Slashdot Mirror
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."
2005 was 2 years ago, and she's 27 now, that makes her 25 in the photo...how is this underage drinking again?
In a world of acronyms, the words are the real victims.
No bullshit please, clearly she was denied her degree due to pressure from the RIAA. Dressing as a pirate and so on...
Arrr.
I would like to see the page in question, since "promoting" and "here's a picture of people with a beer" are two very different things (but of course, can be interpreted any way the viewer wishes). Sigh -- MySpace to the rescue of society's morals an ethics again...
A genuine re-use of the dumbestideaever tag!
She was granted an English degree and had her teaching certificate withheld. Also it appears more related to the 'Drunken Pirate'caption which accompanied the picture rather than the picture itself.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
But I must be thankful that the new wave of religious moralism has not (yet) arrived here from America... But sadly, I expect it to arrive very soon...
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
"It's OK for a drunken pirate to have a pretty useless degree, but we'll be damned if we're going to enable a drunken pirate to get a low paying stressful thankless job by giving them a certificate!"
Obviously ninja have infiltrated the schools administrative staff...
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
... and that picture says "Argh, matey, I'm mighty thirsty", but that's about it.
Perhaps some bored grad students at Millersville University, those who aren't working on OSS projects of course, will snap a few pic's of the University's administrators so others can jump to conclusions about them too.
Students only go to uni to leech movies and music and drink underage, getting a degree is just a bonus!!!
When I see clearly absurd stuff like this, I tend to wonder whether there are other aspects to the story that we're not being told about.
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'?
27 now, 2 years ago ... that makes her? 16? 33? ooooh gosh this is hard...
How is it promoting underage drinking if she was 4 years older than the legal age requirement?
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
so all my primary school teachers in the early 80's where really telling me how great it is to get smashed!! damn http://www.tremolocowboys.com/Lyrics_R/Rovers_Iris h_Lyrics/Drunken_Sailor_Song_Lyrics.html
I knew someone was to blame
I thought I was the only one who got hammered off those Goodbar shooters. Whew, that's a relief.
I looked at the picture. I shows an obviously of-legal-drinking-age adult woman in a pirate hat drinking from a plastic cup with no indication of the contents of said cup. How this promotes underage drinking is beyond my ability to comprehend.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
Well.. that's what the cup says anyway. No sign of beer or stronger stuff. It's not even hot coffee.
The only reason I could think of to punish her is for the bad pirate costume, and the fact that the plastic cup is out of character.
For fucks sake, you think she needs counselling or an ethics class over a picture of her in a pirate hat drinking a cup of drink?
-M
# grep slashdot access.log | grep html | sort | uniq | wc -l 2604
Isn't it obvious? People who are underage may only drink from clear, plastic bottles! By using a cup, she was promoting drinking from opaque liquid carrying devices.
Hmm, there has to be more to the story than the picture..
That's an opaque cup and could contain ANYTHING.. (Even DiHydrogenMonoxide, insidious stuff that it is..)
If the picture is all the University powers-that-be went on.. They deserved to be slammed for everything
she can get out of them.. If there's more to the story, (and NOT fictional documentation by the school),
then she's got another issue.
Good luck to Mrs. Snyder..
Rocketman56
She just needs to claim she's a Pastafarian. Arrr!
Where our school taxes run deep, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh are leeches and our governor is doing his best to increase the New Jerseyfication of the state.
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?
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
While I agree that the school is acting outside of there bounds, why is it that people are still so obsessed with posting there "party" pictures on the web?!? Does anyone really care? If all of this says anything to me it's this. Now that the web is made up of "user generated content" it is staring to feel a little too much like MTV. Does anyone remember when the internet and computers where un-cool and we spent all of our time talking about why Picard could kick Kirks ass?
