School board member used laughing emoji on Charlie Kirk post. She keeps Ohio job
An Ohio school board member who faced backlash over a reaction she left on a post about Charlie Kirk’s assassination will keep her title, reports say.
Shellie McKnight, a member of the Anthony Wayne Local Schools Board of Education, was shown to have left a laughing emoji in a Daily Mail post on Facebook after Kirk was fatally shot at Utah Valley University on Sept. 10.
McKnight, however, said she accidentally used the wrong emoji.
“On Thursday, I saw a post from this group, revealing the death of Charlie Kirk. When I saw this, I mistakenly pressed the (laughing emoji icon),” she said Sept. 12 in the A.W. Politics and Opinions page on Facebook. “I was on my phone, not my iPad, so it was small. I did not have my glasses on. I meant to press the empathetic emoji. I will admit that was a mistake I made.”
Her reaction to the shooting of Kirk, a popular conservative activist, was reportedly met with backlash from her Ohio community.
As she spoke at a school board meeting Sept. 14, people booed her and yelled “liar” and “resign,” according to WTVG.
“In no way do I condone a person being assassinated, be that person republican, democrat, or independent,” she said on Facebook. “That is not me. I apologize for the apparent outcry this has caused. I hope that the Anthony Wayne community understands that sometimes these mistakes happen, and I went in and changed the original post to a empathetic emoji, getting rid of the laugh emoji.”
Despite McKnight calling her reaction an accident, community members felt it was just the “latest example” of her not adhering to the school district’s values, according to WTOL.
“This isn’t about a difference of ideas, which we have a great difference, it’s about a continual pattern of misbehavior on her part,” parent Jim Schlievert said, according to WTOL. “The behaviors she’s exhibited in the last couple of years on her social pages, in public, in regards to these things and how she tries to obfuscate what’s happened, it’s not conduct that represents what Anthony Wayne values are.”
Many people in the education community have already faced disciplinary action from comments made on social media after Kirk’s assassination.
Among them were a Middle Tennessee State University professor, who was fired for saying she had “ZERO sympathy” after Kirk was killed, McClatchy News reported.
The State reported a South Carolina high school teacher was fired for a post he made after Kirk’s death. And in Iowa, a high school teacher was placed on leave after being accused of calling Kirk a “Nazi,” according to McClatchy News.
McKnight has not resigned, nor did the school board take action against her during the Sept. 15 meeting, according to WTOL.
“We denounce the rhetoric that has been used on social media that’s been a repetitive occurrence,” Anthony Wayne School Board President Kyle Miller said, according to WTVG.
McKnight, a retired reading and special education teacher, was elected to the board in November 2023.
The Anthony Wayne Local School District is headquartered in Whitehouse, about a 20-mile drive southwest from Toledo.
This story was originally published September 16, 2025 at 1:49 PM with the headline "School board member used laughing emoji on Charlie Kirk post. She keeps Ohio job."