Bucks County Teacher Suspended Because Of Blog Posts Makes The Dangers of Posting Information Online Apparent
Central Bucks High School East teacher Natalie Munroe was suspended in February 2011 after blogging about her students. The blog posts that landed her in hot water included comments such as “I hate your kid,” “frightfully dim” (references to students) and “don’t you know how to raise kids?”
While what Mrs. Munroe posted may be viewed by some as disrespectful or even cruel, she did have a First Amendment right to say what she felt. The school district has reinstated her to teach at Central Bucks East for the upcoming year.
However, this all goes to the much larger issue of privacy on the Internet. The simple fact is that everything you post on the Internet is public information. All your social media accounts including Facebook, Twitter and Google+ can be found and used against you in litigation. It appears that Mrs. Munroe believed that she could blog to a limited audience where the rest of the world would never find her. That was not the case, and was a fact she had to learn the hard way by getting suspended from her job for half a year.
It’s also a fact that many people in ongoing litigation are learning the hard way. Tweets, pictures and comments on social media sites and blogs are regularly used by insurance companies to defend insured’s in personal injury and medical malpractice cases. Once insurance companies and defense attorneys gain access to information you have posted online, they can use it to cast you in the most negative light possible.
That is not to say that if you are a party to a lawsuit you cannot post information online. It is, however, a reminder that you should think before you post anything.
Just goes to show you that everything you say on the Internet can and will be found. This teacher probably has a couple of screws loose. But just because she had a right to say those things doesn't mean she should have said them. It's a matter of common decency.