Centers for Rehab Services Fires Deborah Bonanno & James Sprung for Sending Email Portraying Obama as a Tar Ball

Deborah Bonanno & James Sprung sue their former employer, Centers for Rehab Services, after they were fired for forwarding emails portraying President Barack Obama as a tar ball.

Tarball (Fast Company)

The Centers for Rehab Services has been sued by Deborah Bonanno & James Sprung, two employees the company fired for forwarding an email comparing President Barack Obama to a tar ball washing ashore in the Gulf of Mexico. The company said the email was inappropriate, but the employees beg to differ saying they were expressing their political views. Shouldn't you express your own political views on your own laptop or desktop computer at home?

Team 4 investigator Paul Van Osdol reported that the e-mail in question was circulated last summer while the federal government was trying to contain the massive Gulf oil spill. It showed an image of Obama walking along a Gulf beach with the caption, "Another tar ball washed up on the shore."

The lawsuit said the e-mail led the company to fire Deborah Bonanno and James Sprung, who received the e-mail and forwarded it to co-workers.

In court papers, an attorney for Bonanno and Sprung said, "The motivation behind CRS' termination was to stifle (the employees') freedom of expression on a matter of public concern" -- namely, the Gulf disaster. Source: WTAE

Not sure what their motivation was but I can neither say it was racist or not. It was just plain stupid. Don't forward emails on your employer's computer. That's just basic.