Someone gets a +5 for saying
"listen, now that we have the internet, there's no privacy anymore, ok? If you want some hotsy-totsy job or career or livable wage, then stop going out, having a non-Disney social life and letting people take pictures of you, I mean jeez. If I can do it, so can you."Sorry, I guess I've been reading slashdot(myspace/privacy) discussions for too long. I hope the woman gets the degree she actually worked for. Unfortunately, If the photos are a problem for her students, she'll be the first to know about it.
Now, I disagree completely with what has happened here, but wanted to clarify some things...
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...
I got fired from my job as a kindergarten teacher because I was a part time pete townsend impersonator.
If anything, they should have just reminded her to quietly take down the picture, so she would not go through the hell of having her students find out about her 20-something escapades.
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.
Looks like a fairly opaque cup to me. Sue the bastards. Then sue the school district for defamation of character. That ought to teach the fundies (and the people who kowtow to them) to mind their own fucking business.
Your sig(k) has been stolen. There is a puff of smoke!
(1) Arrested in the hospital for public drunkenness and underage drinking after you are taken to the hospital for alcohol poisoning a day before your 21st bday. This actually happened to a friend. I guess that it's far better to let students with alcohol poisoning choke on their own vomit than go to the hospital and risk getting arrested.
(2) Arrested for felony riot for telling a cop who had just hit a fellow student in the face at a Red Cross benefit show that he'd be better off helping clean up NYC after 9/11 than harrassing students who ARE actually trying to help. This actually happened to me a few weeks after 9/11/2001, and fucked with my life for the next few years (difficult to get a job, probation basically required for me to move out of state).
In short; to Hell with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the puritanical prigs who seem to run the government and apparently non-governmental organizations as well.
-b.
In an era of instant information and broader access to it, this lady should have been more careful. Forget the moralistic implications for a minute, because clearly there's nothing immoral about what she did, as an adult.
But for crying out loud. She's trying to be a school teacher... in contact with children. Obviously she wouldn't drink beer and wear a pirate suit in the classroom... but is this the image she wants to communicate with your classroom, who surely will see this at some point in time? How about the parents? How are they going to feel, knowing that she's a party girl? I'm not so sure they would want an "uptight" person as their kid's teacher, but how about someone who might be coming to work all hung over, or at a minimum, "unfocused" on occasion?
Not only should she be thinking about the parents, how about a prospective employer?
If I were a school district, not only would I be thinking about the drinking and partying, I would also be looking at what appears to be an out-and-out "I don't give a damn who sees this" attitude.
I wish her well in the lawsuit, but I think that if she really wants this career, she should take the following steps:
1. Take down all the party stuff from her MySpace page, and anywhere else that portrays her in this unfavorable light.
2. Take a year or two off, let the story fade.
3. Build a new, more serious and mature image.
4. Reassess and if teaching is still in the cards, then pursue it.
5. (No "????") Have fun, have a good career, and enjoy life, just don't be irresponsible and flaunt something that can damage your career and reputation.
6. Profit (from being successful).
Good luck.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
Would be nice if some other school would step in and issue her a teaching certificate.
After she's done suing MySpace, she can sue Anheuser Busch for making the beer... ABC showing cool commercials, and so on... I say sue em all. Then sue /. for posting her (by then) copyrighted name without her consent.
Infiltrated dot Net
and show them your pictures, or put them somewhere on a website of yours so that they can see them no matter how far apart you are?
I am from and live in, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has a strange attitude towards alcohol. It is remarkably easy to get a license to serve alcohol yet liquor is a state run enterprise. It is kind of a schizophrenic balance of control and freedom. If only you should have seen the public outcry when the state liquor store was going to have hours on Sunday. I was vaguely amused because many of those in the public outcry, I am sure, went to buy a bottle of wine on Sunday. This girl is going to win her lawsuit, hands down. What Millersville University did was attempt to flex its muscle. In doing so, that attempt just went way too far and will end up generating negative publicity for an otherwise, fine state school. I hope Millersville's administrators are arrogant and blind enough to see this to a public venue. Universities are supposed to be about academic freedom and thought freedom . . .or maybe once upon a time they were. The egregiousness of this is simply shocking.
