Ocean County investigates complaint of racist Facebook comment by employee

WARETOWN - Ocean County officials are investigating a complaint that an employee at its Fire and EMS Training Center made a racist Facebook post under the academy’s name.

Ralph Hahn, 64, a confidential assistant at the center, wrote on Feb. 13: “I’m no sexist or racist. But, as a white Christian man, I think we better get back to a point before minorities got all the breaks, and minorities were looked down upon. So, ALL peoples may claim their right to the American dream.”

The comment appeared under Hahn’s name and his place of employment: “Fire & EMS Training Center at Ocean County, New Jersey.”

Hahn said he failed to read his comment before he posted the remark and did not intend to imply that he wanted to return to an era when it was acceptable to treat some people as inferior because of their race, ethnicity or sexual orientation.

“YIKES,” Hahn wrote in a Facebook message to an Asbury Park Press reporter. “I just re-read my original statement, and I can now see why that person complained. … I would never want to see our nation discriminate against ANYONE ever again.”

“That was two thoughts in one sentence,” Hahn added.

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Hahn made the original comment in response to an online article in Adweek, an advertising trade publication. A private citizen from Illinois, who read Hahn's comment and was offended that Hahn appeared to be posting such remarks as a public employee, sent a copy of it to the Press.

The Feb. 13 article in Adweek on which Hahn commented was titled: “Anderson Cooper Calls Out Fox News Exec for Olympics Column.” The piece was about the CNN anchor’s public rebuke of John Moody, Fox News executive vice president.

In a controversial column for the Fox News website, Moody wrote: “Unless it’s changed overnight, the motto of the Olympics, since 1894, has been ‘Faster, Higher, Stronger.’ It appears the U.S. Olympic Committee would like to change that to ‘Darker, Gayer, Different,’” according to the Adweek article.

The column was later pulled from the Fox News website after widespread criticism that the piece was racist and homophobic.

On his primetime news program, Cooper said, as reported in the Adweek article: “Mr. Moody’s comments might be funny if he was just some crank standing on the corner of Sixth Avenue outside 'Fox & Friends' trying to get his sign on camera, with a sign saying ‘darker, gayer, different.’ But he is actually inside the building in a top position, executive editor and executive vice president.”

Ocean County Administrator Carl W. Block said that the Department of Employee Relations has instructed Hahn to remove references to his occupation from his Facebook profile, which he has done.

Beyond that, Block said he could not comment further about Hahn because the matter has become a personnel issue.

Hahn has been a confidential assistant assigned to the Department of Fire and First Aid Training since September 2005 and receives an annual salary of $50,558, according to county records.

Block said that while Ocean County has a policy that prohibits employees from using social media for personal use during work hours, the county government does not have a policy regulating the conduct of employees who use social media when they are off the clock.

This particular matter has caused the county government to explore its options about establishing such a policy, Block said.

“We haven't had a complaint like this before,” he said. “As technology creeps further and further into our lives, we have to stay on top of these issues.”

The administrator said the county will direct its labor counsel to render an opinion on the matter. The county wants to know if the government has the authority to hold its employees accountable for discriminatory or other incendiary public statements they make online even when they are not at work. The question is whether such comments reveal a bigotry that compromises an employee's appearance and ability to fulfill their duties as an impartial public servant.

David L. Hudson Jr., who serves as the ombudsman for the Newseum Institute’s First Amendment Center, wrote in the ABA Journal – the most widely read legal trade publication in the United States – in May, that as far back as the 19th century the courts have ruled that a public employee can be held accountable for their speech.

“The prevailing view was expressed by then-Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. in McAuliffe v. New Bedford (1892): ‘The petitioner may have a constitutional right to talk politics, but he does not have a constitutional right to be a policeman.’ The prevailing wisdom was that public employees willingly relinquished their free speech rights when they accepted public employment on or off duty,” Hudson wrote.

Erik Larsen: 732-682-9359 or elarsen@gannettnj.com