We have previously discussed the increasing trend toward monitoring and disciplining private and public employees for comments on social media. These cases raise difficult questions of free speech in our society. The most recent such case involves Leslie Anderson, a law clerk for a New Jersey judge who resigned after being suspended after she made comments on Facebook criticizing a state trooper who was killed in a crash with a deer. While some praised 24-year-old Anthony Raspa (left) as a hero, Anderson also expressed sympathy for the dead animal, saying “I agree that it is sad and heart-wrenching for the family members left to suffer the consequences of the trooper’s recklessness—especially for the deer family who lost a mommy or daddy or baby deer.”
It is not clear how Anderson viewed the trooper as reckless in the accident since such accidents can occur without any fault of the driver on many roads. Raspa and partner Gene Hong were patrolling on I-195 when their Ford Crown Victoria struck the deer early Saturday. The car careened off the road and hit a tree.
Anderson, a law clerk for Middlesex County Superior Court Judge Travis L. Francis was without question over-the-top in her Facebook posting: “Not that sad, and certainly not ‘tragic,’ Troopers were probably traveling at a dangerously high speed as per usual. Totally preventable. At least they didn’t take any of the citizens they were sworn to serve and protect with them.” She later added that the praise Raspa was receiving by other commenters for his service as “absurd” and “nonsensical” :
“The ‘victim’s’ employment as a state trooper is irrelevant to the circumstances, other than the fact that he injured a fellow trooper and destroyed state property as a result of his recklessness. He wasn’t running into a burning building or otherwise acting within the course of his employment at the time of the accident. The outcry and ‘thank yous’ are absurd, nonsensical, and completely unwarranted. There are people in this country and around the world dying for much less. There is nothing ‘tragic’ about this. Get over yourselves and your sense of entitlement, people . . .
Nonetheless, I agree that it is sad and heart wrenching for the family members left to suffer the consequences of the Trooper’s recklessness — especially for the deer family who lost a mommy or daddy or baby deer.”
The question is not whether these comments are wrong or offensive but the right of someone to engage in such a public debate without fear of retaliation.
I have previously written about concerns that public employees are increasingly being disciplined for actions in their private lives or views or associations outside of work. We have previously seen teachers (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here) students (here, here and here) and other public employees (here and here and here) fired for their private speech or conduct, including school employees fired for posing in magazines (here), appearing on television shows in bikinis (here), or having a prior career in the adult entertainment industry (here).
The question for me is whether she used her court association, which does not appear to be the case. If Anderson was simply engaging in a public discourse, I am concerned that she would be punished for it. She was initially put on a paid suspension before she ultimately resigned under fire from the police association and others. President Chris Burgos insisted that the comments showed that Anderson couldn’t be impartial, but she was merely a law clerk, not the judge.
What do you think?
The PC police have run amok. Conservatives are just as bad as liberals when it comes to attempting to punish speech they find offensive.
Online behavior has made the millennials (above all) rather socially inept.
They have become inured to the suffering caused by their online activities.
They say smart-@ssed things that in the past would have been a throwaway comment at a lunch with equally adolescent friends trying to out-do each other’s meanness.
I agree with DBQ here.
She’s too immature to work for a judge as yet.
Well, I’m no cop partisan but the law clerk’s banter was at best bizarre. It wasn’t funny, if that was intended; and if the intent was to be serious she’s too unbalanced to be a law clerk or judge, or maybe even a lawyer. Using the occasion of someone’s death to climb up on an animal rights soapbox is shockingly bad judgment. I don’t know that social media has anything to do with it.
By the way, when an animal, regardless of it being a squirrel or a deer, runs out in front of the car, don’t flinch, don’t swerve, just hit it straight on.
Isaac is correct.
Plus….I feel worse about the Crown Vic than I do about the deer. They aren’t making Crown Victorias anymore. Deer are like giant rats and are all over the place. 🙂
absurd statement – more adsurd to lose a job
She should be fired for stupidity and being a delusional airhead.
especially for the deer family who lost a mommy or daddy or baby deer sob sob sob!
Deer do not have families. The buck “services” his herd of does and then disappears for the rest of the year until the next orgy. Disneyland exists only in your head. Bambi is a cartoon character.
HOWEVER………because she is employed in a position that requires strict neutrality and works for a judge who relies on her work product and needs it to be strictly neutral, her attitude and remarks indicate a biased mindset. Her work product is likely tainted by this and this makes her unsuitable for her employment.
The fact that she said these things not in the workplace and instead broadcast her bigotry all over the internet is beside the point of her unsuitability to the job. Does she have the right to say these idiot things. Sure. Just like the racist professor who hates white men and whites in general. They have the right to speak out. Their employers have the right to not hire or retain an employee who is unable to do the job or who will bring disrepute to their business.
