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NEWARK - A Union Township High School teacher suspended in 2011 for posting anti-gay comments to her Facebook page won a pivotal victory Monday in a two-year legal battle to win back her job.

U.S. District Court Judge Kevin McNulty rejected an effort by Union Township Board of Education officials to dismiss a 2013 lawsuit filed by Jenye Viki Knox, who claims school officials violated her free speech and religious rights.

School officials claim Knox negotiated away many of her lawsuit claims when she agreed to settle a challenge to her tenure -- an argument McNulty rejected.

"The settlement by its terms extended only to the Tenure Charges," the judge wrote. "The Board denies Knox's assertion that they explicitly agreed to her reservation of rights as to other claims. It is undisputed, however, that the Board only settled the Tenure Charge, and did not obtain a general release as part of that settlement."

Knox was tenured in 2003. The board filed charges of insubordination and "conduct unbecoming" against Knox in December 2011.

The ruling means Knox, who has not worked since 2012, could soon have a chance to argue her case before a federal jury. She is seeking reinstatement, back pay and monetary damages.

Her attorney, Demetrios Stratis, said the decision was an important one for the rights of teachers to express themselves freely outside school settings.

"I understand a teacher is an agent of the state but she's also an individual," Stratis said. "This is what this country was founded on. It's not like she was a teacher standing up in the middle of class and saying I believe in 'this, this and this.'

Jonathan Cohen, the attorney for the Union Township board, said the board was encouraged by the judge's decision to dismiss several of Knox's other claims, including racial discrimination.

"We were very pleased with the court's decision to dismiss four out of the 10 counts in Jenye Viki Knox's complaint," Cohen said. "Now the case will proceed to discovery and after discovery is complete the defendant, Union Township Board of Education, will be in a position to file a motion for summary judgment to dismiss the remaining counts to the complaint."

In September 2011, Knox, an ordained minister and onetime advisor for the school's Christian Bible study group, posted Facebook comments expressing her distaste for a school billboard marking Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Month.

"Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of us?," Knox wrote on Facebook. "I DO NOT HAVE TO TOLERATE ANYTHING OTHERS WISH TO DO. I DO HAVE TO LOVE AND SPEAK AND DO WHAT'S RIGHT!"

In her response to comments on her post, Knox detailed her "religious objections to the billboard; statements about the Bible and homosexuality; characterizations of homosexuality as a sin and disobedience to God; and descriptions of salvation through Jesus Christ," the ruling noted.

Calls for Knox's dismissal soon went out and the head of a New Jersey gay rights group urged the Union schools to hold her accountable.

"Teachers are supposed to be role models for our children, not hatemongers," Steven Goldstein, the chairman of Garden State Equality, said at the time.

Knox was suspended without pay three months after the posting appeared and resigned from her teaching post in June 2012, citing stress, court papers say.

Stratis says the episode has taken a physical and emotional toll on Knox. "It's a dire situation, actually," Stratis said.

In his ruling, McNulty dismissed Knox's racial discrimination claim. The African-American special education teacher claimed that school officials ignored the "racist" comments to her Facebook post when they questioned her.

By keeping their silence, school officials demonstrated 'tacit approval of the racism she was subject to," the ruling noted.

McNulty did not agree.

"Knox has failed to allege facts tending to suggest that individuals similarly situated (but for their race) were treated differently," McNulty wrote. "Her racial discrimination claim will therefore be dismissed."

McNulty, did, however give Stratis an opportunity to amend the lawsuit with new facts

Thomas Zambito may be reached at tzambito@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @TomZambito. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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N.J. teacher who made anti-gay remarks on Facebook scores legal victory in bid to get job back

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NEWARK - A Union Township High School teacher suspended in 2011 for posting anti-gay comments to her Facebook page won a pivotal victory Monday in a two-year legal battle to win back her job. U.S.

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Teacher's Blog Not Protected Speech: 9th Circ. - Law360

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A Washington school district did not violate a teacher's constitutional rights when it demoted her after discovering that she kept a "vituperative" blog attacking her co-workers, the union and the school system, because the blog was not protected speech, a federal appeals court has affirmed.

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A purported chat transcript between four Edison School District teachers. One has resigned and three others are facing tenure charges.

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Student Charged in Teacher Nude Photo Case

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Student Charged in Teacher Nude Photo Case

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A 16-year-old Union High School student has been charged with distributing pictures of a teacher from the teacher's cellphone, according to the Union Public Safely Department.

