Student, Denied Degree For MySpace Photo, Sues 823
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."
umm (Score:5, Insightful)
Define "promoting"? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:umm (Score:4, Insightful)
Wrong. The cup was clearly full of liquid LSD, which is a federal felony.
I just don't get the human race. It just seems clear that no matter what century it is, there is some kind of witch hunt or persecution of somebody for something. 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?
hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not judging either way, but is it not a possibility that the 'victim' here is screaming loudly about a single innocuous piece of evidence while failing to mention any of the other relevant details or bits of evidence in the 'case'?
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure they originally thought she was 20 in the picture, and wanted to withhold her teaching certificate for underage drinking. Then when they found out she was 25 in the photo, they changed their story to not wanting anyone who has had alcohol touch their virgin lips to be teaching young children, rather than admitting they were wrong.
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
no
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
=_= Unless...
What is the problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not getting a couple things here... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sometimes you need to think about your future (Score:2, Insightful)
-M
Ah yes, Pennsylvania (Score:4, Insightful)
I've told people for the longest time, any time PA is in the national news, it can't be a good thing.
Personally, I don't agree with Millersville (not too far from me) since the activity took place away from school and the teacher to be, as far as I know, has never advocated to anyone that getting drunk is a good thing.
Further, as others have pointed out, how is she promoting underage drinking if a) she was above the legal drinking age at the time the picture was taken and b) we have no idea what was in her cup.
Besides, if Millersville is going after her because of something she may have done, are they going to rescind degrees from those who have graduated and are later found to be doing something similar or are convicted of other crimes? Say, child molestation, rape or robbery? What if someone posts a picture of themselves in a thong at a party (as a guy) or some skimpy, revealing outfit (for a woman)? Are they going to withhold degrees for that too?
When will people learn. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:hmm (Score:1, Insightful)
I agree; there's something fishy here. I, too, would like to know more about this.
Anyone got a snapshot of the MySpace page?
Only denied Teaching Degree (Score:2, Insightful)
The 'Promoting Underage Drinking' argument isn't about her age, obviously - that's why they didn't block her English degree.
It's because students (you kids can laugh all you want) view teachers as role models - thus if a kid gets on the net, goes 'Hey, miss so-and-so is a drunk!' it changes the perception in their mind slightly that 'drinking is a bad thing'. Hence the promoting-underage-drinking.
Oh, and the article doesn't say this, but I read an article on this (in Australia!?!) a week or three ago, and it mentioned that part of the degree was something to do with 'being of good character'. Which is where their argument, I believe, comes from.
Note: that last paragraph comes from my own, alcohol-abused memory, so it may be slightly off. Lucky I'm not a teacher... oh wait...
If anything ... (Score:1, Insightful)
But no, when small-town redneck buttfuck USA sees anything that goes against Bible 2.0, you're screwed. If you do anything but suck Jaysus' cock in these towns you're a t'rrist and don't deserve to be treated like one of them.
Shit, I've had some bad photos taken of me. There's probably still a midget with a bondage fetish out there jerking off to that set of pictures.
And they know what she was drinking how? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:math is hard (Score:3, Insightful)
It'd be like the teacher having a blog talking about her sex life. Are we now to disallow teachers from copulation as well? Well we don't let kids vote either. So teachers shouldn't vote. And most kids can't drive. Therefore no driving, etc...
TEACHERS ARE NOT [supposed to be] KIDS!
Tom
Pennsylvania (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what they're saying here is... (Score:5, Insightful)
And whereas yes they do get 3 months a year off, most of the don't make enough to avoid needing to get a summer job. Many of them are either working on grading papers and preparing lesson plans at home, or they're putting 12 hour days in at the school keeping up with some of it. The worst part is knowing how many of them honestly want to instill that vital critical thinking nugget in the heads of kids, but then get beaten down with the fact that they have to teach to a standardized test because that's what they'll be reviewed over.
Maybe where you're at the teachers job is a cushy one, but from my observations in a non suburb city it isn't. The only teachers I know who are thriving and loving the job all teach at private schools, and there aren't enough of those jobs to go around.
Re:Sometimes you need to think about your future (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
A system of formal complaints that can screw up your life must be accountable, if formal complaints are to be taken seriously then abuse of the system needs to be puni$hed.
