High school girls’ MySpace photos lead to sports suspension
Two Indiana high school sophomores have been suspended from all extracurricular activities because of photos they posted to MySpace.
That’s, like, so not fair.
As I reported at Above The Law, the girls attended a sleepover where they took photos of themselves “pretending to kiss or lick a large multi-colored novelty [phallus-shaped lollipop] that they had purchased as well as pictures of themselves in lingerie with dollar bills stuck in their clothes.” They unwisely posted these photos to MySpace. One of their so-called “friends” printed them out and gave them to the principal of Churubusco High School.
Though the photos were taken over the summer at a non-school activity, the principal decided the girls had violated the school’s code of conduct, and suspended them from all extracurricular activities for the entire school year. The girls are both athletes, but now can’t take part in sports this fall.
Enter the ACLU.
The ACLU is happy to make these frustrated athletes mascots for civil liberties, and help protect the right of high school girls everywhere to post slutty photos of themselves to social networking sites.
ACLU legal director Ken Falk insists the Churubusco case doesn’t warrant the punishment the district handed out.
“We all did things when we were sophomores in high school that can be construed as immature or problematic or whatever, but that is not the issue here,” he said. “The issue is what possible impact this could have on the school environment, and the answer is none.”
As pointed out by one of the commenters at Above The Law, the punishment could just make things worse:
Now that their extracurricular activities are suspended, these girls will have ample time to participate in after school drinking, drugs, and sex.
I suspect the ACLU lawsuit has legs, and the girls have a good chance of winning. If they’re still angry after that, they could go after the “friend” who handed over their photos to the principal for distribution of child pornography.
Fellow True/Slanter Bob Cook weighed in on this as well at Your Kid’s Not Going Pro.
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Surely the ACLU has better things to do than defend stupid, slutty teenagers? What a waste of resources.
Actually, this is just the sort of case the ACLU should pick up on. Were the girls stupid to post the pictures? Yes. Should it cause them to be kicked out of all sports and extracurricular activities for a year (the original punishment) or just 25 percent of the volleyball season (the revised punishment)? Well, that’s where it gets sticky. Most schools and state athletic associations have morals codes that somehow magically don’t apply when the star quarterback gets busted, and that maybe should not apply when there was the reasonable expectation by the these girls that the photos would remain private (because they were posted on a friends-only access page). Also, there was the question of undue embarrassment because the girls had to apologize individually to an all-male athletic board that had to, um, investigate the photos.
For the youth sports side of this controversy, you can go here:
http://trueslant.com/bobcook/2009/10/31/how-to-fail-at-enforcing-school-athletic-codes-and-look-supercreepy-too/
In response to another comment. See in context »I agree, Bob. And belatedly added a link to your post. Sorry I missed that on the first go-round!
In response to another comment. See in context »The fact that Kelly would even make such a comment shows amazing ignorance of what the ACLU even does. Can I have her job? I can do better than this.
Bob Cook, your reply is clearly faaaar above her head. Read her amazing article about how women are buying more property than men.
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[...] 6.High school girls’ MySpace photos lead to sports suspension – Two Indiana high school sophomores have been suspended from all extracurricular activities because of photos they posted to MySpace. … The girls are both athletes, but now can’t take part in sports this fall. … For the youth sports side of this controversy, you can go here: http://trueslant.com/KashmirHill/2009/11/02/high-school-girls-myspace-photos-lead-to-sports-suspension/ [...]
It is very shameful thing that the high school girls have done such a bad activity. The high school teachers teach their students about the good ethics and good moral values. The teachers also provide knowledge on good manners and how to improve their discipline.
http://www.highschoolsprograms.com/