A MassHealth employee who said she was fired after she compared calling the police on neighbors for not wearing masks to Nazi Germany tells the Herald that her First Amendment rights have been “trampled on” and she’s considering legal action.
Denise Foley, 60, is no longer MassHeath’s director of internal and external training and communication following the firestorm in a private Milton Facebook group that has 12,000 members.
It all started on Dec. 3 when someone in the Milton Neighbors Facebook group posted they had received a mailer about turning in neighbors who aren’t wearing masks.
Foley responded to the post, “Sounds like what the Nazis did in Germany.”
She later wrote in the comments, “How dare anyone try to take away my rights! I have the right NOT to wear a mask if I don’t want to. I have the right to gather with friends and family if I want to. If that’s a problem for you or anyone else, report me!”
Her comments were anonymously sent to MassHealth. She was then placed on paid administrative leave and later terminated.
Foley is now looking to bring a First Amendment lawsuit against the state.
“They trampled on my First Amendment rights,” Foley told the Herald on Monday. “I want people to be held accountable. MassHealth should be held accountable for not following the law and trampling on my First Amendment rights.”
A spokeswoman for the Executive Office of Health and Human Services declined to comment, saying the agency doesn’t comment on personnel matters.
Foley was placed on paid administrative leave on Dec. 21, and fired on Jan. 27.
“Following an investigation, the Executive Office of Health and Human Services has determined that it no longer has confidence in your ability to perform your duties effectively,” wrote Dan Tsai, assistant secretary for MassHealth. Foley shared a copy of that letter with the Herald.
Foley, who said she wears a mask, had listed her employment information on her Facebook profile.
First Amendment lawyer Harvey Silverglate said the state agency should have told Foley to remove that employment info instead of firing her.
“If the state was concerned that her various posts on social media were running counter to the mission of the agency, they should have taken a less drastic alternative and had her remove her employment identification,” he said.
A wrongful termination lawsuit is possible, he said, adding, “She can argue the state had an obligation to provide the least damaging alternative.”
Public employees should have the freedom to speak about issues in their communities, said Justin Silverman, executive director of the New England First Amendment Coalition.
Silverman added, “If they can do so without affecting the job they have in government, then I do think we should be taking every opportunity we can to make that happen and protect that speech.”
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“They trampled on my First Amendment rights,”
And it kind of proves your point doesn’t it?
“For spreading misinformation claiming the state operates firing squads you will be shot at sunrise!”
IMO she shouldn’t just be “Considering legal action”, she should BE SUING THEIR butts off… AND SOON.
Post your opinions on fakebook at your own peril. My advice would be for EVERYONE to remove themselves from fakebook and watch it crash and burn.
Why does anyone with a brain use that hideous platform and expect any different outcome…….first of all there are way to many public employees on the backs of the general population………then it looks as if one of the essential reasonable employees was terminated
IMO cause folks hav become addicted to it.. That’s the only reason I can see, why so many so-called sane conservatives, STILL USE IT, even after all the past 2+ years of leftists doing all they can to shank over any conservative they can find.
Denise Foley was fired for telling the truth. Ms. Foley has First Amendment rights. I hope she files a multimillion dollar lawsuit against these communists, in the good old communist state of Massachusetts.
there’s at least 3 Commies on the supreme court that vote against your Constitutional rights all the time
AND knowing how Gorsucky, Barret and Kavenaugh, have sided wIth those commies on not hearing voter fraud cases, i’d be FEARFUL THEY WOULD RULE IN FAVOR of the state on this…
For the Nazis, the group had other benefits. Not only did it allow the Third Reich to indoctrinate children at their most impressionable, but it let the Nazis remove them from the influence of their parents, some of whom opposed the regime. The Nazi Party knew that families—private, cohesive groups not usually under political sway—were an obstacle to their goals. The Hitler Youth was a way to get Hitler’s ideology into the family unit, and some members of the Hitler Youth even denounced their parents when they behaved in ways not approved of by the Reich.
Sounds like the “Socialist Democrat Party State” to me.
The “Socialist Democrat Party State” political officers and Gestapo are just getting started.
You will obey, be loyal and support the “Socialist Democrat Party State” or you will be classified as
“Enemies of the State”.
they have been indoctrinating our children for decades.
That is EXACTLY why so many kids are in support of socialism. They have no idea what freedom is, what patriotism is, what love of country is, what obstacles were overcome to create the greatest country that ever existed. They are happy to destroy it as they have been propagandized to since they started publik skool.
It’s also why so many demon-rats, HATE home schooling…
There’s “free speech” and then there’s “free speech”. The lady made an accurate comment that can be backed up by history (so far), but the PC Police find that offensive, therefore it becomes “hate speech”.
I expect all references to WWII to be erased one of these days, like tearing down statues of George Washington or proposals to remove the Lincoln Memorial. We are letting this stuff happen as if we are the last in line to get abused by the monsters of the Left. Good Luck!
Foley responded to the post, “Sounds like what the Nazis did in Germany.”
Yes it does, and to prove your point they fired you.
Her firing only serves to PROVE we have entered the phase of another Nazi Germany. Her job had nothing to do with her private life or private feelings about current events. Groups that were demonized by the Nazis saw their businesses destroyed, their lives threatened, beaten or killed. Every single leftist/communist/marxist regime has targeted conservatives in one way or another throughout history. I just never thought I would see the day that it would happen in THIS country, the one that used to cherish freedom, free speech and liberty.
Makes you wonder, all those vets of WW2 who are still alive.. WOULD THEY HAVE mad the same call, to go and FIGHT nazi germany, if they knew in 60+ years after, WE’d be MIRRORING WHAT nazi germany was like??
Now there is a bureaucrat I can get behind, she is spot on and the sheeple are just having a hard time seeing the light.