Student, Denied Degree For MySpace Photo, Sues

gwoodrow writes "We've all heard the 'fired because of MySpace' stories, where a simple blog or picture gets someone canned. But now one of the targets is fighting back. (The offending picture in this case was a snap from Halloween 2005 of the student in a pirate outfit drinking from a cup.)" From the article: "Teacher in training Stacy Snyder was denied her education degree on the eve of graduation when Millersville University apparently found pictures on her MySpace page 'promoting underage drinking.' As a result, the 27-year-old mother of two had her teaching certificate withheld and was granted an English degree instead. In response, Snyder has filed a Federal lawsuit against the Pennsylvania university asking for her education diploma and certificate along with $75,000 in damages."

Re:hmm

[niceone]

Well the university's response is here: http://www.millersville.edu/announcements/snyder.p hp [millersville.edu]

They hint at some other problem which they can't go into because of 'federal student privacy restrictions'. I guess you'd expect them to say something like that though.

Re:umm

[mikael]

This is the picture that is actually in dispute [bbsnews.net], described in this news article [bbsnews.net]

Apparently, Conestoga Valley School District were threatening to not recruit any more teachers from her university, unless she was punished in some way.

Regardless of the picture, the School District or college have no right to amend her graduation qualifications, based on a single party photograph.

Re:hmm

[theckhd]

Conestoga Valley officials told the college their students wouldn't be allowed to perform student-teacher requirements there if Snyder was not punished, according to the lawsuit.

From Lancaster Online [lancasteronline.com], a local news outlet. In addition, the article talks about her being "unprofessional" during her student teaching, though whether that was determined before or after the picture was discovered isn't entirely clear:

Girvin also issued a final student/teacher evaluation of Snyder and granted "superior" or "competent" ratings in all areas except "professionalism." He gave Snyder and "unsatisfactory" rating, according to the lawsuit.

Buffington also accused Snyder of "incompetence" and "claimed she should have been removed from her student-teaching position months ago."

Having grown up in the area (several of my friends went to Millersville; at my high school it was often thought of as the 13th grade because so many students from our district went there), this doesn't really surprise me. The stories I've heard from friends who got their degrees at Millersville generally indicated that the school was a pain to deal with on administrative issues, particularly in some departments. I guess the Ed. department is one of them.

Re:Only denied Teaching Degree

[TobascoKid]

Hence the promoting-underage-drinking.

Surely, it only promotes overage drinking, as the teacher in question is of legal age. Which means she's promoting an activity as legal as, say, firing off a few rounds down at the local gun club.

Re:She was not denied her degree

[swissfondue]

To read about more than meets the eye: Check out this link to blogher [blogher.org].

Excerpt: "However, school district solicitor Howard L. Kelin said Tuesday that criticism of the teachers contained in the lawsuit is unfair.

Kelin disputes the allegations the teachers, Deann Buffington and Nicole Reinking, influenced the college to withhold the degree.

Snyder was given a poor evaluation based on her performance while teaching at the high school and was warned not to direct students to her MySpace page, which contained the questionable photographs, Kelin said.

Despite being warned to maintain a professional relationship with her students Kelin said, Snyder continued to direct students to her Web page.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Is there anybody that has read something about this human phenonemon? Is there going to be a time when humans just don't do this kind of thing?

Yes. Carl Sagan wrote about this, in "The Demon-Haunted World". Excellent book. It put together witch hunts, alien abductions, and "remembered traumas" that never happened, into a theory of human consciousness. Very well written.

Re:She was not denied her degree

[bkr1_2k]

Actually someone else posted this elsewhere in the thread, but there is definitely more to it.

http://bbsnews.net/article.php/20070502234811315 [bbsnews.net]

Seems she'd been reprimanded as a student teacher several times and she knew she was in the wrong. It doesn't seem to be as cut and dried as the original article would have us believe. Also, the picture posted in the original article is different than the one in the above article. Two very different images that give completely different impressions of a "teacher" if seen by students.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:umm

[Saxerman]

I'm guessing that other pictures show underage drinkers at the party.

That's what I though too, and since I figured at least one of us needed to actually RTFA I did. Strangely, that archive doesn't mention any other pictures:

So what, you're probably asking yourself, could have been in this picture that was so abhorrent as to make Stacy Snyder unworthy of teaching children? Was she force-feeding a 6-year-old bourbon from a bottle or spiking a middle school dance's punch? Not even close. The picture in question turned out to be of her at a Halloween party in 2005 dressed as a pirate and drinking an indeterminate liquid "from a plastic 'Mr. Goodbar' cup." But underneath was a caption which read "Drunken Pirate" and that caption apparently lead faculty to assume she was too "unprofessional" to educate young minds. Word was sent to the Millersville administration, and Snyder's "lifelong dream" of being a teacher ended less than a day before being achieved.

Re:umm

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't that what they call a straw man argument... I mean look at number two, you are invoking your opinion on why people believe certain things (it must be that they aren't getting any, so they don't want me to).

Speaking from experience, my "let 'em burn" attitude toward others "getting any" sharply reversed when I actually became capable of it. While I can't do justice to the training I got in a Slashdot post, the average geek would improve remarkably just by following these rules:

1) Don't be afraid to approach people in a friendly manner. You don't need fancy pick-up lines. Seriously.
2) Commit (e.g. sit down with them instead of hovering over) and get committment out of them (tell their own stories, jokes, buy you stuff in return for you buying them stuff).
3) Don't be afraid to reveal attraction.

It's true that not everyone opposes promiscuity for that reason, but I'd bet there's a strong correlation. In fairness, of course, birth control does not eliminate the risk of unwanted babies. Think about all the mouth-breathers who are supposed to apply it properly. It ultimately comes down to how big you think the magnitude of the negative event (one additional unwanted baby is), which reasonable people can disagree about.

*posting A/C for a reason*

Re:umm

[TheLink]

Read it yourself:
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=gen%20 1&version=31

Gen 1:27-28

27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

28 God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Personally I think we are close to the "fill the earth and subdue it" part, unless our technology improves we won't be able to sustainably fill the earth with 10 x more humans.

And subdue != destroy the last I checked :).

Re:umm

[Xiaran]

I was raised a Catholic and from what I recall(its been a while) the opposition to contraception is based on the position that man doesn't have the right to judge weather someone can live or die. Only God has that right. Hence the church opposes capital punishment, abortion and birth control. The birth control argument is that man is interfering with the natural course of God plan... or whatever. I don't agree with their stance n birth control or abortion but I can have some sympathy for the capital punishment one.

Also I think most Catholics, at least in the west, pretty much ignore the whole no condom/no pill business. I know most of my (pretty Irish catholic) extended family do.

student teacher sent students to her myspace

[wallybat]

http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/203603 [lancasteronline.com] i guess the issue was more that she was posting to her student's websites and promoting her own myspace to them. Also she had other images on her site other than the seemingly innocuous one where she was making gestures etc. She was asked to stop conversing with her students online and did not stop. So this was not a single incident. She was also getting bad evaluations as a student teacher outside of this issue. So this doesn't seem to be just about someone having a myspace that was found by an employer.