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
You already understand that humans are utterly self-centered. Yet many of them have that irresistible desire to control others. It's a paradox, but still frighteningly logical...
Humans seek to control in others what they wish they could control in themselves.
They hate it when other people are having more fun than they are.
And they will cling to their moral rules even after those rules have lost their basis. (Certainly the mutual enforcement of morality is justifiably important in any family, tribe, or society, and certaintly this is an unending chore. But still: moral rules exist to maximize something; they are not divine ends-in-themselves.)
The current war against birth control illustrates all three phenomena of control:
You: "But birth control ends that risk; therefore, there is no longer any basis for condemning promiscuous behavior. Your moral rule is obsolete."
Them: "Then to protect morality, we must ban birth control."
So she's punished for doing something legal? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Image is... something. (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, because only the truly debauched party at Halloween.
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
The current war against birth control illustrates all three phenomena of control:
You: "But birth control ends that risk; therefore, there is no longer any basis for condemning promiscuous behavior. Your moral rule is obsolete."
Them: "Then to protect morality, we must ban birth control."
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). You have put those with different opinions than you in a box, and then made up there thoughts so you can be better than them... isn't that what your post was complaining about in the first place?
Re:Image is... something. (Score:3, Insightful)
A picture demonstrating that you're not a joyless machine doesn't make you a bad teacher.
I've had plenty of teachers who dressed up in costumes from time to time, whether based on the subject at hand, or just for classes on Halloween...
As for "beer," well... She's drinking out of a cup, there's no indication whether she's drinking beer, milk, soda, slim-fast, etc.
And even if there was, there's absolutely nothing illegal, or morally wrong about drinking beer, or being seen drinking beer by people of any age... Now, if it was a beer bong, or drinking a full bottle of hard liquor, or something else clearly suggestive of irresponsible behavior, then you might have something. As is, from her picture I see nothing to suggest anything but a responsible adult.
What's next, should we throw out teachers that put up pictures of themselves at a target-shooting competition, or driving in a professional or armature car race, because it promotes minors using guns, and speeding?
Fear the Moral police (Score:2, Insightful)
On a side note my 5th grade teacher told us about how he used to hunt jackrabbits from the back of a speeding pick up truck with his ex military brother. God that would've been a picture to see. A 35+ year old 5th grade teacher in the bed of a pick up with a high powered rifle. I wonder if that would've gotten his teaching license revoked. That sort of stunt could lead to far worse than drinking before you're 21.
Re:Image is... something. (Score:3, Insightful)
"Somebody think of the children" (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not encoureaging underage drinking, it's more of a sympthom of a society soaked in paranoia, unrealistic expectations and simplistic views of the world that clash with a modern age where a person's life and living will be more exposed and available.
So we have two choices now: a.) remove the access to insight into our lives, or restrict it radically, or b.) realise that the people that take care of your children are humans too, with all that entails. There are no saints here. It's not a bad thing.
Re:Well (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So what they're saying here is... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:She was not denied her degree (Score:3, Insightful)
Irrational harshness is a sure sign of incompetence. We don't know how to protect kids, but we'll cover up our complete ignorance of anything that might do any good by setting up anybody who comes across our desk as an example. Nobody can say we don't care if we indulge ourselves with in an appalling tantrum.
Just don't ask us to think, evaluate evidence, or have a real strategy. We're reacting here.
Let's not root out the bad or abusive teachers. That's too much work. Let's string up some student for dressing up like a character from a Disney theme park.
There is no evidence that this person thought "underage drinking was cool at 25". There is no evidence that she was drunk. There is no evidence that she has alcohol in that cup. The only thing she did was put a comical caption on a picture of herself.
This kind of foolishness is indefensible. It is not only unjust to the prospective teacher, it is not only unjust to the students who might have benefited from her service, it mollycoddles incompetent bureaucrats posing as moral crusaders.
Re:Image is... something. (Score:3, Insightful)
By posting this, you are leaving evidence of your "I have better judgment than you" attitude on the internet. Have you considered the impact this will have on your career? And I'm showing my "attitude", too.
