Subscribe
Jobs
Cars
Real Estate
Apts
Classifieds
Shop
The promises and perils of social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are challenging schools struggling to respond to new technology. Some are responding badly.
Churubusco High School is a prime example. Administrators there interfered in what was not a school matter and now find themselves as defendants in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union.
The suit, filed last week in U.S. District Court, alleges the Smith-Green Community School Corp. and Principal Austin Couch violated the First Amendment rights of two female students.
The girls, identified only by initials, were part of a sleepover last summer attended by other students from Churubusco High School, according to the suit. At the event, they took pictures of themselves “pretending to kiss or lick a large multi-colored novelty phallus-shaped lollipop.” In other photos they were dressed in lingerie with dollar bills tucked into their clothing. They posted the photos on their MySpace pages, which can be accessed only by the friends they select.
Someone with access to the photos, however, downloaded them and gave them to the principal and other school employees. Citing a student handbook provision that gives him authority to bar student-athletes from participation if their conduct “in or out of school reflects discredit upon Churubusco High School … or creates a disruptive influence on the discipline, good order, moral or educational environment,” Couch suspended the two girls from all athletic and extracurricular activities for the year, according to court documents.
When their parents appealed the decision, he gave the students the option to reduce their punishment by 25 percent if they would submit to three counseling sessions and apologize individually to the Athletic Board, made up of coaches for the varsity teams, all of whom are men.
The girls submitted to the counseling sessions, and the reports were turned over to the principal.
“The forced counseling was humiliating to the plaintiffs, and being forced to appear before the coaches to apologize for their intended humorous photographs … was profoundly embarrassing,” the lawsuit states.
The case is a classic example of a school district overreacting to an incident involving students, whose personal judgment is often limited by their maturity. The girls, no doubt, now realize the danger of posting anything online that they don’t want distributed.
But the punishment they were forced to face – for an incident in the summer, not on school property and not involving the school in any way – was out of line. Nancy Baer, an Albion parent, said she has no connection to the school district but was angered by the account of the punishment.
“I’m appalled that someone would even think up something as twisted as having these young girls go in front of all of these male coaches,” she said. “If it were reversed, and it was boys involved, would he have gotten a line of female faculty members together for them to apologize to? What do they think they’ve accomplished?”
The ACLU is asking a judge to prohibit the Smith-Green schools from continuing to punish the two students and from interpreting the conduct policy to allow such punishment, as well as expunging all references to the matter from their records, according to court documents.
Regardless of the case’s outcome, the school board should address discipline procedures at the school, and board members and administrators elsewhere should weigh their own procedures to ensure they don’t respond in the same unacceptable manner.