DBQ – Bambi is a boy. I have never figured out why girls are named after him.
Do not post comments on uttBookBay under your real name and do not use the office computer or email address. Do not play computer games while on the company clock. Do not watch tv while at work. Work while you are at work. If she can be fired for her comments then the judge for whom she worked can be fired for any bad comment she makes whether on the bench or in his trench.
What goes around, comes around. I do not think she could be fair in dealing with any police officer. Resigning was the right thing to do.
I saw an article, did not read it, entitled “Would D-Day have taken place if there had been Facebook?” I think not.
“I thought corporatism was next to godliness in the conservative mind.”
That’s because you do not understand the first thing about conservatism, but instead use shibboleths about it to signal your leftism.
“Just try saying something negative about gay marriage or transgenders.
Some government types even want to criminalize “climate deniers. It’s all about corporatizing America, narrowing allowable speech to a single uniform (albeit volatile) code of permissible speech that communicates almost nothing.”
************************
Funny how even the words “climate change” aren’t allowed by public employees in States like Florida and Wisconsin.
http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2015/04/another-state-agency-just-banned-words-climate-change
I thought corporatism was next to godliness in the conservative mind. Seems like they are trying to jump on Elizabeth Warren’s bandwagon. Too funny.
Perhaps thinking before speaking is the issue here. Not enough of that out there. As a clerk for a judge, best get rid of her. She was a ticking time bomb of messy statements. She could have been transferred to the ‘road kill clean up team’.
By the way, when an animal, regardless of it being a squirrel or a deer, runs out in front of the car, don’t flinch, don’t swerve, just hit it straight on. The animal will die a less painful death and you won’t hit the tree. It’s tough to not react but swerving only makes it worse.
Raspa’s death was unfortunate and the town may have lost a fine cop but this was no act of heroism. He probably reacted when he should have kept his cool and probably was driving too fast.
Darren, Keep a styptic pencil handy.
Whoop! Dear Thief, not Dear Diary.
Perspective is needed. Just 15 years ago, there was virtually no social media. People and culture are still adjusting to it. Some people and cultures adjust better than others.
She was suspended, not fired. She resigned under pressure, another form of free expression, She couldn’t handle the heat.
“Get over yourselves.’ Could we be lucky enough to never hear the phrase again? Whenever I hear it, and I hear it often, I know the person saying it hasn’t a well-reasoned argument to make. It’s like an expletive, an expression of anger rather than reason, an act of dismissal without sufficient cause. And the anger is out of proportion to the transgression she imagines the officer committed (or was the transgression committed by those who honored his passing?), leaving everyone wondering what’s wrong under her hood.
I read the other day this: “All the people in the news today are liars, cowards, and criminals . . . But all the people in the obituaries are loving, loyal, and full of joy.” It’s from Dear Diary, by Samantha Harvey. Maybe this is what she was trying yo get at, but if so, she should give up writing.
“…public employees are increasingly being disciplined for actions in their private lives or views or associations outside of work.”
More correctly, the entire US public is increasingly being disciplined for actions in their private lives or views or associations outside of work.
Just try saying something negative about gay marriage or transgenders.
Some government types even want to criminalize “climate deniers.”
And as an earlier post attests, you can even get in trouble for writing words that -if read backwards- become offensive.
It’s all about corporatizing America, narrowing allowable speech to a single uniform (albeit volatile) code of permissible speech that communicates almost nothing.
Double-plus good.
What do you think?
~+~
I’d bite my tongue deeply if it wasn’t for the fact I am taking blood thinners. So forgive me for saying she got what she deserved.
I think that an employer can use the behavior of an employee to determine if they have the skills and traits required to succeed in their field. If I were a judge, such comments would lead me to lose faith in the judgment and intellect of the individual in question
I think this woman represents the callousness of animal lovers who think the lives of animals and humans are equal. I think she also represents the growing derision toward cops, fostered by the media. I think she should keep her job, but be required to work w/ abused children as a volunteer for a year.
Cops typically divide the world into three categories – enemies (criminals and people who oppose cops), sheep (dumb civilians), and “our side”.
As soon as Ms. Anderson posted, she became an enemy.
The powerful police lobby, the jock sniffers and cops all bandied together to teach Ms. Anderson a salutary lesson and warn the rest of us to toe the line.
As an aside, the case of Officer Raspa illustrates how the word hero has been debased.
A hero used to be a courageous person who performed some extraordinary act of valor.
Now the title “hero” can be applied to some poor schmuck who hits a deer. Ms. Anderson did have some right in her statements.