Social networking sites have created new means of socializing and communicating, but also for info gathering. A Student, Stacey Snyder, was a student teacher in PA and was days away from her graduation, when she was expelled for picture on her myspace.com profile. The picture showed Stacey in a shoulder shot, drinking from a plastic cup wearing a pirate hat. The title of her page was " Drunken Pirate".
On the grounds of supporting and encouraging underage drinking, her university declined her recognition of a degree. She then sued for violating her first amendment rights. The courts verdict denined her suit.
I think they are reaching here. Read for yourself:http://voices.washingtonpost.com/securityfix/2008/12/court_rules_against_teacher_in.html?nav=rss_blog
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2 comments:
I think denying Snyder of her degree is absolutely ridiculous. Although it was a bad decision on her part to have the photo on her page in no way should they construe that into her promoting underage drinking. Especially since she was of legal drinking age. If the school has concerns about teachers posting information like this it should be agreed upon in some type of contract that as an employee of the school certain things are not permissable. The picture has nothing to do with her meeting the requirements for graduation besides being denied the opportunity to complete her student teaching because of this incident. I also fully agree with the author of the article when he/she that you must be careful when it comes to information you post on your social networking sites.
Denying Snyder her degree, something she's worked toward for years, over something that had absolutely nothing to do with school I think is a little ridiculous. Now if her work was not up to par, I can understand. But if the decision was based on the one photo of her drinking I don't really see how they could deny her degree. This would definitely be one reason to have your profile set to private.
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