It might be a good idea for all potential employers, whether would-be puritans or scowlers, to consider that any "attitude" gleaned from the web about someone could be a fictitious persona. To overlook good candidates for reasons like this is just a sign that it's a bad place to work. Because, unlike internet personas, that attitude taints an entire organization. And it leaves the good candidates to work for Cogswell Cogs, instead.
Re:The longer I live... (Score:3, Insightful)
Me too. I find myself more and more wanting to move to Australia. At least they were founded as a penal colony.
-
Re:umm (Score:1, Insightful)
They do, however, need to consider her serious lack of judgement and forethought in handling the photo. The fact that she got drunk and someone snapped a photo is no big deal. The fact that she thought it would be a good idea to publish that photo to the entire world is a completely different matter.
Teachers, like many others, must maintain separation between their personal and professional lives. How is this any different from her standing in front of a classroom talking about how hammered she got the night before? It's just not even remotely appropriate for her to publicize her nightlife, especially in places where students will find it.
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, I'm not saying that birth control is all a bad thing. My parents used birth control (but they still had 3 kids), my sister and her husband are using "natural" birth control (because she's allergic to something, I think). But it has had bad unintended consequences. A society with no children is a society with no future.
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:umm (Score:2, Insightful)
I hope she takes them to the cleaners.
Re:umm (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:umm (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't have a problem with you having a problem with it, just don't legislate away things just because you have a problem with something....
I can understand if it's seriously detrimental (Like theft and such), but other than that...
Don't legislate my freedoms away because of your opinions.
Re:umm (Score:2, Insightful)
Although lately a similar issue has sprung up with a human papaloma vaccine. Is giving your daughter a vaccine for a STD at 11 condoning sex?
Re:She was not denied her degree (Score:5, Insightful)
So she was reprimanded, did she get a passing grade? If yes, then give her the cert, if not deny her the cert. And just because she gets her cert doesn't mean they have to give her a recommendation or hire her.
But if they pull that BS she should get enough money from the school system so she doesn't have to work, the people recall most of the school board and the superintendent is forced to resign. Its called you screwed somebody's life over, now you get to pay.
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:umm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:umm - throwing the BS flag (Score:5, Insightful)
No it doesn't. There is still a 0.001% chance of contracting an STD from a gynecologist visit, a 0.0012% chance of contracting genital warts from a toilet seat, a 0.0019% chance of becoming pregnant while being unconscious and raped during any given hospital stay, etc.
The only SURE way to avoid STD's and pregnancy is a successful suicide. So I would like to encourage my right-wing religious friends to consider that as an option--if you TRULY want to remain pure, that is. It's the only way to be sure.
It wasn't the picture - read the article (Score:1, Insightful)
The way that that picture promotes underage alcohol use is that she was encouraging underage students to see pictures of her drinking, which they might imitate. It isn't addressed in the article, but I'd suspect that they also didn't really like the fact that students could find out that she was a single mom of two. (Might give some teenagers the idea that they could swing that as well.)
Having seen that, I have to say that I understand why they did what they did. I disagree with it, but that is more because I disagree with the rule than because I think the rule was unfairly enforced.
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
and where exactly is there any evidance that she was actually drunk?
i see a plastic cup, which no evidance that there is anything alcoholic in it and she doesn't seem to be drunk in the picture either.
Re:She was not denied her degree (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
You have missed the point of the argument. A group opposes promiscuity on moral grounds. Moral grounds are not a valid reason to pass a law, so they develop a related social issue, unintentional babies. When their social issue is ameliorated while still allowing people to partake in the "immoral" activity, they try to ban things in an effort to restore the social problem.
In any case, not everyone who has sex for pleasure is doing it as a fling. Many people in committed relationships simply do not want children, and thus partake in sex via safe means.
Not a straw man (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope. It would be a straw man argument if he claimed these were the spoken arguments against birth control. But he doesn't, he speculate that these are the unspoken reasons (at least #1 and #2).
It does show a total lack of respect for the opponents. Nothing wrong with that. The official spoken arguments for certain positions, such as alien visitors, creationism or the immorality of birth control are utterly insane. Trying to counter them with rational arguments are a total waste of time, as they are not based on rational thinking.
It is much more productive to try to analyze which emotional needs makes people hold to these irrational positions. Once you understand the true reasoning behind them, you can start working on filling the emotional need the motivates them, and the positions become irrelevant.
