Maria Ruhtenberg, an attorney with the Iowa Office of the State Public Defender, has settled with the state after she was fired and later reinstated following online comments she made about the shooting death of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.Kathryn Gamble for NPR hide caption By the time Maria Ruhtenberg was fired from her job last September for posting about Charlie Kirk's assassination, few people even knew what she had written.The posts and comments she had made on Facebook were only visible to her friends.
Just one person – a Facebook friend she barely knew – complained to her employer."I don't even know how we became Facebook friends, honestly," said Ruhtenberg.After the conservative activist was shot, Ruhtenberg wrote things like "live by the sword, die by the sword" and "you reap what you sow" and that she disagreed with Kirk's views about the Second Amendment.
Ruhtenberg also said "whoever shot [Kirk] should go to prison."Two days after that complaint, a right-wing outlet in Iowa emailed Ruhtenberg's employer to ask for a comment about her posts.The next day, she was terminated, less than five days after her initial post.
Ruhtenberg had spent 15 years as a public defender for the state of Iowa.Ruhtenberg appealed her termination with the state and got her job back in November.The civil service decision that restored Ruhtenberg's job noted that only the single complaint and the media inquiry raised concerns about her conduct.State public defender Jeff Wright testified during the appeals proceedings that Ruhtenberg was fired because her posts were perceived as condoning violence.Ruhtenberg then sued the state and Wright in federal court for First Amendment retaliation.
In May, they settled and Ruhtenberg was awarded $125,000 in damages.The Iowa public defender's office and Wright did not respond to a request for comment.Nine...