Facebook Posts Permit School District To Remove Teacher From Tenured Position

A New Jersey appellate panel has upheld the decision to fire a tenured first-grade teacher because of critical postings she made toward her students on her Facebook account. Jennifer O'Brien was a teacher in the City of Paterson's school district, with an unblemished record since the school district hired her in March 1998. In December 2010, the school district assigned O'Brien to teach first grade. O'Brien's class had twenty-three students, most of whom were six years old, and all of whom were either Latino or African-American. On March 28, 2011, O'Brien posted two comments on Facebook: "I'm not a teacher – I'm a warden for future criminals!" followed by, "[t]hey had a scared straight program in school – why couldn't [I] bring [first] graders?"