A Minnesota man has been expelled from college for posts made on his private Facebook page unrelated to anyone at his school.
Craig Keefe, 37, had a semester left in his nursing program at Central Lakes College in Brainerd, Minn., when he was expelled last fall for allegedly using the phrase “stupid bitch” and posting “a comment about there not being enough whiskey for anger management” on his private Facebook wall, the Pioneer Press reported.
Keefe has since filed a lawsuit against the school and various administrators claiming they violated his free speech, constitutional rights to privacy, and due process for not allowing him to appeal his expulsion.
On Dec. 5 Keefe was called into a meeting with the school’s dean of students and Connie Frisch, the head of the nursing program, where he was confronted about the posts on Facebook.
“She held up a stack of papers which was allegedly Keefe’s entire Facebook page and told him she had read the whole page and found it disturbing,” the lawsuit says, according to the Pioneer Press. “Frisch refused to allow Keefe to see the documents.”
About two days later, Keefe received a letter stating he had been kicked out for “behavior unbecoming of the profession and transgression of professional boundaries.”
Keefe is currently a licensed practical nurse who was at Central Lakes to become a registered nurse.
Keefe contends that his Facebook account was recently hacked and was in the process of deleting fraudulent messages from it. It is unclear how the school was able to get ahold of printouts of his Facebook wall.
And because Central Lakes College’s nursing program is not accredited, Keefe will not be able to transfer his credits elsewhere in order to finish his degree.
“Unless we get the court to order him back in, that degree is shot,” Keefe’s lawyer Jordan Kushner told the Pioneer Press. “All the time spent on it is lost.”
Photo via Central Lakes College