The teenager is charged with computer crimes and aggravated voyeurism, police said.

Teacher Leigh Anne Arthur said she left her phone on her desk Monday while she was patrolling a hallway in the Career and Technology Center at Union County High School during a class change.
To watch Arthur's interview and read her story, click HERE.
She said the 16-year-old boy took her phone and used his own phone to take pictures of an image on Arthur's phone of her in a sexy pose. Arthur told investigators she took the picture to send to her husband for Valentine's Day.

The South Carolina Law Enforcement Division confirmed that the pictures that the teen took from the phone were stored in his phone in a pass code-protected file that contained other pictures that were sexual in nature.
To read release from superintendent that blames Arthur for incident, click here
Thousands of students and others have signed an online petition pushing for Arthur to be reinstated.

"After being escorted off of school property, we (the students) are left to believe that she has been forced to, or given little choice but to resign. Mrs. Arthur has not only shown tremendous dedication to her students, but also the mechatronics program itself, often reaching out to local businesses and colleges to get materials that would not normally be available for the class," students said.

The teenager is in the Department of Juvenile Justice Center in Columbia.

Arthur has said that she isn't sure she would want her job back.

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Student charged in teacher's private cellphone picture case

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A 16-year-old Union High School student has been charged with distributing pictures of a teacher from the teacher's cellphone, according to the Union Public Safely Department. The teenager is charged with computer crimes and aggravated voyeurism, police said.

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Lewd Chat and Mocking special ed kids land Edison teachers in tenure trouble

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Lewd Chat and Mocking special ed kids land Edison teachers in tenure trouble

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EDISON - The Edison schools chief has moved to fire three teachers who allegedly participated in a vulgar online conversation that ridiculed disabled students, speculated about their coworkers' sex lives, and insulted fellow educators.

Apparently, unbeknownst to the teachers, anyone in the district - including students - could read transcripts of their insulting and innuendo-laden chats. One fellow teacher, an apparent target of their barbs, did just that, and reported it to school administration.

"Although I am not able to comment on personnel matters, the facts contained in the charges that have been filed speak for themselves," Superintendent Richard O'Malley said through a spokesman.

Tyler Van Pelt, Maria Weber and Maryellen Lechelt are currently suspended with pay after the racy Oct. 23 chats, which took place when they were training to use new technology in a room at district offices. State law requires school districts to continue paying teachers on suspension unless they're indicted, or unless their tenure charges are certified. The school board will consider certifying the tenure charges on Monday.

Keith Waldman, a lawyer for Lechelt, said the punishment - firing - didn't fit the alleged crime.

"The proposed penalty is grossly disproportionate to the alleged offense," Waldman said, "and is not in keeping with norms established in other cases involving similar allegations of misconduct."

Waldman declined further comment. Van Pelt and Weber, along with their attorneys, did not respond to requests for comment. The teachers admitted in interviews with school district officials that the chat logs were authentic, according to affidavits from the school district obtained by NJ Advance Media.

"Backchannel" discussions

On the morning of Oct. 23, the teachers had voluntary training on Chromebook laptops in the district offices. According to an email from that morning, Van Pelt invited Weber and Lechelt into what he called a "personal wiseass backchannel discussion."

The 2½ hour chat demeaned special education students and included several double entendres about sex, and was rife with obscure innuendos, according to district documents obtained through the Open Public Records Act.

The district has accused Van Pelt and Lechelt of unbecoming conduct for their alleged comments about special-needs students.

"i like the group name 'morons,'" Lechelt, a teacher at Lincoln Elementary School, allegedly wrote on the Today's Meet chat program. "they take the tart cart home."

"short bus kids," Van Pelt allegedly wrote.

Van Pelt, who also taught at Lincoln Elementary, said he referred to one of his groups of students as "I hate you don't waste my time."

Lechelt wrote that she referred to one group of her students as, "jesus christ, why the f--- did they place you with me?"

Training room disturbance

Weber, a special education teacher at James Monroe, did not respond to those particular messages. The district accused her of fewer instances of misconduct than Van Pelt or Lechelt. She was accused of unbecoming conduct because of her alleged remarks about sexual hygiene habits and remarks about the woman running the computer training that morning.

