A former US pharmacy student has won a $250,000 payout from her university after it threatened to expel her for referencing explicit Cardi B lyrics on her social media, it was announced last week (January 29). 

Kimberly Diei sued the University of Tennessee in February 2021 with the help of free speech defending non-profit Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) and the huge settlement was agreed last month (January 21) with $180,000 going to Diei and $70,000 to FIRE. 

Read more: Explainer: how should pharmacy conduct themselves online and on social media? 

“This ruling confirms what I’ve known all along,” said Diei. “I have a right to express myself in my private life that’s separate from school, and so do my classmates.  

“I enrolled in pharmacy school to learn, not to have my taste in music and my thoughts on culture policed.” 

She was investigated twice for “sex-positive social media posts” on a personal account, with the first investigation in 2019 followed by another in 2020 and university administrators voted to expel her. 

Read more: Trainee pharmacist fined after ‘antisemitic’ social media post 

In one tweet, Diei referenced lyrics from rapper Cardi B’s ‘WAP’ song featuring Megan Thee Stallion – “I go that WAP he give gwap so that he can get a lick, he ain’t my pops but I call him DAD cuz he got that dope a** d**k” – and added at the end “let me be on the remix please”. 

Another tweet saw Diei joke “about the amount of time she spends getting prepared to go out by referencing a popular Beyoncé song”. 

“Nothing unprofessional” 

FIRE said the university “justified the investigation by using vague “professionalism” standards” calling the posts “sexual”, “crude” and “vulgar” but after Dei sought support from FIRE, the university reversed the decision. 

The non-profit argued that “colleges around the country have wielded professionalism codes against students for their expression even when the student’s speech has no bearing on their ability to succeed in a given field”. 

“Kim’s posts were wholly separate from the college, as her accounts operated under a pseudonym and did not reveal her then-identity as a student,” it added. 

Read more: ‘Ponzi scheme’ pharmacist gets life sentence for husband’s murder 

The United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee said Dei’s freedom of expression was “clearly protected by the First Amendment” and the university “didn’t have legitimate grounds to punish her”. 

FIRE senior attorney Greg H. Greubel said “the court affirmed what a young woman says about sexuality on social media has nothing to do with her ability to be a pharmacist” and she “stood up for every American who hopes to have a personal life in addition to their professional life”. 

“There is nothing unprofessional about students expressing love of hip-hop and their sexuality on social media. The First Amendment robustly protects students’ rights to have a voice outside of school, even if college administrators don’t like what they have to say,” he added.  

Because of the First Amendment protection, it meant Diei was able to pursue personal damages which has led to the huge payout. She now works as a pharmacist in Memphis.

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C+D looked at what the General Pharmaceutical Council (GPhC) has set out in its standards for how the UK pharmacy sector should behave online. 

It comes after a trainee pharmacist was fined more than £1,000 after pleading guilty to posting a “grossly offensive” and “hateful antisemitic” message on social media last month. 

And in the US, a West Virginia jury recommended that no “mercy” be shown to a pharmacist found guilty of murdering her husband to stop him from discovering her Ponzi scheme.