VAIL, Ariz. — Cienega High School Principal Kim Middleton woke up early last Saturday to urgent messages from district administrators. They told her to call immediately.

A photo — in which Cienega math teachers wore matching white T-shirts on Halloween stained with red blotches and reading “Problem Solved” — was circulating rapidly online. Right-wing influencers were claiming that the educators were mocking conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Though the district quickly announced the shirts were a math joke and unrelated to Kirk, conservatives and some Republican officials from around the country amplified the image and portrayed it as a glorification of political violence. In the following days, the high school and its staff received more than 3,000 hateful messages, inc

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