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Campus legal expert says his comments, while inflammatory, fall under protected free speech
A former college staffer’s firing after saying Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents should be “shot and wiped out” raises free speech concerns, a campus legal expert told The College Fix.
The staffer in question, identified as Moises Bernal Puentas, made the comments during an Oct. 18 “No Kings” protest against President Donald Trump in Chicago.
Puentas was fired from his job as adult education manager at Wilbur Wright College soon after a video clip of his remarks was posted on X, the Wright Times reports. Wilbur Wright is a public institution affiliated with the City Colleges of Chicago.
In the short video, Puentas appears to be one of the protest speakers. He yells into a microphone, “These ICE agents gotta get shot and wiped out.” He also urges people to take up arms against “this fascist system.”
Puentas’ remarks also caught the attention of federal authorities. The Department of Homeland Security referred him to the Department of Justice, according to an Oct. 20 post on X.
“There is no place in America for psychotic incitements of unlawful violence against ICE or CBP,” the department stated. “To those who threaten violence against us: we will hunt you down, we will find you, and Justice will be served.”
The Fix contacted the Department of Justice’s media relations office on Dec. 4 for an update of the status for the referral, but it did not respond.
The Fix also twice emailed Puentas for comment on whether he regrets his statements, if he was surprised by his firing, and if he is considering legal action against the college. He did not respond.
Meanwhile, Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, told The Fix that college officials’ disagreement with the viewpoint of his speech is “constitutionally irrelevant,” when asked if the firing of Puentas crossed the line.
“As a public institution, Wilbur Wright College is bound by the First Amendment. Americans don’t surrender their free speech rights when they take up public employment. They retain a right to comment as citizens on matters of public concern, such as federal immigration enforcement,” he said in a recent email.
“To justify disciplining Puentes, the college has to show his speech significantly disrupted its operations or so undermined his ability to do his job that it outweighed his interest in speaking freely as a citizen,” Terr told The Fix.
And a “‘disruption’ can’t simply mean a social media flareup or angry calls and emails from outsiders,” he said. “The First Amendment doesn’t permit the government to suppress speech because of public uproar.”
Additionally, Terr told The Fix that while there are narrow exceptions to the First Amendment for certain categories of speech like true threats and incitement, they “don’t apply here.”
A true threat, he told The Fix, is a “serious expression of intent to physically harm an individual,” which is different from “heated political rhetoric.”
“That’s why, in Watts v. United States, the Supreme Court reversed a Vietnam War draftee’s conviction for telling a crowd of anti-war protesters, ‘If they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is L.B.J.,’ recognizing the statement as ‘political hyperbole’ and not an actual threat to kill the president,” he continued.
To qualify for incitement, Terr told The Fix that “speech must be intended and likely to incite immediate unlawful action. As the Supreme Court has emphasized, even advocating the ‘moral propriety or even moral necessity for a resort to force and violence’ is protected unless it satisfies the imminence element of the incitement standard.”
“None of this means Puentes’ comments are above criticism,” he told The Fix. “That exchange of views is exactly what the First Amendment is meant to protect. But the high bar the government must meet before disciplining employees for speech is essential to safeguarding the expressive rights of Americans across the political spectrum.”
“Limiting discipline to cases of actual workplace disruption ensures public employees aren’t punished simply because their speech offends powerful officials or provokes online outrage,” Terr said.
The Fix twice emailed the City Colleges of Chicago’s media relations office for comment on the rationale behind firing Puentas. It did not respond.
However, a spokesperson for the college system told WorldNetDaily that Puentas is “not employed by Wilber Wright College or any affiliated colleges” and that the system “does not tolerate violence nor incitement under any circumstances.”
MORE: ‘No Kings’ rallies: Educators mock Kirk assassination, call for ICE agents to be shot