Sometimes, I really dislike the behavior of some of my fellow Americans.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
Nonsense, there nothing wrong with drinking or posting a picture of you doing it. The only thing that would justify their claim is if there were children around her during the drinking - in the picture or described in the caption/accompanying text. There is nothing morally wrong with dressing up for Halloween and having a few drinks with friends and sharing your good times with your online friends. If glamorizing is defined as not doing it in a closet with the lights off where no one can see - guess its time to move to Canada cause who wants to live in a country like that. Whoever made this decision should lose their job IMHO. I leave it as an exercise to the reader to find a picture of our current president with a beer in his hand (hint: try google image search, a name, and the word drinking). Hope shes wrings them dry in the courts and uses some of the money to gets drunk on them.
I was crazy back when being crazy really meant something. (Charles Manson)
"It's OK for a drunken pirate to have a pretty useless degree, but we'll be damned if we're going to enable a drunken pirate to get a low paying stressful thankless job by giving them a certificate!"
Errr, no. What they're saying is "It's OK for a drunken pirate to have a pretty useless degree, but we'll be damned if we're going to enable someone who (in our opinion) can't show proper discretion with alcohol to be around children where her lack of good judgment could have a significant negative impact".
Given the number of teachers/parents who've been busted of late giving/allowing their school age kids access to alcohol, this isn't exactly shocking. And no, I'm not saying it's the right thing to do, simply saying that you have to look at the context in order to start to understand why the officials are thinking the way they are.
If she has not represented that it was her page (i.e., either in legal documents or with emails that say "hey, look at my mypsace page at http:///") can they definitively prove that it was either her page or even a picture of her?
If not, and the certificate prohibition still stands, then I think that a new Fark contest could be photoshopping the administrators who took steps to relieve her of the teaching certificate into, um, "compromising positions."
Heh-heh.
Obviously, she's a Pastafarian - pirate costume says it all. She's been touched by his noodly appendage!
And to think that the Flying Spaghetti Monster started as a protest to the Kansas Board of Education... conincidence or cons.piracy? You be the judge!
Is a "Hooters University". All the teachers are hot chicks who dress skimpy and pass out hot wings between classes.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Fuck this shit is just amazing.
She did nothing illegal, yet was still denied a license to teach?
Moral Oppression of the people?
Sad.
So when Muslims oppress based on their virtues its bad? But when its done on some crazy fundamentalist christian virtues, its A-OK and cost someone her future job. Ahaha, oh jesus-on-a-stick thats crazy.
Ok, so as I see it, the 'problem' is this: They say they won't give her a teaching degree because the very fact that she was *photographed* with a cup of beer in her hand makes her an unacceptable teacher. You can't do that. This institution cannot impose it's own moral guidelines on it's graduates regarding something that is completely LEGAL. Well, maybe they can, but they can also lose their ACC accreditadion. What if she had been photographed smoking, or watching a rated-R movie, or any other number of legal activites? You can't just deny someone a degree they have worked for years to get, just because you don't approve of their personal choices. I hope she sues the pants off of this college and they award her triple the sum she's asking for. This is blatantly immoral and wrong of the college and I hope they learn their lesson.
Why is a 25 year old using Myspace anyhow? Maybe she needs to grow up a bit? Suing for $75k - how does she come to this number? She still got a degree. Get over it.
Stop by and watch a Christmas movie, commercial or cartoon! -->http://www.XmasDVD.com
Arrr.IAA?
How are they going to feel, knowing that she's a party girl?
Yeah, because only the truly debauched party at Halloween.
At some point, somewhere, the entire internet will be found to be illegal.