"She looks like a poor man's Denise Richards," Van Pelt allegedly wrote during the chat session.

"poor man's anything is as good as its gonna get in edison," Lechelt responded.

Later, Van Pelt allegedly said of the woman running the training: "i'd like to invite her to a private backchannel discussion... all night long."

The three were charged with unbecoming conduct because of their alleged comments about the person leading the training, as well as insubordination for misuse of school technology and their failure to pay attention to the training. They are also accused of violating the district's sexual harassment and affirmative action policies, among other charges.

The three were apparently causing a disturbance in the training room, because another teacher turned around to shush them. When they began giggling, she wrote in a sworn affidavit, she started to suspect that they were making fun of her in the chat program.

The teacher found the chat transcript and said later she was horrified by what she saw. The teacher fled the room and reported the incident to her principal, believing they were talking about her, according to the tenure charges.

Not a private chat

School officials stressed that the matter only came to their attention because it was reported to them by another teacher, and that school officials are not spying on correspondences in chats.

Weber and Lechelt said they believed the chats were private, while Van Pelt said he knew that anyone who had the link to the chat would be able to read it, according to the tenure charges. Another teacher involved in the chats, Jonathan Bauza, resigned rather than face disciplinary action, the district said. The chats took place in a program called Today's Meet, a free website geared toward teachers.

Van Pelt maintains a blog about education in Edison. He frequently criticized school administrators, particularly around the topic of technology.

The tenure charges also accuse Van Pelt of conducting union activities during instructional time.

Weber was the adviser for the James Monroe Elementary School student council.

Lechelt won the 2012 Outstanding Classroom Teacher of the Year award from the Edison Chamber of Commerce. The student that nominated her said: "She has also helped our whole class develop different skills we use throughout the year. She brings snacks. She never shouts and is always fair to other adults and students."

The district wrote in an official notice: "We couldn't agree with you more."

Boundaries of propriety

If the school board signs off on the tenure charges, the teachers would then be on unpaid suspension for 120 days. Meanwhile, their case would be forwarded to an arbitrator, who would decide on the matter.

The president of the union representing Edison teachers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Van Pelt is accused in the tenure charges of "Masturbating In or Around Board Property." Van Pelt denied to school officials that he had masturbated that day, but he suggested in the chat that he had just left the room to do so.

Van Pelt was later interviewed by Margaret DeLuca, the district's chief academic officers.

"Mr. Van Pelt stated several times that he found the presenter to be attractive and made two off-color references under his breath after responding to questions, both of which I heard, one about oral sex and the other about masturbating in the bathroom," DeLuca wrote in an affidavit. "Clearly, he does not know the boundaries of propriety."

Chat Transcript (PDF)
Chat Transcript (Text)
Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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Lewd chat and mocking special ed kids land Edison teachers in tenure trouble

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EDISON - The Edison schools chief has moved to fire three teachers who allegedly participated in a vulgar online conversation that ridiculed disabled students, speculated about their coworkers' sex lives, and insulted fellow educators. Apparently, unbeknownst to the teachers, anyone in the district - including students - could read transcripts of their insulting and innuendo-laden chats.

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EDISON -- One teacher with a lengthy disciplinary history was fired and two others were suspended after participating in a raunchy online chat that mocked special education students.

Tyler Van Pelt lost his job at the Edison school district after a state arbitrator's decision last week. Maryellen Lechelt was suspended for 120 days and lost a pay raise, and Maria Weber was suspended for 90 days. The suspensions will cost them tens of thousands of dollars in pay each.

Few were spared from the jibes as they sat quietly behind keyboards in a packed district office training room: Special needs students, fellow teachers, the superintendent, each other, the woman in the front of the room, the woman in the back of the room, the idea of work, their own salaries.

"i like the group name 'morons,'" Lechelt, a teacher at Lincoln Elementary School, wrote of her students. "they take the tart cart home."

"short bus kids," Van Pelt responded.

Van Pelt, also a teacher at Lincoln, referred to one group of students as, "I hate you don't waste my time."

They said in response to tenure charges that the comments about special needs students were taken out of context -- in fact, they were mocking the terminology that someone else had used about "low groups" of students. The arbitrator rejected that argument.

The three teachers were using the "Today's Meet" chat program on district-issued laptops. The training session was in-person and voluntary. For a full transcript of the chat, click here.

