See You In Court! CABE Monthly Column
“See You In Court!” is written by Thomas Mooney and appears in the CABE Journal, a publication of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education.
Bob Bombast, veteran member of the Nutmeg Board of Education, decided that he needed to up his social media game. In recent years, he has been the subject of a number of unkind comments on the Friends of Nutmeg Facebook page, and Bob decided that he needed to use social media to get his message across to the good people of Nutmeg.
With that goal in mind, Bob established his own Facebook page, “Bombast’s Blast,” the introduction to which describes the page as follows:
Welcome to “Bombast’s Blast.” My goal in serving these many years on the Nutmeg Board of Education has always been to help parents navigate through any problems they may have with the Nutmeg Public Schools. Please reach out to me with any questions or concerns that you may have. I will post your question (so don’t disclose overly-private details), and I will post my response here on behalf of the Nutmeg Public Schools. I also welcome your comments. The Nutmeg Public Schools are good, but with your help, we can always get better.
Bob was gratified when a number of parents posted their questions, to which he promptly responded on his Facebook page. Sometimes, Bob was able simply to answer the question, and sometimes he stated that he would reach out to Mr. Superintendent or even the principal of a particular school to ask them to assist the parent who had posted a question.
From Bob’s perspective, “Bombast’s Blast” was a great success as he generated good will and projected the image of a VIP member of the Nutmeg Board of Education. However, local provocateur Carl Crank soon began posting nasty comments on Bob’s Facebook page. One question Carl posted read as follows: “Dear Bob. How did a low IQ person such as yourself ever got elected to anything?” Another read: “Dear Bob. When will you resign your seat on the Nutmeg Board of Education? You are an embarrassment to all of us.”
Carl has a history of criticizing Bob and the other Board members during public comment at Board meetings, and the “questions” that Carl posted on Bob’s Facebook page riled Bob up. Bob promptly blocked Carl from posting on his Facebook page and deleted Carl’s prior posts from his “Bombast’s Blast” Facebook page.
When Carl next visited Bob’s Facebook page, he was livid that his posts were gone and that he was unable to post on Bob’s Facebook page. Carl promptly sent an email to members of the Nutmeg Board of Education including Bob. He railed against what he described as an assault on the First Amendment. “Bob is a Fascist who can dish it out, but he can’t take it,” he wrote. “If he is going to have a Facebook page, he must take the bad with the good. I hope you guys have good insurance because I am going to sue you all for violating my free speech rights.”
At the next meeting of the Board, the members promptly convened in executive session to hear what Bob had to say for himself. However, Bob was unrepentant, and he claimed that he has every right to decide who says what on his Facebook page. Moreover, he told the other Board members, he was the one with a claim. Bob then announced that he will be suing Carl for defamation for calling him a Fascist.
Mr. Chairperson told Bob to calm down because neither he nor the other Board members wanted to get in a fight with Carl. “If things get ugly between the two of you,” Mr. Chairperson warned Bob, “you are on your own.”
“Don’t worry about me,” Bob responded. “I’ll be fine.”
Should Bob be fine? How about Carl? What advice do we have for Bob?
