A faculty member at Florida State University has resigned following a Facebook rant where she called another user a “faggot” and referred to Muslims as “filthy rodents.”
FSU College of Business senior lecturer Deborah O’Connor said 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.
O’Conner, who holds a Ph.D. from FSU and has taught there for 18 years, launched the tirade on a stranger’s Facebook page, New York-based stylist Colin Lively, when he — a friend of a friend of O’Conner’s — wrote a post about Eric Holder’s finding that Cleveland police engage in excessive force.
The exchange was first reported by Folio Weekly:
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“YOU elected POTUS, Holder et al. And they are supposed to represent all Americans, not just blacks … why don’t these ass clowns insert themselves into their stories?”
She was just getting started. As the thread went on, and as Lively and others engaged her, O’Connor’s comments took on an increasingly racist, homophobic and just-plain-mean bent:
“Take your Northern fagoot [sic] elitism and shove it up your ass.”
“I teach at a University, you asshole. What do you do?”
“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. France is almost at war because of his filthy rodent Muslims who are attacking Native Frenchmen and women.”
O’Connor told the Tallahassee Democrat that she was embarrassed by the entire incident, and that although she was not forced to resign, she was encouraged to.
“I’ve learned my lesson about Facebook; let’s just leave it at that,” O’Connor said. “I decided to resign because I didn’t think it was feasible to drag myself and Florida State through this kind of mud.”