> You have put those with different opinions than you in a box, and then made up there thoughts so
> you can be better than them... isn't that what your post was complaining about in the first
> place?
Nope, he was complaining about people trying to control others behavior. Not about people trying to change others opinions.
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
It is perfectly fine for you to decided that you want to dedicate yourself to a relationship with one person. If you ask my opinion about the potential pitfalls along that approach, I'll tell you want I think [unreasonable.org], but tell you, "knock yourself out - whatever works for you".
It is not ok for you to decide that I should dedicate myself to a relationship with one person; you don't get to dictate what style of relationship makes me happy, any more that you get to decide what sort of music makes me happy. You are free to report your own experiences, preferences, even speculations: but when you attempt to tell me how I "should" love, you've left the realm of useful discourse. And when attempts are made through public policy to dicate how people "should" love, a sane society would hand those poltiicans a whuppin'.
Non sequitor. B & E is a violation of the rights of others; if my girlfriends and I decide to have open relationships, that's not a violation of anyone's rights.
What in the world does that mean, that you "have a problem" with other people's personal sexual choices? How does my choice cause you any problem?
I hear a lot more discussion and thought from the polyamoury community about the nature of relationships than I do from most folks, so charges of "shallow" fall flat. And I see honest non-monogamous models working quite for many people - certainly much better than the dishonest non-monogamous model that condemnation like yours pushes people into.
Again: whatever works for you, fine and dandy. But your opinions about the choices of others seem based on faulty data.
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
"...One of the concerns that Ms. Snyder's cooperating teacher, Nicole Reinking, expressed to Ms. Snyder throughout the semester was the importance of maintaining a professional working relationship with students and not to become overly familiar with them regarding her personal life. Among other things, Ms. Snyder had been inviting students to log onto her MySpace Web site, and Ms. Reinking counseled her repeatedly to stop doing so."
If this is the case, perhaps the school district and the university were quite well justified. In this case, the issue wasn't the website or the photo, but her conduct in the classroom and with the students related to the website. One might even say that her conduct was encouraging underage drinking not because she drank or took pictures, but because she in essence said to students, "Look, I'm cool, I get drunk at parties." That's much more nuanced than just the fact that she put the pictures up online since it involves actively promoting the pictures in the classroom.
Re:umm (Score:2, Insightful)
My experience with teachers is that they tend to party pretty hard. You don't know about that when you are 8, but by the time you are 12-14 you pick up on it pretty quick. Oral sex with a boyfriend is also pretty tame compared to what's happened at some of the TGIF parties they have after school :-)
As an aside, I think it's the requirement to act moral all the time that causes this behaviour. You see the same thing with police officers, lawyers, etc. People who can be themselves at work don't generally display a huge moral swing when the client leaves the building.
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is Pennsylvania, remember (Score:1, Insightful)
insight in the american psyche (Score:5, Insightful)
In my country, nobody would give a rats' ass if a teacher DId say she/he got drunk the night before. What, you think pupils or students are going to get traumatised? Seems to be going on a lot of traumas, lately, including 'online rape'. For Gods' sake; when are you guys going to get a grip? Your problems mainly stem just *because* you treat youth as if they were some alien beings who can have no idea what's the real world all about. Of course, they DO know all to well, but because of the paniced reactions everywhere, they never have learned how to deal with it in a normal fashion.
To be 21 before you can sip a glass of alcohol...meh; ridiculous. In most european countries, you can drink alcohol when you're 16. and when your parents let see sip from their beers, even when you're only nine, no-one makes any fuss about it - because it isn't. the rerality is, if ypou treat drinking beer as no big deal, and you let them taste it, they usually go: "yukkie, that's awful." and don't want to try it out anymore. Also, when you drink with kids in a social context (e.g. not binge drinking stuff), they are more inclined to follow that pattern. If you treat it as something special, it gets 'forbidden fruit' status, and if they only have peers to look how to act when confronted with alcohol, that's when shit happens.
In france, kids often drink 'table-wine' (wine with moderate alcohol-level) as a normal thing, in Belgium the same with table-beer, etc. do they have more drunks and alcohol-problems there, then in the USA with its 21-year law? Not at all. In fact, the prevalence of problematic drinking (like binge-drinking) is way LOWER there than in anglo-saxon countries, where the restriction to alcohol is much more severe. The whole concept of 'save the children' in the USA has gone way overboard, to the detriment of the youths themselves.
