Teacher Suspended Over Facebook Stripper Photo Settles

PITTSBURGH — A Pennsylvania school district has agreed to pay $10,000 to the American Civil Liberties Union and a teacher who was suspended after someone posted a Facebook photo of her with a male stripper.

Thirty-seven-year-old Ginger D'Amico also will get more than $4,000 in back pay.

D'Amico is a Spanish teacher at Brownsville High School, south of Pittsburgh. She was given a 30-day suspension, later reduced to 19 days, after someone who attended a bachelorette party at her house posted the photo of her and the stripper.

D'Amico never sued, but ACLU attorneys contacted the district shortly after the suspension in January, leading to the settlement announced Tuesday.

The ACLU questioned the suspension, saying D'Amico's actions were private and legal.

Comments

[Richard McRae]

01:27 PM on 08/20/2010

I don't understand why every teacher with a Facebook page wouldn't have the privacy settings set to "Friends Only" for everything? Mine is set so that only friends I've added can see anything on my page, and any time someone tags me in a photo I just delete the tag.

I realize that this isn't exactly what happened in this case - a friend posted the pic. But I'm willing to bet that the only reason it was discovered was because she was tagged in the photo and the wrong person saw it on her page. That's also why I never add anyone I work with.

[Fang1944]

10:40 AM on 08/19/2010

Where is this new prudishness coming from?

Every once in awhile I read about policemen or firefighters or some such who got in trouble for going to Hooters. Hooters? What could be more harmless?

And doctors have gotten to where they're afraid to see anybody naked. You could have a skin cancer, and the doctor would never see it.

[VanessaFas]

10:31 AM on 08/19/2010

Why pay her at all? Stop rewarding bad or lewd behavior. In Milford, CT, near where I live, they recently paid someone they fired over $100,000! Why? In what universe are you paid as a punishment?

[mistajefferson]

12:34 PM on 08/19/2010

You think she was rewarded for bad or lewd behavior?

You don't get it and I find it frustrating to share a planet with people who can't understand something so basic. Sorry.

[MilesLong]

08:46 AM on 08/20/2010

Vanessa, Vanessa, Vanessa, there's no air around you any more. (laughing)

Not only is there no fun around you as well, but you want to impose your world view on everyone else; shame on you.

Miles "Live & Let Live" Long

[mamacat]

04:50 AM on 08/19/2010

Here in California, are there any bachelorette parties without male strippers?

[tnlcallen]

11:06 PM on 08/18/2010

What an odd story. The woman didn't sue, yet the ACLU got a settlement for her? Good for her though. The school was way out of order here.

[maslin]

04:37 PM on 08/18/2010

Lesson #2010:2037.6: Facebook and privacy don't mix.

[Callique]

03:00 PM on 08/19/2010

Lesson number one I would think.

[Militant Leftist]

03:11 PM on 08/18/2010

Teachers are supposed to be prudes, apparently.

[Chris Cody]

04:01 PM on 08/18/2010

We are not human. I am a teacher and apparently nobody told me I wasn't aloud to drink, watch movies, or have sex. Public school teachers are not monks, are not in the ministry, and have the same rights to a personal life as does any other law abiding citizen.

[ProLiteracy]

01:41 PM on 08/19/2010

However, we do expect basic spelling and punctuation skills from educators. I know.....what an outdated, elitist concept.

Aloud--no
Allowed--yes

Law abiding---no
Law-abiding----yes

[Richard McRae]

01:23 PM on 08/20/2010

Let's hope you don't teach spelling or grammar!

[yoyodyne666]

02:27 PM on 08/18/2010

"the aclu said the actions were private and legal' until the ended up on the friggin internet ..... then they belong to everyone who wants them.

[UmberLamp]

02:47 PM on 08/18/2010

Still legal.

[jf1936]

03:00 PM on 08/18/2010

that's ridiculous. She has every right to post pictures of perfectly legal activities on her own personal networking account.

[captainspirou]

07:21 PM on 08/18/2010

Even worse was that it wasn't even her that posted the pic but it was her friend.

[mplspolitics]

02:25 PM on 08/18/2010

LOL. That is the Dupree picture with her face blurred out.

[yoyodyne666]

02:24 PM on 08/18/2010

I always heard that if you teach spanish it is okay to go greek.

[Bushisgone]

02:09 PM on 08/18/2010

She was never in the wrong
The people who suspended her should be fired
What adults can't have fun anymore in the privacy of their own homes

This country is a joke with civil rights

[wilray]

01:03 PM on 08/18/2010

Gee is that the teacher's blurred out photo because it looks remarkably like the blurred out photo of Ashley Dupre, the high priced call girl than ended Eliot Spitzer's career.

[seajewel]

10:23 AM on 08/19/2010

Don't blame her, Spitzer ended his own career.

[wilray]

01:06 PM on 08/19/2010

True.

[sulalives]

12:25 PM on 08/18/2010

the teachers was on her time and with a male of legal age what was the problem ...worst she did not post the event...no need to fire a this woman for doing every thing legal

[nick1936]

12:11 PM on 08/18/2010

Look the wingnut religious wackos will destroy this country

[Aranxa]

11:41 AM on 08/18/2010

They should have paid a higher idiot tax.