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?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
- Picture at a Halloween party - Picture in a plastic pirate's hat - School in question has a Pirate mascot - Cup in hand from a LOCAL CANDY COMPANY (Hershey, you listening to the disparagement of your products? How about taking a position on this?) - no indication if the stuff in the cup is more than water - Of legal drinking age (anyway) - fully dressed - no sign of intoxication, etc. - denied teachers certification on PICTURE discussed above????? SUE THEIR ASS FOR: - Tuition Reimbursement (Student AND any and all Children's education at a reputable school) - Lost Wages - Attorney's Fees - Defamation of Character - Pain and Suffering of the Student - Pain and Suffering of her children - Mocking the 'educational institutions of PA' - Defaming Hershey products (the REAL crime in PA) - Mocking of all other students of the school as 'Goody Two Shoes without a life.'
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
Coming from a guy that is overweight has terrible taste in web site colors, scamming his visitors for his pile of shit web site and quite obviously a pill popping faggot you got a lot of nerve making those assumptions.
The real problem is that there is a generational shift in attitudes and opinions in the US. And it scares the shit out of the older crowd. People have more sex, drink more freely and are generally more open about everything. Honestly, if I were a parent I'd reserve judgment for those teaching my kids based upon my childrens progress and learning. It scares me that so many people think that children should somehow get their morals from people they'll see actively for maybe a year or two. Any kid that bases his decision to drink on what his teacher did in a photo on myspace deserves the hangover.
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.
I don't care what you say, all I need is my Wumpabet soup.
You mean she was denied her degree because of that pic? How the F!@K is that promoting underage drinking especially if she was 25 at the time. Second of all what was the university doing going through myspace? Third of all they're going to have to do better than that because how the f!@K can you see that she's drinking an alcoholic breverage? For all we know, she can be drinking milk, water, juice. So it wasn't because she was promoting underage drinking, that is the excuse that the university is using for like the other thread said she was wearing a pirate outfit and someone at the university didn't like it. Well so what, she has a life for god sakes, and obviously the university thinks you shouldn't. I hope someone from the university is reading this thread and if so let me be the first to say, "Not only should you award her degree, you SHOULD pay her back every dime she paid to attend your fu!@ing university to begin with, plus extra" Well I just needed to add this little bit, because I just think that's totally obsurd to do that to someone.
... and to me this one says "I could teach you many great things, not just social studies or history!"
And I'm sure she could make a lot more money that way, too...
Have EVDO, will travel.
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.
Perhaps she was asked to take the photo down, and refused. Perhaps she then launched into a tirade about how she should have the right to encourage kids to drink, and told them how she got a load of underage frat boys drunk and how she liked to drink and it never caused a problem, and alcohol keeps the kids relaxed (and please don't shout I've got a hangover). The board realised that she really shouldn't be teaching with this attitude, so they took this action. They don't comment on these matters and she contacted the newspapers and spun it as being all about the photo.
Not saying this did happen, but if it did then how would we know?
^^^^^ Aforementioned black man, trying to lay low.
clearly a ninja conspiracy.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
Not only do I hope she wins, I hope the Jury/Judge slaps the University with several million in punitive damages.
It wasn't all that many years ago that drinking at any age was acceptable and normal. Only since clean drinking water and pasteurized milk has been available (200 or so years?) has alcohol NOT been the normal drink.
Comments Page: http://www.millersville.edu/comments.php
So... before graduation do the professors have a big get-together and look up all their students' myspace profiles? Was one of her teachers a stalker? What the hell was their motivation for looking up her myspace page in the first place?
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.
I am not a crackpot.
Where I live most teachers fresh out of college make a whopping $24-27K/year. So I'm not exactly sure what "private sector" you're referring to, but if I had to guess it'd be the manager of your local bowling alley.
Back to the article in question . . . our society has become way over-reactive about this type of thing. Last time I checked, teachers are human (most of them anyway) and have every right to dress up like a freakin' drunken pirate (is there anyother kind?) if they want. Heck, I'd encourage it. It might've made 8th grade English more interesting.
