School Employee Loses Job Over Vulgar Comment Online

A school employee lost his job after he posted a one-word vulgarity in the comments section of an online article at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch ran an article asking readers what was the "craziest thing you've ever eaten" and invited them to submit the oddest foods they've consumed, saying,

How about you? Have you gone out on a limb for a meal? What'd you try? Did you like it? Have you had friends or family who have tried stuff on a dare?

The school employee, who later lost his job, posted an anonymous, one-word comment that referred, in vulgar terms, to a woman's anatomy.

The comment was deleted by administrators, then reposted by the reader.

After it was posted a second time, the administrators didn't just delete the comment, but took it one step further: Kurt Greenbaum, the director of social media at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, found the commenter's IP address and traced it to a local school.

ReadWriteWeb reports,

Greenbaum contacted the school and made them aware of the situation. In his defense, he probably thought he was simply tattle-telling on a naughty student who would learn a valuable lesson about internet anonymity and would have to sit through a week's detention or something of the like. Instead, he cost a school employee his job.

Using the information provided by Greenbaum -- including the IP address, the time at which the comments were posted, and the Post-Dispatch website's location -- the school was able to identify the computer used to make the post, as well as the commenter who posted the obscene word.

The school employee resigned immediately when confronted by the school's headmaster.

Greenbaum wrote a post about the incident titled, "Post a vulgar comment while you're at work, lose your job."

Numerous readers commented on Greenbaum's post.

The editor quipped to one user (who told Greenbaum, "you guys don't like moderating so you call his work and get him fired"),

@Ghetto: Yeah, you caught me! I made him log on to his computer at work, visit STLtoday.com's Talk of the Day, read the item, type a vulgarity and hit the "submit" key.

Interesting perspective. Thanks for your contribution.

What do you think? Was the commenter in the wrong or did Greenbaum cross the line?

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Comments

[xeuty]

06:19 PM on 11/22/2009

In a situation where someone seemingly looses their job, or in anyway are discouraged because of free speech the 1st amendment warning flags go up. In this case the man who lost his job did so because he posted a crude joke, not an opinion. Albeit funny in a 7th grade kind of way. This was done on school property, using a school machine. He also should have realized that the comment was inappropriate when he had to post it again a second time. The administration had the right to let him go on those grounds alone. However, he resigned! There was no great injustice here, just a comment on the ever-ubiquitous presence of all things online. Nothing, not even a one-word comment on a blog goes unnoticed in this world. Had he really wanted to express his opinion on the “weirdest thing he ever ate” he should have reserved his tasteless food commentary for his own kitchen, or (I’m sure) very lonely bedroom.

[Valerie Ross]

11:50 AM on 11/22/2009

Wow. Does no one read the whole article anymore?

1. He R E S I G N E D. He was not fired.

2. He posted it T W I C E.

3. I don't care if he was the janitor, I don't want him working around my grandchildren. He was smart enough to know that he had done a bad thing and leave. I respect his integrity to not make the situation worse by staying on, no matter who he was, teacher or janitor. I do not want my grandchildren exposed to the posts on this site, much less what he posted, but hey, that's the internet for you, they know more than I do unfortunately.

What a sad world when people are defending what my parents punished me for.

[PAposter]

08:05 PM on 11/19/2009

Good riddance...you big Pvssy!

[GodHatesClevelandSports]

07:58 PM on 11/19/2009

C'mon, everyone, it's a hoax! A grand social media experiment!

Everyone has jumped straight to verdict without questioning the facts. And every single fact in this story comes straight from Kurt Greenbaum. Has anyone verified that someone posted what he says was posted? Nope, not even his colleague. Has anyone verified that the school headmaster did this? Has anyone verified that the employee quit? Nope and nope.

ALL the facts in this story come STRAIGHT FROM KURT GREENBAUM! No one has verified a thing. Yet the jury has already made it's decision -- guilty. No one's questioning a thing.

It's a hoax, people.

[RayneBeau]

09:20 PM on 11/19/2009

Quite a few comments expressed amusement with the "vulgar" comments that were deleted, and the author himself posted about the reader reactions on his own blog, not just on STL Today. He hasn't retracted anything either. I'm sure there's much more to that, but I think that's proof enough that it's not just some experiment.

