Fall River teacher settles with the city after being fired over social media posts

A 20+ year veteran teacher of the Fall River School District has reportedly settled with the city in a lawsuit concerning her being fired over social media posts.

Taryn Camara agreed to a settlement in late January of 2024 before the case was headed to trial on Monday, according to court records.
 
In September of 2021, Camara won an arbitration case to get her job back after being fired over the posts.

Camara’s attorney, Mark Gagliardi stated at the time that the “arbitrator’s award provided for reinstatement with full back pay within 14 days (October 1, 2021).”

At the previous arbitration, Gagliardi stated that former Superintendent Matt Malone testified under oath that he considered ALL of her Facebook comments (approximately 8) to be racist and that she was fired for ALL of them, which is a violation of her First Amendment rights.

Part of Facebook conversation in question obtained by Fall River Reporter

“For example, one of her comments referenced a crime statistic that blacks commit more crimes against other blacks than they do against whites, which is true. That is clearly protected speech. Furthermore, a plaintiff need only prove that the employer’s decision to fire her was “motivated, in part” because of the protected speech.”

According to Gagliardi, some of Camara’s posts were actually against racism.

“My client made 5 anti-racist FB posts in the days before the controversial post that lead to her termination supporting BLM and denouncing racial profiling, but the City was unaware of these posts prior to the decision to terminate her. The City should have asked my client to change her FB settings to public so the City could view ALL of her FB posts. Had they done so, it would have given proper context to the one controversial comment. The union should have done the same thing.”

Gagliardi feels that the 5 anti-racist posts that could not be seen by officials proves that there was no real investigation.

“(They) conducted no investigation into the incident and just sent representatives for my client to two hearings. Had the FREA executive board been presented the 5 anti-racist posts, they likely would have voted to support her arbitration. Instead, my client had to bear the full cost of the arbitration, approximately $77,000 for attorney’s fees, the cost of the arbitrator and court reporter fees. We have made a demand to the union for payment.”

On June 5, 2020, it was brought to Malone’s attention that Camara allegedly made the posts which led to the initial termination in July of 2020 after being placed on administrative leave.

Malone released the following comments at the time.

“We can tell you that we are outraged by what we read from the Facebook screenshots, and we can confirm with conviction that the Fall River Public Schools do not tolerate any form of racist, bigoted, and/or hateful speech from any member of our professional community.”

According to the Herald News, Camara agreed to a $90,000 settlement for the breach of contract.