Obama lampooned as 'First Tar Ball'

President Barack Obama and Lafourche Parish President Charlotte Randolf, left, inspect a tar ball as they look at the effect the BP oil spill is having on Fourchon Beach in Port Fourchon, La., May 28, 2010. A similar photo in a lampooning e-mail referring to Obama as a "tar ball" resulted in two workers being fired and a subsequent lawsuit over free-speech rights. (White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Is it free speech to refer to President Obama as the "First Tar Ball?"

Two Pennsylvania health-care workers believe it is, and they're now suing their former employer for firing them over a lampooning e-mail during last year's massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

James Sprung of Banksville, Pa., and Deborah Bonanno of Brookline, Pa., have filed legal action against Centers for Rehab Services, a contractor for the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) health system, claiming the company violated their constitutional right to freedom of speech and wrongfully terminated them.

The e-mail the pair received and exchanged on work computers reportedly included a photo of Obama walking out of the water with a caption that stated, "First Tar Ball washes up in Panama City, Fla." Also included was text that said, "Another tar ball washed up on the shore."

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The lawsuit filed in Allegheny County Common Pleas Court indicates the e-mail was merely an expression of their "thoughts and opinions that the president and his administration were dithering while oil continued to gush" in the months after the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion.

According to the suit, Sprung and Bonanno were told they were fired for the message "that contained political and discriminatory content" and was "an offensive use of electronic communications which created a hostile work environment for a staff member who received it."

While UPMC says it doesn't comment in employee matters or pending litigation, its spokeswoman Susan Manko told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: "What I can tell you is that UPMC has a long-standing 'zero-tolerance' policy which states that UPMC's information technology resources and electronic messaging systems may not be used to create and circulate e-mails that may be racially, sexually or otherwise offensive.

"UPMC has made it clear that a violation of this policy may be cause for immediate discharge," she said.

Regarding the issue of First Amendment rights at work, Duquesne University law professor Bruce Ledewitz told the Tribune-Review, "In some circumstances private companies are obligated to protect the constitutional rights of employees. But this sounds like (the lawsuit) goes beyond the protections of what the courts have held."

WTAE, the ABC television affiliate in Pittsburgh, interviewed Vic Walczak, the ACLU's legal director in Pennsylvania, who said employees have "very few" rights to sound off at work.

Walczak said the constitutional right to free speech doesn't apply when someone uses a workplace computer.

"They can say, 'We don't want any political discussion, we don't want any religious discussion, we don't want any discussion of Democrats, you're free to talk about Republicans.' Again, while you couldn't do that if you were the government, when you're a private employer, you call the shots," he said.