Sheesh people, chill out and let folks live their lives.
Her school is doing nothing more than punishing her except it happens to be near graduation. There isn't a free for all buffer around graduation if you violate the school policies close to graduation you may well get punished just like it was the middle of the year and get kicked out. I can't speak for her schools but there are schools that kick students out for having pictures like hers, she did something that would have gotten her kicked out if it was seen in October and now that it's May she is getting punished for it. The punishment shouldn't change because it's close to graduation. School policy doesn't read no drinking between September and March in April its ok to drink since we won't be able to punish you in the same way we could in October. She did something that was a violation of policy and the school is carrying out a standard punishment. Yes a few questions are raised: 1) Is a myspace photo of you being a drunken pirate equal to promoting underage drinking? 2) Is a myspace photo of you being a drunken pirate equal to public intoxication? 3) How should colleges handle discipline shortly before graduation? If I get drunk in October I would get kicked out of school but what should happen 5 days before graduation if I get drunk?
Something isn't right with this story and I don't think we know both sides of the story yet. This whole MySpace, Facebook, etc... crowd is probably hurting themselves more by using these services than doing good. I know that my company checks all of the "social networking" sites when someone applies for a job and more times than not, their online profiles cast them in a negative light.
Now before anyone accuses me of being a prude, I've done most things shown on myspace. I had a great time at college(s). There is a time and place to be crazy. When it's time to look for a job it would be best to clean up the online profiles or at least make them private.
Nick
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
Millersville's mascot is a marauder. She's basically just showing school spirit--that Mr. Goodbar cup probably contains grog.
I didnt know ...
Im sure blackbeard, captain blood, francis drake, hawkins and others would disagree.
Read radical news here
By that reasoning (fhink of teh childwen) what the hell would you do with THIS GUY?
No, it's like eating a plate of food, you retarded asshole. Learn the difference between nouns and verbs.
Le français vous intéresse?
> I know plenty of people that are just about to go into the workforce as engineers that have WAY worse photos on facebook.
Insensitive clod! Links?
Several people I know from HR have mentioned that the act of looking at websites with the intention of looking up applicants is not legal. This is because the hiring agent has a chance to learn more about the applicant than they should know for job purposes such as age, if they are married, have kids, are homo/heterosexual, have drinking problems etc. All of these are questions that cannot be asked in an interview because they could possibly lead to discriminating against the applicant. The same becomes true if someone researches an applicant online.
The young lady in the story has a very strong case for discrimination, maybe the people who originally saw the page are against drinking, or maybe they felt that she has a drinking problem and might come to work drunk. So because of their personal feelings towards alcohol they presented a case to have her teaching credentials stopped. The plaintiff has a strong argument because proving that you were not discriminated against is pretty difficult.
I know that many companies do use websites to investigate future employees, but when it happens you don't ever admit to it. Or you open yourself up to the same kind of lawsuit.
Which leads one to believe that the university was being pressured from the district to do something about her and let them save face. Presumably the district feels they're in a position of enough power (taking on most of their students for their student teaching assignments?) that they could do this.
However, if you look at the response from Conestoga Valley, available on their website here, they state that's untrue, and include some more information not linked in the Washington Post article, including what they claim is the offending Myspace blog post which is not the picture hosted by thesmokinggun.com which the WP article links to. It could be a little damning towards her if you believe the district that she was actively encouraging the kids to go to her Myspace page, but then, not knowing what her page is (I would imagine by now it's either been deleted or locked down anyway) it'd be hard to say whether the content therein is really unacceptable for the students to see.
One quote from their response troubles me to some degree though, from her cooperating teacher, Nicole Reinking:
Certainly that can be taken any number of ways, some good, some bad, but taking it simply at face value, it saddens me to see where education has gone these days. Growing up in rural Maine (not that there's really any other kind of Maine
Regardless, in the end I'm a little surprised and frightened that a university feels they have the ability to do this. That after someone has paid them tens of thousands of dollars for their education, and has presumably satisfactorily completed the academic requirements, they can one day before graduation tell you "Yeah, we're not going to give you the degree you wanted, have this English degree instead." What's to keep them from doing that to someone else because they don't like brunettes or people from Alaska? (Don't answer that, I know it's a stupid question.
