A school board member in the hometown of former US secretary of state Hillary Rodham Clinton resigned after making a derogatory reference on Twitter to the female anatomy in describing women marching against US President Donald Trump.
An Illinois teacher was pulled from the classroom for a tweet deemed sexist and a freshman Indiana lawmaker was inundated with criticism over a Facebook post mocking “fat women.”
These are a handful of examples from across the US of public officials who have been reprimanded, called out or disciplined over social media postings about the women’s marches last weekend.
Photo: AFP
In an era when Trump made lashing out against “political correctness” central to his appeal, the consequences these officials face for unfiltered use of social media once again demonstrate that what is said on the Internet still can hurt you.
“Very few people in public life, even today, get away with what Trump was able to get away with,” said Michael Cornfield, a George Washington University professor who studies politics in the Internet age. “I wonder what these gentlemen were thinking.”
It is not the first time social media posts have sparked backlash.
Public officials for years have found themselves in trouble and even resigned from office over comments that were impolitic, distasteful and sometimes racist.
Saturday Night Live writer Katie Rich was suspended this week after writing an offensive tweet about Trump’s 10-year-old son Barron.
Rich deleted the tweet, briefly deactivated her account and then apologized after a social media outcry led to calls for a boycott of the show.
The number of incidents following the women’s marches, which packed public squares in blue states and some red as well, has put a few elected officials and supervisors in an awkward spot.
In Indiana, Republican House Speaker Brian Bosma said he is conducting social media tutorials after posts from at least two state lawmakers.
A weekend Facebook post by State Representative Jim Lucas showed a photograph of a woman sprayed in the face with pepper spray with a caption that read: “Participation trophies. Now in liquid form.”
Another post by State Senator Jack Sandlin credited Trump with getting “more fat women out walking than [former first lady] Michelle Obama did in eight years.”
Sandlin, who said he did not knowingly share the since-deleted post, was inundated with criticism on Facebook and has apologized.
He said the incident was a powerful lesson on the “unintended consequences” of opening up “your social media to try to get it out as broadly as you can.”
Bosma partially blamed “the Twitter storm created by our president,” which he said “makes people feel this is an appropriate vehicle to communicate.”
“We’re elected officials, we’re held to a higher standard,” he said.
On Monday, Dathan Paterno, a school board member in Park Ridge, Illinois, where Clinton grew up, abruptly resigned after he called the protests a “farce” by “vagina screechers” on Twitter.
Paterno, who did not respond to a request for comment, later deleted his social media accounts, district superintendent Laurie Heinz said.
He wrote in his letter of resignation that the tweets were “understandably misinterpreted.”
In the Quad Cities, along Illinois’ western border, a teacher was “removed from the classroom” for posting a view of women that “does not reflect the values” of the school, district officials said in a statement.
The teacher, Mark Kaczmarek, tweeted a photograph of a 1950s housewife and commented that the protesters “all went home to make dinner.”
One online petition called his tweet “unacceptable,” while a rival petition said there is “no proof” that he “ever engaged in any kind of sexist, racist or even homophobic hate speeches in his classroom.”
A person who answered the telephone at a number listed to Kaczmarek declined to comment.
In Nebraska, a retweet of a joke might be the final straw for state Senator Bill Kintner, who admitted last year to having cybersex on a state computer with a woman who later tried to blackmail him.
His colleagues yesterday were to debate whether to expel him after he retweeted a joke implying that three women’s march demonstrators were too unattractive to sexually assault.
Other incidents were reported in Mississippi, Rhode Island and New Mexico.
Cornfield said that he thought most people learned the lesson about crossing the line in social media posts years ago during the early days of e-mail.
“I guess now that we’ve elected the (at)realDonaldTrump some people need reminders,” he said.
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