In a reasonable country, the fact that a teacher was drunk has nothing to do with her professionalism *unless* she was drunk during the course of her work, obviously. But if she got drunk outside her professional hours, even if she puts hundreds of photos about it on the net, it doesn't say anything about her capacities as a teacher. It's the same crap and obsession of the USA with irrelevant nonsense as back with Clinton getting a blowjob, over and over again. What you do in your private life - EVEN if it comes out in the open (as long as it's legal) - DOES NOT and SHOULD NOT have any bearings on how you are treated while exercising your profession.
In the USA, I wonder if a teacher can say something which is scientifically true but socially/politically-incorrect, like stating that moderate consumption of alcohol is actually healthy. These days, especially in the bible-belt states, I think no teacher can say that without risk of being fired or being severly reprimanded. Please correct me if I'm wrong in this. That obsession of weeding out the political incorrect and having to 'cry wolf' with all the other wolves (the prevailing mentality) is sickening.
In summary:
1)Drinking is no big deal
2)Posting pics about it is no big deal
Conclusion: as long as whatever she does is not illegal and does not affect her actual professionalism in the classroom, there is no reason why she should be treated the way she was. And even if it was illegal and did affect her teachings, then still it should be determined if it was severe enough to warrant the withdrawal of her diploma.
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it really that hard to believe that people who hold certain opinions and then attempt to force those beliefs onto others really are shittier people?
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
Woman (and I guess men) only care about themselves. If you want to get a woman, simply spend the whole time talking about them and stuff which concerns them. It's easy.
Unfortunately, it is also extremely boring! But that's how you get girls. simple!
Re:umm (Score:5, Insightful)
And that, right there, is what I find most terrifying. People think that an arational theocracy is OK, if the beliefs that it's imposing on others is "good" in their estimation -- meaning that it's their set of beliefs. Of course, What's "good" is highly subjective. There are a lot of people in the world who think that Sharia law is just fine and dandy, and we'd all be a lot better if we buried cheating women up to their heads in sand and stoned them to death. Once you've accepted the premise that arationality is acceptable in government, it's just a matter of degree how far you decide to go in impressing your superstitions on everyone else. You may draw the line at just telling people who they can have sex with, while someone else may go further and tell them what clothes they can wear -- there's no difference in kind there, just of degrees.
Either you reject theocracies on premise, or you have to accept nearly all of them, since there is no rational basis for presuming that any one set of superstitions is superior to any other.
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
Moral reasons are not why we have laws; laws are passed to ensure the safety and stability of society. We prohibit theft not because taking from others for your own benefit is immoral (we actually have laws explicitly designed to take from some groups and give to others), but because if people cannot be assured of the fruits of their labors they would be less inclined to be productive. Thus, the Church and other groups oppose promiscuous sex not by saying that it is immoral or shallow, but on the grounds that it produces a population of children without a father figure (which it is then presumed makes them less able members of society). Arguments against the use of birth control attempt to maintain this social cause to discourage sex for pleasure, despite technological developments making it not a social issue.
Re:So what they're saying here is... (Score:3, Insightful)
My wife and I are working on having a spawn of minions right now and I fully expect that it will be "informational tidbits you learn at school, thinking you learn at home". Not because the teachers can't teach it, but because they don't have time. I am just mildly bitter because I feel I got a leg up on life because of a few teachers who really cared and made me learn to think, once I knew how to think, and how to find answers actually "learning" anything became exponentially easier.
"Condoning" (Score:5, Insightful)
- Wearing a seatbelt is not "condoning" unsafe driving.
- Putting up a lightning rod is not "condoning" thunderstorms.
Anyone who uses that reasoning is seriously confused.Similarly, teaching kids about how their reproductive system works, and about contraception, is not "condoning" promiscuity, any more than teaching someone about locks, safes, and keys is "condoning" thievery.
Certainly, promiscuity provides a disease vector, both for diseases we know about, and ones we don't yet.
So does sneezing.
Humans appear to have a limited ability to resist either of these urges. So for one we have condoms, and for the other, Kleenex(tm) (or your elbow).
Do these same people argue that we shouldn't have tissues, because you should instead fight the urge to sneeze?