On the other hand, teachers (just as any other people) should be able to openly, publicly party, drink, have wild promiscuous sex, and do any other legal activities as soon as their workday has ended - and not have to fear about her job or degree.
The school and parents can decide the rules for behaving and dressing in the classroom, but it's not appropriate, (IANAL) not legal, and not moral for them to have any say whatsoever about what she does in her private life.
And her private life (that's supposed to be none of her employers business) includes things that she does openly, in public places, or on the internet, or on public TV, as long as they are allowed by law.
I'm very positve that the parents of most of the kids she's going to teach, were engaded in sexual intercourse! What can you expect from children, whose parents engage in sexual intercourse?
Doesn't matter if they are taught by someone who drank alcohol. They are lost anyway.
Have they looked? She's drinking from a cup of Goodbar chocolate milk!
I see your point about a teacher creating the proper image both in and out of the classroom. But for crying out loud, what to expect a 20 something person to do in her spare time? Do you expect her to spend her weekends crocheting, or out with her friends having a good time like every other person her age?
OK, maybe it wasn't the best judgement for her to put a picture up of herself having a good time on the web for everyone to see. (We wouldn't want to ruin our fantasy of teachers spending their weekends crocheting). The original picture had a caption under it which said "Drunken Pirate", which some could construe that implies that it's fun to get drunk. Personally, I think it's just a silly joke, and a silly joke the likes of which any kid (who has internet access and some freedom) has already been exposed to 100's of times.
I think a lot of this problem is due to a culture clash. Kids and young adults are used to putting up pictures and stuff on the web to share their good times with their friends. Older adults aren't used to this, and make too big a deal about it. To some extent the older adults are trying to impose their order (and view of how the world should be) on the younger generation. Same story with every generation.
"Class of 2005":
Carla, Brian and Phil: IP Lawyers
Dental surgeons 'Be' and 'Mole'
'Tone-toke': Astrophysicist
Messy Mel: Brain surgeon
'Liz': Senator
Wufus: Neurologist
Lighten up Millersville, sheesh
This whole trend of trying to regulate what people do on their on their own time is getting totally out of hand. In business, government and academia. Why would it be so hard just for everyone to accept that some of their employees are going to do embarrassing things and sometimes end up on the internet? Or that they're going to hold political opinions that might not be shared by their employer?
If it were up to me, as long as it's not illegal it shouldn't be grounds for termination. Everyone's all for free speech as long as it doesn't apply to their employees or students. Baloney. Time to grow up and accept that people are allowed to say and do things you might find distasteful, even if you're their employer. Unless it's a threat of violence or libel, free speech should win out over corporate image.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
My gut reaction to this story is "there's gotta be more to this." Also, my gut wants a Choco Taco.
Maybe it's more like grubing a plate of grub?
All people who drink, especially when they are over the age of 21, are promoting underage drinking. Drinking makes you look like a cool adult to underagers. Underagers want to be cool adults; therefore, you MUST be promoting it. Infallible logic fellas.
stopped her from experiencing years of unadulterated misery as it gradually dawned on her that a) school is prison and b) those who are condemned to live shall have their heads stuffed.
Universities should do this on a grand scale - helping to eliminate this sort of thinking in a single generation. Next target will be people who "walked on the cracks in the pavement", people who look "funny"and anyone who says "bottom".
Posts, MyBio or Sig, may contain satire, sarcasm, bolded nouns be sardonic or even witty & be Church of SD
That is just a statement of fact. If you decide to drive drunk, have unprotected sex, or even speed it can ruin your life and or somebody else's.
