Brown, a biologist who studied shorebirds and seabirds in Florida’s panhandle, reached the settlement on Thursday with directors of the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission after the agency fired her the previous fall, according to her lawsuit and statements from her attorney.
The firing followed Brown’s reposting of a meme on her personal Instagram account after the death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, her lawsuit said. The meme claimed Kirk wouldn’t care about children being shot in their classrooms, and the agency terminated Brown in September over the post.
Brown told officials she struggled to find other work because the Commission is the regulatory body connected to her bird-conservation research specialty, according to the court filings referenced in the AP report. She sought reinstatement and linked the termination to the backlash she said followed Kirk’s death.
Supporters of Kirk, the AP report said, combed social media after his killing for posts they viewed as celebrating his death. It described how influencers and accounts shared identities and workplaces of people who posted, including posts that were then tied to employment consequences.
Brown’s lawsuit said Libs of TikTok posted about her and that the agency fired her the next day. Her filing also said she was alerted to the termination about 10 minutes after it happened and before it was made public, while citing that sequence as part of her case.
The AP report said Brown signed the settlement for $485,000 with agency directors. Under the agreement, the payment covers backpay, damages and attorney costs, and Brown agreed not to seek future employment at the Commission.
Carrie McNamara, an attorney with the ACLU of Florida, described the settlement as a vindication for Brown and a warning to Florida officials against punishing speech they dislike. McNamara said, “The First Amendment does not disappear when someone accepts a government job.”
Brown’s case also included disputes over how the Commission characterized the scale of complaints generated by her post. The AP report said her former supervisor, Habitat and Species Conservation Director Melissa Tucker, claimed Brown’s social media activity generated hundreds of formal complaints and caused significant disruption, while discovery later showed the agency received about 50 complaints.
A U.S. District Judge, Mark Walker, imposed sanctions on Tucker last week for exaggerating the number of complaints and for failing to correct the record, the AP report said. Florida Fish and Wildlife officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The settlement adds to a wider pattern of job losses tied to social media posts reacting to Kirk’s assassination, with lawsuits pending over other firings described in the AP report. MSI previously reported that a Tennessee man jailed over Facebook memes about Kirk reached a separate settlement for $835,000, continuing the same legal theme.