Among other disparaging remarks, Van Pelt and Lechelt suggested that hiring decisions in Edison were based on sexual favors and good looks, which the district vigorously denied.

The chats are preoccupied with sex, with terms more likely to be found in the Urban Dictionary than Webster's: "DSL," "eating chicken," "baby batter." Van Pelt tested out some of the pickup line he said he was going to use on the training instructor, whom he referred to as a "poor man's Denise Richards." One of the printable ones: "i'd like to invite her to a private backchannel discussion... all night long."

One fellow teacher, sitting behind Lechelt, shushed them during the two and a half hour session. It was a fateful shush: Fearing they were making fun of her, the teacher logged onto their chat -- it was publicly accessible to anyone who knew the name, as they soon would learn -- and, horrified, reported what she'd seen. The school administration filed tenure charges against all three.

RELATED: Lewd chat and mocking special ed kids land Edison teachers in tenure trouble

Superintendent Richard O'Malley said he appreciated the decision, which certified the board's charges of unbecoming conduct.

"Our families can be assured that this Board will continue to do everything it can to prevent future acts of misconduct from the two teachers whom the arbitrator has returned to the classroom," O'Malley said through a spokesman.

Van Pelt's attorney said they're going over the documents in preparation for a possible appeal.

"We're greatly disappointed in the end product, where Mr. Van Pelt loses his position after many, many years, approaching two decades, as a stellar teacher," said William Koy. "To have something like this happen -- we're going to be very critical of that review."

The written decision for Van Pelt, obtained by NJ Advance Media via an Open Public Records Act request, is 151 pages long, much of which portrays Van Pelt as the district's enfant terrible.

The district claimed that Van Pelt masturbated on board property (he denied the charge, but the arbitrator found him guilty); brought beer to a high school graduation and showed up to work the next morning so belligerent that a police officer had to escort him off school grounds; conducted union activities during instructional time; and had to be transferred to a different school after a domestic violence incident involving an Edison High School teacher who got a restraining order.

Lechelt and Weber, on the other hand, had spotless records in the school district.

"Maryellen Lechelt is sorry that her conduct resulted in this situation," Keith Waldman, her attorney, told NJ Advance Media. "She recognizes that the penalties imposed by the arbitrator upon her, a 120-day suspension without pay and the loss of a raise, are appropriate penalties. She looks forward to returning to work."

Weber made the fewest comments among them, the arbitrator noted. Her case was bolstered by a laudatory reference letter from her principal at James Monroe Elementary School, Lynda Zapoticzny, who said she is a consummate professional.

But Weber did use euphemisms, and continued to participate in the chat even as the vulgarities were flying, which the arbitrator ruled was grounds for punishment, if not termination.

The teachers were suspended without pay after a school board vote. Lechelt and Weber will return to work at the beginning of the 2015 school year, since they've already served their unpaid suspensions.

&amp;lt;a href="http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1378656/chat-transcript.pdf"&amp;gt;Chat Transcript (PDF)&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt; &amp;lt;br /&amp;gt; &amp;lt;a href="http://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/1378656/chat-transcript.txt"&amp;gt;Chat Transcript (Text)&amp;lt;/a&amp;gt;
Brian Amaral may be reached at bamaral@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @bamaral44. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

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Edison teacher fired after lewd chat mocking special ed students

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EDISON -- One teacher with a lengthy disciplinary history was fired and two others were suspended after participating in a raunchy online chat that mocked special education students. Tyler Van Pelt lost his job at the Edison school district after a state arbitrator's decision last week.

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Teacher Facebook Speech: Protected or Not? 

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Teacher Facebook Speech: Protected or Not? 

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Teachers, students and social media: Where is the line?

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Teachers, students and social media: Where is the line?

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A substitute teacher in New Hampshire chooses not to work at a school after being instructed to unfriend students on Facebook.

A Wisconsin teacher asks his students to follow elected officials on Twitter and report back on what they tweet.

These examples highlight the complicated nature of social media interactions between teachers and students: Some instructors want to use Facebook and Twitter as teaching tools, yet there is concern that appropriate boundaries are maintained.

Carol Thebarge, a 79-year-old substitute teacher in Claremont, N.H., brought this issue to light recently when she was told by school officials to unfriend her more than 200 current students on Facebook. If she didn't, they said, she would no longer be called on to substitute. She announced Thursday (on Facebook, of course) that she would not comply.

