Court Affirms Teacher's Firing for Misuse of MySpace

A Connecticut high-school teacher went too far in trying to get on the same level as his students by communicating with them on his MySpace page, a judge has ruled in upholding the school's decision to terminate him.

U.S. District Judge Dominic J. Squatrito singled out an exchange in which one student told the teacher, Jeffrey Spanierman, “Don't be jealous cuase [sic] you can't get any,” and Spanierman replied,

What makes you think I want any? I’m not jealous. I just like to have fun and goof on you guys. If you don’t like it. Kiss my brass!

“[I]t appears that the Plaintiff would communicate with students as if he were their peer, not their teacher,” Squatrito said in dismissing Spanierman's wrongful termination case. “Such conduct could very well disrupt the learning atmosphere of a school, which sufficiently outweighs the value of Plaintiff’s MySpace speech.”

School officials did not renew Spanierman's contract to teach at Emmett O'Brien High School in Ansonia, Conn., after a guidance counselor reviewed his “Mr. Spiderman” profile page on MySpace. She testified that she was disturbed by his conversations with students, which she described as “very peer-to-peer like.”

In another exchange, he joked with a student about keeping him in “detention sooooo long that your great grandchildren will have to finish it out.”

Spanierman alleged in his suit filed in August 2006 that officials retaliated against him for exercising his First Amendment rights. “All of his communications were entirely appropriate and personal,” the complaint said, citing the popularity of MySpace with “people under the age of thirty.”

But Squatrito said “it was not unreasonable for the Defendants to find that the Plaintiff’s conduct on MySpace was disruptive to school activities.”

The online exchanges with students, he continued in his opinion, “show a potentially unprofessional rapport with students, and the court can see how a school’s administration would disapprove of, and find disruptive, a teacher’s discussion with a student about 'getting any' (presumably sex), or a threat made to a student (albeit a facetious one) about detention.”

Spanierman also posted an anti-Iraq war poem on his MySpace page. “The commander and [sic] chief much like a thief/will steal away at the dawn of the day,” it rhymes. “But how many will die, for America’s apple pie.”

“Leaving aside the question of whether one could call this bit of poetastry an 'elegant articulation' of the current conflict in Iraq,” Squatrito said it “could constitute a political statement.” Nevertheless, “[T]here is nothing in the record to indicate that the Defendants intended to retaliate against the Plaintiff because of the political views expressed in his poem.”

Spanierman's case is unusual in that it involves a teacher getting in trouble for using MySpace. In other cases (see table), students have been accused of misusing the social networking website.

A Texas appeals court in August dismissed a case involving high-school students who created a bogus MySpace page in the name of an administrator in which they falsely identified her as a lesbian. Anna Draker had sued both the students and their parents.

By Matthew Heller
10/21/08