(TALLAHASSEE DEMOCRAT) — Florida State University does not have a policy governing what faculty and staff can – or cannot – say on social media.
But FSU College of Business senior lecturer Deborah O’Connor agreed that she went too far with her reactions on Facebook last Thursday to a photo of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. O’Connor submitted her resignation the following day, one week before the end of finals for the fall semester.
FSU officials have declined to comment on O’Connor’s sudden resignation, other than to confirm that there are no rules governing use of social media.
O’Connor took issue with a Facebook post by Colin Lively, a New York City-based consultant to the beauty industry, which welcomed Holder’s decision to have the U.S. Justice Department investigate the police shooting death of a black 12-year-old boy carrying a toy gun. The fatal shooting of the boy came amid high-profile deaths of unarmed black men by white police officers in Ferguson, Mo., and Staten Island, N.Y.
O’Connor called Lively a gay slur and used profane language.
“Take your Northern (gay slur) elitism and shove it up your (expletive),” O’Connor wrote on Lively’s Facebook post (they are not Facebook friends, but have one mutual friend on the social media site).
“I teach at a University, you (expletive). What do you do?” she added. “You are an intellectual fraud, just like your Messiah. Obama has single-handedly turned our once great society into a Ghetto Culture, rivaling that of Europe.”