"I call my Facebook an extended classroom," Thebarge, who said she's worked as a substitute teacher for 35 years, told USA TODAY Network. She added that she's counseled a number of students on sensitive subjects such as bullying and depression through Facebook's messaging feature.

School administrators delivered the ultimatum to Thebarge shortly after Christopher LeBlanc, a 29-year-old math teacher at the same school, was arrested in March and charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl. Reports have said the student and LeBlanc communicated through text messages, but news reports have not mentioned Facebook.

School officials did not return calls from USA TODAY Network about Thebarge.

Carol Thebarge, 79, left substitute teaching rather than unfriend students on Facebook. (Photo: Carol Thebarge)

District Superintendent Middleton McGoodwin told the New Hampshire Union Leader that LeBlanc's arrest made the school board more cautious about teacher-student relationships outside of the classroom.

Regarding Facebook, McGoodwin said that their policy prohibits teachers and students from being "friends" on social network sites. He added that Thebarge wasn't fired because she does not have a contract as a substitute, according to the Union Leader, but that she could no longer teach at Stevens High School if she continued to be Facebook "friends" with students.

"It is a very slippery slope," Mike Kasper, a senior policy analyst at the National Education Association, an organization of public education professionals, said about private online communication between students and teachers.

"You may have the best of intentions in the whole wide world, but things can be easily misinterpreted," Kasper said. He added that this was his personal belief and did not represent the NEA's official policy. The association has not issued guidelines on social media use, but does recommend that educators, parents and teachers collaboratively come up with guidelines for their communities that all parties feel respect safety concerns.

Some school officials are trying to find a middle ground. For example, the New York City Department of Education developed guidelines that say teachers can create professional social media sites, such as Facebook pages created for a class or project, but should not communicate with students through their personal pages.
Twitter, the more 'visible' option
Chris Lazarski, who teaches high school in Wauwatosa, Wis., said he thinks Twitter is a good social media option because it's very public.

"I don't want to be that guy who was fired for something that was misinterpreted," he said. "That's why I like Twitter - because it's visible."

But Lazarski also said he's seen some of his students' personal Twitter accounts and what they were tweeting publicly was, well, "just kind of horrible and gross. "

That was why he decided to have them set up a second, professional account that they use for school. He teaches them to write a bio and use the search function for research.

"I want them to keep their personal Twitter, but I want them to know and to see that there's another way," he said.

He asks students in his public policy class to follow elected officials and use it to research what they represent. He asks them to consider what the individual is tweeting, and how he or she uses the platform to engage the public.

Lazarski said that people say teens are "digital natives" but that just means they've grown up with the technology, not that anyone has shown them how to use it.

"We should talk and have this conversation with kids because they're using it and they're not using it right," he said.
Is there middle ground?
According to a 2012 survey by the Pew Research Center's Internet & American Life Project, 95% of teens have consistent online access and 81% of them use some kind of social media. The study also found that 77% of teens use Facebook and 24% use Twitter.

Stephen Balkam, CEO of Family Online Safety Institute, an organization that focuses on best practices for Internet safety, said the organization's views on teachers interacting with students on social media have changed over the years.

Facebook pays membership dues to the institute, and the institute sits on Facebook's Safety Advisory Panel.

Balkam said that given the number of students on social media sites, there is a need for educators to have a presence in that space.

"To have a blanket ban on social networking sites like Facebook is a bit like saying there's a fight on the playground but we don't know where the playground is, but even if we did, it's locked," he said.

Thebarge said school officials risk missing an opportunity with strict policies against teachers using social media sites.

"We can't throw the baby out with the bathwater," she said.
Follow @lagrisham on Twitter
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Teachers, students and social media: Where is the line?

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A substitute teacher in New Hampshire chooses not to work at a school after being instructed to unfriend students on Facebook. A Wisconsin teacher asks his students to follow elected officials on Twitter and report back on what they tweet.

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Teacher Loses Job After Commenting About Students, Parents on Facebook

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Teacher Loses Job After Commenting About Students, Parents on Facebook

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Facebook users take note: If you want to keep your job, you're better off doing your job-related griping offline.

Massachusetts high school teacher June Talvitie-Siple learned the hard way that a Facebook wall is probably not the best place to spout off about the students and parents in her community.