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
I think those kids are missing out on a lot of fun times that they could be having if they didn't have their head so far up God's ass and if they went to a normal university, but that's their own choice to make. I can see one of those schools being within the bounds of their authority to withhold a degree from someone caught drinking alcohol.
I agree. While personally, the idea of going to such a place holds about as much appeal to me as does being put in a burlap sack and beaten with a piece of rebar for several years, if that's what someone really wants to do, more power to 'em. (That goes for both activities -- hanging out with a bunch of crazy Christers or getting beaten with rebar.)
However, the problem that occurs is when people like that, who have spent their lives doing their religious thing, decide that nobody else should have any fun, either, and begin trying to impress their value system on society as a whole. Now, I'm not saying that all religious people do that, but a sizable percentage of them seem to, and that's just not acceptable.
Re:umm (Score:2, Insightful)
k Strategy [calstatela.edu] civilistions have the technology to defend themselves from R strategy [calstatela.edu] ones, the question is whether they actually recognize the threat. If they don't see themselves as being better, and don't see k Strategy values as being worth fighting for, then they will likely be overwhelmed
Re:umm (Score:3, Insightful)
Why are you so sure that your "sisters" are so ignorant/"uneducated" of the alternatives?
If you think the straight can/should change their preferences, maybe you're not so much different from those who think the not-straight can/should change their preferences. Like those "annoying guys trying to convince lesbians to be straight/bi".
Many lesbians want others to respect their choices, I figure the choices of their straight and maybe not-so-straight sisters should be respected too.
I'm a straight guy and I respect the choices of straight, bi and lesbian ladies to NOT prefer me
Why try to apply logic (Score:2, Insightful)
From information gathered after reading other sources on this issue, it seems that Ms Snyder's issue stems from one of her advisers at the school where she did her student teaching had found the photo and reported it up to her student adviser at Millersville. The adviser at Conestoga Valley High School (where Stacey had apparently been described as "one of Millersville's finest graduates") called Stacey to tell her that there was an "issue" with the picture and Stacey's adviser at Millersville told her that she "might lose her teaching certificate" over the issue.
Millersville's mascot is a pirate. In modern pop culture, the "drunken pirate" is ubiquitous. Stacey's wearing of a pirate hat is not unexpected, due to her being a student at school where the mascot is, in fact, a pirate. Stacey is drinking from an opaque plastic cup whose contents cannot be discerned. If she was similarly dressed, drinking from the same cup, with the same caption, and the picture would have been of her DRIVING A SCHOOL BUS, then MAYBE there might be some validity to this knee-jerk reaction. Otherwise it's much ado about nothing. And that is EXACTLY the type of issue that those entrenched in a bureaucracy LOVE to champion; let's get behind a policy that sounds good on paper but is inherently flawed from the moment of it's inception. These guys have a bright future, if the college admin field doesn't pan out for them, then there is always the RIAA, the MPAA, or Microsoft. I'm sure there are quite a few more grandmothers out there to prosecute and persecute, more criminals to create.
I hope she sues these pretentious prigs into bankruptcy and expands her damage claim to include personally, the Dean of students at Millersville, her student adviser, J. Barry Girvin, and the adviser at Conestoga Valley High School. Further, if a single person in her graduating class accepts a degree from this so-called institution of higher learning then they are the worst kind of hypocrite, by demonstrating they actually know nothing of right and wrong and are too weak to make a stand based on conviction and reason.
Re:umm (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:umm (Score:2, Insightful)
Theft falls under that, promiscous sex does not.
Slashdot effect: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's unfortunate it comes down to needing one of the two for justice to happen.
Re:hmm (Score:3, Insightful)
Not that there aren't teachers with the Cartman Complex [(c) 2007 theckhd if nobody else has taken it yet!] who would go as far as to abuse their powers for petty, stupid reasons. I've seen a lot of those too. It's just not clear that this is necessarily one of them.
Jumping to conclusions, the Slashdot way! (Score:2, Insightful)
What we know:
From Millersville University's website [millersville.edu]:
The University claims that Snyder didn't receive her degree for academic performance issues. Snyder claims that she didn't because of the mySpace picture. I found another article [whptv.com] that said this:
So what it sounds like is that she got booted from her student-teacher internship at Conestoga for the photo. I assume that the Millersville then decided that because she didn't complete her internship, a requirement for graduation as a teacher, that she didn't merit a teaching degree. If there's any "mySpace police" in this story, it's not the university - it's a school, who can certainly have their own standards to which they require their teachers to uphold.
