounts, consistent with the First Amendment and its application to public employees,” but adds that “under certain circumstances, the university may be obligated to act to prevent harm to the university, our campus community and its mission.” Beyond the letter, the university said little: spokesperson Angie Hunt did not provide additional comment, and Board of Regents senior communications director Josh Lehman said officials had “nothing to add.”

The firing wave caught others at ISU too: the post-Kirk-murder comments of Religious Studies Professor George Archer (“Yeah sorry pretty sure we’re all OK with political violence. Every. One. Of. Us”) caused an uproar, but as of The College Fix’s reporting Archer was still employed. Reporting on Spencer also resurfaced an irony in her record: she had previously signed a letter condemning ISU officials for not acting against a College Republicans tweet — “Everyone, you must arm up, expect these people to attempt to destroy your life, the elites want revenge on us,” posted after Joe Biden’s 2020 election — which she and other signers said gave “cause for alarm due to [the tweet’s] implied threat of violence.”

Current Status #

Spencer was fired from Iowa State in September 2025, and the appeal route she was offered — to the ISU Board of Regents, within 10 days — has no publicly reported record of use. By March 2026, when the Iowa Capital Dispatch surveyed the aftermath of Iowa’s Kirk-post firings, several other cases had produced civil lawsuits alleging wrongful termination and First Amendment violations, as well as unemployment-benefit hearings — but not hers: “There’s no indication that Spencer is suing ISU in either state or federal court.”

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The firing ended Spencer’s role at Iowa State, and because she never sued and no public appeal record exists, her case ends where it began: with a termination whose central justification — the claim that her post disrupted university operations — was never weighed by any court. The case also illustrates the mechanics of Iowa’s post-Kirk firing wave: a viral post, a lawmaker letter, a Regents directive, and a termination, all in under two weeks. The same policy invoked against her nominally protects personal-capacity expression by public employees, and Spencer herself had been a critic of how the university handled speech before — the earlier letter she signed accused ISU of telling “the people who feel unsafe on campus as a result of the College Republicans’ tweets that they do not matter.” No resolution of that tension has been reported; the firing stands.