Talvitie-Siple, a supervisor of the high school math and science program in Cohasset, Mass., was forced to resign this week after parents spotted Facebook comments she wrote describing students as "germ bags" and parents as "snobby" and "arrogant."

Two parents in the community alerted the school superintendent after noticing the posts on her Facebook wall, Talvitie-Siple said. The superintendent, who was on vacation overseas, sent an e-mailing asking her to resign.

"She did what was probably the most appropriate thing to do," Talvitie-Siple told ABCNews.com. "I embarrassed her, I embarrassed the school district and, you know, if I were her, I probably would have done the same thing. It was not a surprise."

The 54-year-old teacher said she thought her posts would only be visible to her friends and didn't realize that her Facebook settings made the comments visible to others on the Internet.

In one of the posts, she said, she joked to her friends that students were "germ bags" because she was so tired of catching illnesses from school kids. She said had been sick for six months, and every time she started to recover she would get another bug from a student.

Teacher: Facebook Posts Grew Out of Frustration

"I was on my third round of antibiotics and I just basically said, 'Oh my goodness, I remember now why I got out of teaching,'"she said. "It actually is a fact that at one point I was so sick that I decided that I don't have a strong constitution for upper respiratory infections, so I went into another aspect of education to get away from that."

"When I took this job, I knew I was risking the possibility that I would be exposed to kids again in a concentrated form and that I might get sick. And, sure enough, I ended the year with pneumonia."

The comment about the parents stemmed from "political activity" between the teachers' union, the administrators, the school committee and parents, she said.

"It's caused a very stressful year for every administrator, not just me. And it's made it a very caustic place to work," Talvitie-Siple said. "[It's] a product of a lot of frustration and angst about whether I should leave or not."

After writing on Facebook "I'm so not looking forward to another year at Cohasset Schools," she added that the community was "arrogant" and "snobby."

"I made a stupid mistake, it may have cost me my career," she said.

Talvitie-Siple said she's adjusted her Facebook settings and hopes her experience can be a lesson for others.

"I take full responsibility for my stupidity and I hope it serves as an example to kids that they need to be very, very vigilant about their privacy," she said.

If nothing else, Talvitie-Siple can take heart in the fact that she's not the first to get fired for a Facebook faux pas.

Earlier this year, a sociology professor at East Stroudsburg University in Pennsylvania, said she was suspended after updating her Facebook status with complaints about work that alluded to violence.

Employers Want to Control Their Online Image

In January, Gloria Gadsden wrote: "Does anyone know where I can find a very discrete hitman? Yes, it's been that kind of day?" Then in February: "had a good day today. DIDN'T want to kill even one student. :-). Now Friday was a different story."

Gadsden said she posted the comments in jest, on a profile she thought could only be seen by friends and family. She says officials were notified of the posts by a student -- even though she says she had no students in her "friend" list.

She said she just venting after a bad day, but university officals were unhappy about the allusions to violence and even referenced a recent shooting spree at the Univerisyt Alabama-Huntsville.

Experts say that online venting sessions can harm a worker's career because employers not only want to control their online image but area also vulnerable to hurt pride.

"When you badmouth your boss and the boss is hearing, whether you're doing it online or at the coffee maker, the boss isn't going to be happy," says Jonathan Ezor, assistant professor of Law and Technology at Touro Law Center in Central Islip, N.Y. "The fact that it's online makes it more easily findable and have a broader potential impact."

Obscenities Draw Attention

The comments that provoke employers into action usually contain obscenities or exaggerations that could hurt relations with customers.

Last year, for example, Dan Leone, a stadium worker for the Philadelphia Eagles, was fired after he reacted with an online obscenity to news that one of the Eagles' star players was leaving to join the Denver Broncos.

"Dan is [deleted] devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver. Dam Eagles R Retarted," was the comment that cost Leone his job.

Although he later apologized and tried to get his job back, his employer wouldn't budge.

''If you know your boss is online, or anyone close to your boss is online, don't be making comments that can be detrimental to your employment,'' Leone told The New York Times after the incident.

Virgin Workers Fired

In the U.K., Virgin Atlantic Airlines fired 13 cabin crew members after they made fun of passengers in their postings and quipped about defective engines.

The discount airline, owned by Sir Richard Branson, told The Guardian at the time that the postings were "totally inappropriate" and "brought the company into disrepute."

Social media mavens can even get in trouble before they've been hired. Remember the case of the Cisco fatty that went viral last year?

