Haley Massung #

Introduction #

Haley Massung is an American dispatcher and duty officer who spent roughly a decade with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission before being fired in September 2025 over a two-word comment she left on a Facebook post announcing the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk. According to the lawsuit she later filed, Massung commented “rest in piss” on a page called “Velvet Guillotine” as it announced Kirk’s killing, and the state agency terminated her for it eight days later. She sued the commission’s executive director, Roger A. Young, in June 2026 with First Amendment attorney Gary Edinger representing her, arguing the firing punished constitutionally protected speech. In August 2026, Florida settled the case for $65,000 — the second settlement the wildlife agency paid in the wave of firings over Charlie Kirk posts — with an agreement barring Massung from ever working for the agency again.

Background Information #

Massung is a resident of Marion County, Florida, and worked at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission for about ten years, a career that began when the agency hired her at age 20. She served as a dispatcher, and in 2018 the commission named her its duty officer of the year — an award recognizing the personnel who staff the agency’s around-the-clock dispatch and response coordination. Her decade of service and that commendation became central to the legal case her lawyer built after the firing: Edinger argued that a ten-year employee with that record, fired over a comment on someone else’s Facebook post in which she never identified herself as an FWC worker, was exactly the kind of speech the First Amendment protects. Beyond the dispute with her former employer, little about Massung’s personal life appeared in the coverage of her case, which centered entirely on a single social-media comment.

The Controversy or Incident That Led to Their Cancellation #

Allegations. This section recounts a documented employment action, not criminal conduct: Massung’s firing is a fact, and the Facebook comment that prompted it is documented in her lawsuit. What was contested was the legality of the firing — her First Amendment claims were settled in 2026 without any admission of liability by the state.

On 10 September 2025, Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist and founder of Turning Point USA, was shot dead during a public appearance at a university in Utah, and in the days that followed, posts about his death cost employees across the country their jobs. According to the lawsuit Massung later filed, she commented “rest in piss” on a Facebook page called “Velvet Guillotine” whose post was announcing Kirk’s death. Per the lawsuit, she did not identify herself as an employee of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission anywhere on the page or in the comment itself. On 18 September 2025, the commission fired her over the remark. Her attorney argued the comment was no different in kind from the provocative political expression Kirk himself had built his career on, and that her post was completely protected by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

Public Reaction and Consequences #

Massung was one of three state workers fired by the wildlife agency for posting critical comments about Kirk after his death, joining a national wave in which public employees across the country faced termination or discipline over what they said online about the killing. A fellow FWC employee, biologist Brittney Brown, had been the first to sue Executive Director Roger Young over a Kirk-related firing and had settled with the state for nearly half a million dollars about a month before Massung filed her own case. In June 2026, Massung sued Young in the Tallahassee federal court, alleging the termination violated her constitutional right to free speech. Her lawyer argued that Kirk built his career on the free expression of controversial political views, which was no different from Massung’s Facebook comment, and that a worker who never disclosed her employer on the page or in the post was fired for her own words, not her agency’s.

Current Status #

Massung’s lawsuit ended in a settlement. In August 2026, Florida agreed to pay her $65,000 — $38,500 to cover the loss of her job, $16,500 in backpay and $10,000 for attorney fees — making hers the second free-speech settlement the wildlife agency paid over a Kirk-related firing. As part of the agreement, she cannot apply for or accept future employment with the state wildlife agency, even though she had initially asked the Tallahassee federal court to reinstate her. “A more just result would have been the immediate reinstatement of FWC employees after the agency violated their First Amendment rights,” said Gary Edinger, her attorney, in an August 13 email. “But, for the moment, it appears that FWC is content paying out tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars for the privilege of violating the constitutional rights of our friends and neighbors.” The commission declined to comment on the settlement. Of the three FWC employees fired over Kirk posts, the third, Taylor Ozimek, remains in litigation as of September 2026.

Impact on Their Career/Life #

The firing ended a ten-year career at the agency that had hired her at 20 and had honored her as its duty officer of the year, and the settlement’s terms closed the door permanently on the outcome she had originally sought — her job back. The $65,000 payout was far smaller than the nearly half-million-dollar settlement the first FWC plaintiff received, but it added to the mounting taxpayer cost of the Kirk firing litigation in Florida, a pattern Edinger pointedly noted in commenting on the deal. Her case, like her fellow employees’, contributed to the broader reckoning over how far public agencies can go in punishing workers’ off-duty speech: the FWC has since moved to clarify its social-media policies by further restricting employees from commenting negatively on their employer. Massung’s page joins the record of that episode as a documented employment action, resolved by settlement, with the state paying $65,000 for a firing her lawsuit alleged was a First Amendment violation — and with no admission of liability.