[luvVB]

07:21 PM on 11/19/2009

Greenbaums joke was in poor taste..........

Dont Get me fired Huffington!!!!

[strayling]

06:46 PM on 11/19/2009

Anyone else find it more than a little creepy that Kurt Greenbaum just happened to recognise a local school's IP address? There's a word for people who take an unhealthy interest in schools.

[strayling]

07:04 PM on 11/19/2009

In the interest of accuracy I have to retract that, because I just saw a Twitter comment where he claims that the school's name was displayed automatically. The guy's still a disgrace and should resign.

[luvVB]

06:24 PM on 11/19/2009

Kurt Greenbaum should be fired.

[RayneBeau]

05:01 PM on 11/19/2009

I didn't read all of the comments, but where is everyone getting "he's a teacher" from? The original follow up article states "an employee". Last time I checked that doesn't have to be a teacher. Sherlock, you all are not.

The comment was sophomoric humor at best, offensive to those who don't care for that slang word at worst. That said, it was poor judgment of him to do it at work. He wasn't spamming, as he only posted it twice. Maybe he posted it twice thinking his first post wasn't posted successfully? There is delay between a client computer and the hosted website, so it's possible he assumed the website didn't update with his post. Even so, I bet almost everyone here has used their company computer or even just its WiFi to surf the web when they're bored between tasks at work. And it doesn't take a great deal of time to post a one-word comment. Waste of work time? Hardly.

And yes, the employee did resign, but it is the same as being fired since he was more than likely forced to quit. If he hadn't, they would've fired him, which would look bad for his next job search. Still it was a huge overreaction.

Kurt, the blog author claims he did not know if it was an employee or student, but even then, did the comment warrant him not giving out a warning before deciding "3 strikes and you're out. I'm calling your headmaster"?

[Biffmeister]

03:30 PM on 11/19/2009

"The school employee resigned immediately when confronted by the school's headmaster."

[Biffmeister]

03:35 PM on 11/19/2009

Irony.

[lovemycivicduty]

02:58 PM on 11/19/2009

This disappoints me greatly. The internet is becoming yet another tool of control through fear. As it is so often the case, the punishment doesn't suit the crime.

[aikani]

06:50 AM on 11/19/2009

I was a regular "poster" on the stltoday website for years. I finally stopped as the moderation had become a complete and total joke. Racsist comments, homophobic comments and personal attacks were tolerated to the point where one could say they were encouraged. The people who post racsist comments are not banned, nor are the ones who post homophobic comments. I understand this to be a problem with many major daily newspaper websites. Frankly I have no problem with them being too lazy or disengaged to moderate, however the problem on stltoday was not complete disengagement with the process of moderating their website, it was that they seemed to have a double standard regarding what was and was not acceptable behavior. Just one example.....the term "fudgep.....r" has been routinely posted in reference to gays and has not resulted in the person using said term being banned, let alone having his IP address sent to his employer. One particularly notoriously homophobic poster routinely posted from work, and his workplace was known by other people on the site, and yet the paper never once contacted his employer.

[mazzetta]

05:17 AM on 11/19/2009

I'm more and more convinced that this is a total hoax, the guy cannot be so out of touch as he's pretending in his answer, it looks like as if he invented the thing to show himself and then he's not been able to manage it

[Matthew King]

04:38 AM on 11/19/2009

Was the vulgar word... taco? I love tacos!

[TheBMChief]

05:46 AM on 11/19/2009

Really...what's the big deal?

[ghee99]

06:54 AM on 11/19/2009

you love to eat taco?

this is your boss....
you're fired!

[thegirlnextdoor]

04:26 AM on 11/19/2009

The point is not what was posted, but rather that it was posted from a school computer. And during working hours. I find that all inappropriate.

[ghee99]

04:12 AM on 11/19/2009

the word starts with a P
has a US in the middle
and ends with SY

and in all fairness, i cant complain about this guy, as i like it too

although i wouldnt say i like to eat it in a public newspaper,

[TheBMChief]

05:46 AM on 11/19/2009

Well, stating the obvious, what man doesn't?

[ghee99]

06:53 AM on 11/19/2009

um...
barney frank, for one

[EuroMom]

03:16 PM on 11/19/2009

I don't think it should be eaten in a public newspaper either.
That's strictly for fish 'n' chips.