Cisco Fatty's Lost Opportunity

One Twitter user posted an update last year saying "Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work."

A Cisco employee responded, "Who is the hiring manager? I'm sure they would love to know that you will hate the work. We here at Cisco are versed in the Web."

Needless to say, the applicant did not end up working at Cisco.

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'Germ Bags': Teacher Loses Job Over FB Posts

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Facebook users take note: If you want to keep your job, you're better off doing your job-related griping offline. Massachusetts high school teacher June Talvitie-Siple learned the hard way that a Facebook wall is probably not the best place to spout off about the students and parents in her community.

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The new and ever-changing world of social networking has blurred the lines between private and public, work and personal, friend and stranger. It's becoming a particular challenge for teachers who can quickly rile students and parents by posting comments or photos online.

In some cases, teachers have been fired for statements they've made on Facebook, which is raising free speech issues.

Union, N.J., high school teacher Viki Knox posted comments on her Facebook page that quickly turned into a flaming war of words with parents and local residents. It began with comments that a gay history exhibit at the school should be removed; she then urged her friends to pray and eventually called homosexuality a perverted sin.

The school district began an investigation at the request of parents, and dueling demonstrations were held at the local school board meeting between gay-rights activists and supporters of the teacher.

"She has the right to post as a private citizen, but not as a teacher," one protester said.

"Viki has a right to free speech!" another responded.
- Sara Carothers Greater Consequences Online
Knox has been suspended while the investigation continues. In Paterson, N.J., a first-grade teacher in a largely black and Latino school may lose her job after commenting on Facebook that she feels like a "warden for future criminals."

John Palfrey of Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society says there have always been teachers who say dumb things, but now social media amplifiy those comments.

"There's a really simple concept here, which is [that] the nature of a conversation is changing in a digital age and the consequences of saying something that's dumb are much greater," Palfrey says. "People can get fired for [saying] something that otherwise would have been completely and quickly forgotten."

The New Jersey teachers union is providing legal help in both cases. Spokesman Steve Wollmer says the union suggests a variety of policies that should be followed when teachers use social media.

"Don't ever friend or follow your students on Facebook or Twitter, never post during work hours or using work materials such as a school computer, and certainly never post anything about your job online, especially about students," Wollmer says. "I think that's where some of these teachers have found themselves in difficult situations."

Teachers are running into problems with social media all across the country, and often the organization that jumps to their defense - no matter how offensive the comments might be - is the American Civil Liberties Union. Ed Barocas, legal director of the ACLU in New Jersey, says teachers have a right to free speech and must be protected from what is called "the heckler's veto," or someone taking issue with their opinion.

"You have the right to speak your mind; you have the right to be offensive, as long as it does not create [an] inability to do your job at the school," Barocas says.
Undermining The Ability To Teach
Barocas says teachers do run a greater risk of saying something that can affect their job performance. Just this week, a Bronx high school principal made tabloid news because students passed around a Facebook photo that shows her being doused in chocolate sauce by a shirtless man.

In the Paterson, N.J., case, a judge ruled that teacher Jennifer O'Brien can be fired for calling her students future criminals on Facebook. O'Brien's lawyer, Nancy Oxfeld, argues the posting was just an insignificant blunder said in frustration after a bad day.

"She never, ever thought her students were all future criminals, not ever," Oxfeld says. "And people leaped to a conclusion that Ms. O'Brien did believe what she said, when she didn't."

Oxfeld, who will make this case to the state education commissioner, says the teacher has an unblemished job performance record. But credibility and trust matter, especially to parents. Jose Iturralde, the father of a student at Union High School, feels the long rant against homosexuality that teacher Knox posted on Facebook undermines her ability to teach.

"How you say [things] and how you go about it is what counts, especially when you're dealing with kids," he says. "You are there as [a] role model, and putting things like that or saying things like that, it's a bit inappropriate."

The teacher's postings come at a moment when schools are struggling with cyberbullying and anti-gay bullying. If Knox is to keep her job, she'll have to convince officials that speaking her mind about homosexuality did not create a negative atmosphere at school that conflicts with its mission.

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A New Jersey teacher posted comments on Facebook against a gay history exhibit at her school. Another teacher could lose her job for a post in which she called her students future criminals. Incidents like this around the country spark heated debates over privacy and free speech.