South Milwaukee dental assistant says she was fired after posting a pro-Trump comment on Facebook

Before Robyn Polak attended President Donald Trump's Jan. 14 rally in Milwaukee, she expressed her support for him on Facebook by posting a "MAGA 2020" comment on a news story about the visit.

She said that comment, and possibly a few others like it, got her fired from her job.

Polak, a South Milwaukee resident who was the only dental assistant at Precision Dental MKE, 6203 S. Howell Ave., said someone found out where she worked, went on her employer’s Facebook page and posted a negative review. The person did not recommend the dental office saying “employees spouting [sic] racist comments on Facebook.”

Polak said she didn’t have any interactions with the person who posted the review but was told they had “trolled others before.”

Polak denied she was a racist, saying she has African American siblings and is partially Native American.

“I’m not racist,” she said. “But I am just kind of speechless about all this.”

Company's response

The “Precision Dental MKE” account responded to the review.

“I am so very sorry to have learned that this was posted. We are handling the situation in-house as we speak. I assure you that this office does not share those beliefs,” the response said.

Polak said "handling it in-house" meant she got fired over the phone.

“I was taking my son to speech class, doing errands and my boss called and said, ‘We need to terminate you,’ ” Polak said. “The office manager said it was for the review they got on their Facebook (page), but my name wasn’t on there. They assumed it was me because I’m the only Republican in that office.”

Employees at Precision Dental MKE told a reporter who visited the office Wednesday that they couldn't legally discuss the matter.

However, the office did release a statement:

"Precision Dental MKE believes in the privacy of an employee's terms of employment, retention or discharge," the statement said. "As a matter of course, Precision Dental MKE does not discuss employee personnel matters. Precision Dental MKE believes dentistry is nonpolitical.

"We can confirm, however, that no employee has ever been terminated for their political beliefs or their support or opposition of the President or any political candidate," the company said.

Since the incident, the official Facebook page for Precision Dental MKE is not accessible. The company also appears to have been review-bombed on Google with 15 new reviews posted in under 10 hours — 14 of them are one star. Many comments in the reviews reference the firing, saying it shouldn’t have happened.

Additionally, Polak said many have reached out to her directly offering support.

As of Jan. 15, the company website, www.precisiondentalmke.com, has been set to private and is no longer accessible.

On her own time

Polak said she did not make any posts on the company’s page nor did she post on company time. Additionally, she said there was no social media policy in the company handbook.

"This was totally off hours,” she said. “I was sitting on my couch supporting my president.”

Polak has already filed for unemployment as she also has a 3-year-old son to take care of and is looking for work. However, she said if Precision Dental MKE offered her job back she wouldn’t take it.

“There’s too much that happened,” she said. “They were arguing with me on the phone saying ‘We got this review and we can’t have that.’ ”

Contact Erik S. Hanley at (262) 875-9467 or erik.hanley@jrn.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ES_Hanley.