The recent uproar over teachers at the Vail school district tells you about two problems.
One is local and relatively simple to solve, involving standards for the kind of T-shirts or messages teachers may wear.
The other issue is global and has proven intractable across the age of social media. It involves the casual unleashing of online mobs, in this case out of profound delusion.
The key, in both cases, is accountability.
Again, that’s a simple prospect for the first problem, but seemingly impossible for the second, except for a few participants who answer to us as elected officials.
By now you will have heard of the disproportionate outrage over a photo of a group of Cienega High School math teachers wearing T-shirts that had a design with a broad stripe of blood down the left side and the words “Problem solved” across the front.
A group of Vail teachers posing in the T-shirts.
In my view, and I think the view of many people, these weren’t appropriate T-shirts for teachers to be wearing at school. Even if the message was intended to be a good one about solving math problems, even if it was a Halloween concept, the problem of violence in schools is just too real to make these T-shirts appropriate.
The implication, too, that bloody violence is the way you solve problems, is obviously a bad message, even if that was the joke of the shirt. Not funny.
But this issue is easily dealt with — by a principal or superintendent establishing firmer standards for what is appropriate and telling the teachers not to wear those shirts again. In fact, Superintendent John Carruth said he won’t allow the teachers to wear such shirts again. A clear policy would be helpful.
Problem solved.
Turning Point reaction
It’s not so simple, though, when a giant group in American politics, shattered by their leader’s recent victimization, labels the T-shirts something they were not: A celebration of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
That’s what the spokesman for Turning Point USA, Andrew Kolvet, did in his original X post at midday on Saturday.
“Concerned parents just sent us this image of what’s believed to be teachers in @vailschools in Tuscon (sic), Arizona mocking Charlie’s murder with costumes that read ‘Problem Solved’ and blood down the left side of their shirts.
They deserve to be famous, and fired.”
What strikes me about his post is the casualness with which Kolvet reached an unproven and dubious conclusion, and his apparent disregard for the power he wields. That’s a terrible combination.
Once a powerful person posts an accusation like this, about someone who is viewed as a martyr to a political cause, it is bound to cause a large, impassioned reaction. That’s natural and has happened over and over again online.
Kolvet, a close friend of Kirk, must know this. He’s been using his social-media accounts, since Kirk’s assassination, to expose people and try to get them fired for responding in a way he finds inappropriate to Kirk’s murder. He has 245,500 followers on X.
So, of course, people immediately began repeating Kolvet’s original, baseless assertion. Among them were national politicians Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Utah Sen. Mike Lee, who reposted a tweet that gave names and phone numbers, apparently work numbers, for each of the teachers in the photo.
Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee, who is running for state superintendent of schools, posted on Facebook, “Less than 2 months after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, this isn’t just in poor taste — it’s reprehensible.”
State Rep. Rachel Keshel, who represents some of the Vail district, also jumped in Saturday with an angry press release, again operating under the assumption that the shirts referred to Kirk, though she also lambasted the tone of the shirts in general.
Rep. Rachel Keshel
Credulous news reports followed, assuming that the officials were correct in connecting the shirts to Kirk’s killing.
Still, nobody offered any evidence that there was a connection. It was just self-righteous conjecture.
Shirts worn last year
Carruth pointed out in response to Kolvet’s post that teachers had worn the same shirt the Halloween before, and that it was “meant to represent solving tough math problems.”
“These shirts were worn both this and last year as part of math-themed Halloween costumes and were not intended as a reference to any person, event, or political issue,” he said in a press release.
But that wasn’t enough for Keshel or Kolvet. Keshel has been demanding evidence of the teachers wearing the shirts in 2024. When Vail school board member and Republican activist Chris King sent her a photo he said was from 2024, she demanded to see the original file with metadata or other proof it was taken last year. She’s going full Zapruder film on this.
Kolvet, too, has been unapologetic, though he did take down the post with the original claim, after the damage was done. Even while acknowledging he might have been wrong, Kolvet said, “I do not believe for a second that all of them are innocent. Some probably are (and it’s for their sake that I’m updating this thread) but I believe others knew exactly what they were doing.”
Both of them are showing a dangerous degree of political self-absorption. Not everything is about them, their martyred ally, or their movement.
Since there never was any evidence the teachers were referencing Kirk’s death with these shirts, there’s no reason they or the district should be asked to prove a negative, that the shirts were not connected to Kirk’s shooting. That’s not how our system works.
Just as importantly, we need to find a legal, above-board way to hold people accountable for casual online bullying like this. When Kolvet targeted the teachers in his original post, that was punching down — it was a powerful person targeting everyday people for things they hadn’t done.
Voters at least have a chance to hold Keshel and Yee accountable at the ballot box. But as to the originator of this hoax, Kolvet, holding him accountable is likely to remain a problem unsolved.
