STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Good morning. I'm Steve Inskeep. Jerry Foxhoven is out of a job, but he says Tupac Shakur had nothing to do with it. Iowa's Human Services chief was a fan of the late rapper. He shared Tupac lyrics with colleagues for inspiration in hundreds of pages of emails. But after he told all 4,300 employees to mark Tupac's birthday, the governor pushed him out. Foxhoven says he was fired for unrelated reasons and the timing was a coincidence. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.