Massachusetts Republican gubernatorial candidates say public employees who appear to celebrate Charlie Kirk’s assassination should be fired, while Gov. Maura Healey called for the political temperature to be lowered.

Mike Kennealy and Brian Shortsleeve, GOP candidates for governor, and Healey are making their stances after the Massachusetts Teachers Association defended educators who have been suspended for reacting positively on social media to the conservative activist’s death.

Kennealy and Shortsleeve say that educators and any government employees should be removed from their positions if they view Kirk’s assassination positively.

“Any expression of joy over an assassination is abhorrent,” Kennealy said in a statement. “It’s indefensible that the Teachers’ Union is defending individuals who celebrated the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”

“The MTA has become the most powerful political entity in Massachusetts,” he added, “but it no longer serves the interests of students or teachers – it serves its partisan political agenda.”

Kennealy’s comments came after the Herald reported how the Massachusetts Teachers Association issued a statement urging school districts not to punish educators who have reacted positively to Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

MTA President Max Page and Vice President Deb McCarthy requested districts and public colleges and universities to be “partners with unions in the fight to defend educators from bullying and harassment and to protect their rights.”

“The ongoing campaign by extreme-right conservatives to discredit and defund public education,” the union leaders said, “has grotesquely exploited the shooting death of Charlie Kirk to launch attacks against people commenting on this public figure’s beliefs and statements.”

“We are insisting that public school administrators or officials not take actions that validate accusations by extremists against educators,” they added. “We urge administrators to consider the legal and contractual rights of union members and to give equal weight to justice, due process and caution.”

Peabody, Framingham, Sharon and Wachusett Regional have all taken action against teachers who have made social media posts deemed insensitive towards Kirk’s death.

A teacher at Wachusett commented, “just a reminder, we’re NOT offering sympathy,” in a post hours after Kirk’s death.

A video, which a Framingham teacher posted on social media, shows the teacher singing God Bless America before she turns the camera to a television screen with the headline that Kirk had died after being shot.

“These individuals lack the basic decency we should require of anyone working for taxpayers,” Shortsleeve said in a statement, “and are the furthest thing we should want serving as examples to our children in the classroom. No conservative young person can feel safe in a classroom run by a teacher who relishes in the murder of someone who thinks like they do.”

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Healey said she had yet to see the statement from the Massachusetts Teachers Association and the comments made by the suspended teachers, while continuing to condemn political violence.

“People in this country need to come together,” the governor said. “We need to unite, we need to take the temperature down. We have seen horrific acts of political violence, we have seen school shootings, we have seen church shootings. We need to get back to dialogue with one another.”

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