What we don't know:
1) We have no idea of Snyder's actual academic record at Millersville. She could very well have had a spotty record, and getting booted from an internship was "the last straw" for the Teaching Dept at Millersville. Or she could have had an exemplary record, and getting booted from the teaching program was a weird administrative requirement. Point is, we don't know.
2) We have no idea of whether or not Snyder could, if she chose to remain, complete another internship to get her teaching degree. All we know is that she can't get it *now* because of the internship. She could very well be able to re-do the internship, but is just too impatient and thinks that suing is easier than teaching. Or she may not be able to do that, and is totally screwed out of her degree. Point is, we don't know.
So, all I'm trying to say is that I think we're jumping to a whole lot of conclusions without enough facts.
Re:Die of dehydration? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Not a straw man (Score:1, Insightful)
Logically speaking, cows and pigs are much more intelligent and autonomous than the average newborn baby, so why is it okay to kill them and not the child?
Perhaps a good place to draw the line is if the creature can pass the mirror test [wikipedia.org]. If something is self-aware, it's wrong to kill. Makes sense. And human kids can't pass the mirror test until they're 1.5 to 2 years old, so that's where we should draw the abortion line.
If you say that humans deserve special consideration, then I'd say you're arguing out of emotion instead of reason.
Drawing the line at the second trimester is just as illogical as drawing the line at conception. It's just that the former is far more convenient.
(And I actually am pro-abortion. I'm just not a smug elitist about my arbitrary line in the sand.)
Re:Die of dehydration? (Score:3, Insightful)
WHERE ARE THE MODERATORS (Score:4, Insightful)
This comment is way way way way way off-topic. Seriously now. We're talking about underage drinking, freedom of expression, and puritanical outlooks on life that make no damn sense.
Who is out there modding this insightful? Come over here. You're 'bout to get stabbed in the jaw.
Re:umm (Score:2, Insightful)
2: I'm not trying to say that she was promoting underage drinking, I'm saying that that's what the university says she's doing. I mentioned that it is possible to promote something without doing it yourself. Example: If I make beer, and I use Bugs Bunny and other cartoon characters in the commercials doing plenty of drinking, I could easily find myself being accused of promoting underage drinking. The fact that I didn't depict kids drinking is irrelevant.
Again, I'm on her side. The university is out of line. But I didn't see enough devil's advocates weighing in, so I stepped up to the plate.
Re:Die of dehydration? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:insight in the american psyche (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, the whole thing is a sham. When the precious children turn 18, they are ripe for sending overseas with a gun, or thrown into jail for smoking crack. You see, the people in the US don't really care about the children as human beings, for if they did care, the children would be regarded with the same protective attitude when they reach adulthood. No. The people here care about the idea of children --- proxies for their own vanished innocence, naivete, potential, and youth.
Re:"Condoning" (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, so the normal natural healthy choice is more attractive. That is entirely a good thing.
Keeping your children healthy is well worth letting them see your tacit acceptance of their sex life, but don't pretend when you tell them "this is so you won't get sick when you have sex" that what they're going to hear isn't "have sex."
Which means what? Your kids will have sex. That's a fact. It's an entirely normal healthy thing.
So talking about how they *will* have sex is the only decent moral course of action.
Anything else is flat out lying.
Pretending it won't because *you* are too weak to deal with reality is an entirely *bad* course of action with no possible positives.
Re:Die of dehydration? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Die of dehydration? (Score:3, Insightful)
This woman wasn't even working though, she was a student finishing her teaching degree at a university. She was 27 years old when she was denied her degree, and 25 when the image was created that led to the denial of her degree. Her action was not illegal in any way, nor does it reflect anything that is generally societally unacceptable. Even worse, she was censored by the SCHOOL, not by an employer of any kind...
So employers do own us after all. (Score:3, Insightful)
We are also suppossed to behave in a way our feudal lords, sorry, employers, deem appropriate in accordance to their more out of office hours, in our private time.
Charming concept.