A former Metro Nashville 911 operator has filed a lawsuit after being fired over social media posts on Facebook supporting President Donald Trump.
Danyelle Bennett was terminated from her job on January 10 for allegedly violating Metro’s employee
social media policy and conduct unbecoming of a Metro employee.
However, the suit argues that Bennett's civil rights were violated by the termination.
She said it was unfair because several other employees expressed support for President Obama and were not fired, and the lawsuit also claims Mayor Barry openly showed support for Hillary Clinton.
Bennett's attorney said she was let go over a post made on Nov. 10 last year about President Trump winning the electoral vote. Earlier that year, her employer ordered her to remove a post of a “Trump 2016” sweatshirt.
A separate post was brought to Mayor Megan Barry's attention by a concerned citizen in Nov. 9 in which Bennett used offensive language in a response to another person's comment, saying "Thank God we have more America loving rednecks. Red spread across all America. Even N****** and latinos voted for Trump too."
"It never dawned on Ms. Bennett at the time she posted this statement on Facebook that it would be a violation of a, recently in fact, prolongated policy that metro has on social media, but that media is very broad. It's very vague, and more importantly, we believe it's unconstitutional," said Bennett's attorney, Larry Crain.
The Mayor's office released the following statement in response to the lawsuit being filed.
On November 09, 2016, an individual contacted the Mayor’s Office through our Facebook page related to a “derogatory” post. Our Office forwarded the post to Michele Donegan, director of the Nashville Emergency Communications Center, as it related to an employee of her department and was a possible violation of the Acceptable Use Policy with Metro. Ms. Donegan notified us at the time that she had already been made aware of the post by her employees. Subsequently, Ms. Donegan notified us that the employee was terminated following the department due process hearing afforded to her in accordance with the Civil Service Rules. At no point did anyone in the Mayor’s Office make any recommendations as to the course of action that the ECC should take in addressing this situation with the employee.
The suit, filed in federal, is seeking $2 million in damages and other relief over her Bennett's termination.