Getting kicked out of a university for drinking a beer seems extreme but are they expelled for life or just a semester? If it was just a semester and it was a published rule then hey he decided that a beer was worth getting kicked out. He is in university now not kindergarten.
Now the kid the got put into a special school for making a game map of his high school is just wrong. What rule did he break? What crime? None that I know of.
As for the merry days of hippie culture? They are a myth. Many women ended up being single parents when the summer of love was over. Then you have the Rolling Stones deciding that Hell's Angels make great concert security... The 60s where at time of self indulgent drivel that went on into the 70s and ended with the mega greed of the 80s. Do the math if you want proof. 18 in 1965 28 in 1975 38 in 1985. The end result of hippie culture is the greed is good culture of the 80s.
Everything looks better in retrospect.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
The thing I see is a woman with a mock pirate hat on, drinking from a cup. What's in the cup? Tea, milk, water, pop, juice...
There are millions of drunk college kids who graduate every year...
This is a lesson to everyone who goes to parties and has someone take their picture. Wearing a pirate hat while holding a cup and giving the "peace" sign constitutes underage drinking no matter what age you are. Beware, peace sign giving, cup holding, pirate hat wearing can lead to harder things like Tumbler holding and even beanie wearing. Just say no kids.
... but wasnt the American President George W. Bush known to snort a good deal of coke back in the day??? Not two mention both of his dumbass doughters and their love for lady alcohol. They deny a simple girl her precious certificate and yet you make a mentally challenged former cokehead one of the most powerfull people on earth? This scrares the s**t out of me :s
Go figure...
Plaintiff's Requests for Production of Documents
1. Any and all photographs of any member of the faculty possessing or consuming alcohol.
2. All receipts for alcohol purchased for any university event.
3. A list of all meetings, including times and locations, with any representative, administrator, or board member of the Conestoga Valley School District, including but not limited to dinners, lunches, and receptions.
YIIALBIANYL. GYOGDL. YMNO.
News Flash:Hyperbole
Because someone says "all" doesn't mean they mean "all" or "every". It would be like myself saying "I always catch a ball if it's thrown at me". It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that they don't mean 100%, but most people have the common knowledge that birth control is around 99% effective(if taken properly), which for some people is "good enough" to constitute the use of the word "all".
You don't need to be a technical Nazi to also understand that his statements are in quotes and are meant to give more of a narrative 'human' response and is not meant to be a technical specification for research analysis. Or did you forget you're posting on /.?
Um... No. At least, it can go too far in the other direction. It's so hard to fire a teacher in New York that there's a building where they send teachers who they can't possibly keep in a classroom with children. The worst of the worst, I suppose you might say. They get paid, because they can't be fired, but they're not teaching anything, and it wouldn't be responsible--or even safe--to let them.
I go to Millersville, and am an Education Major there as well. They DID NOT take away her degree, the STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA did. It's part of the "PA State system of teaching and ethics." Millersville did NOT find the photos, the teacher for Conestoga valley did. She did not lose her degree, she lost her certification (which she didn't have yet, it would be like failing student teaching).
This student WAS WARNED on several occasions to take down her pictures, she did not, thus the consequences.
When you sign up to be an education major, you basically agree you will not make any posts, including pictures, or videos that show you drinking, using drugs, etc... something a student in your school would find. She posted the picture with the caption "drunkin pirate".
There have been many other students that have been denied their education certifications base on many smaller factors, so her case is no different. Why make an exception for her?
She's a single mother, with 3 kids working as a nanny, she's looking for upwards of a 1/2 million dollars. Which is absolutely ridiculous.
I hope any judge throws this case out the window.
Ok, so ... how to rip this apart... ... drinking age in the US is 21... making her 4 yrs older than the legal limit... now, I'm not a major in math (so my math here could be... ok, so it's not wrong :P) but surely... being over the legal age makes one legally allowed to drink at a party .. ... if she went to work in a school and offered a child some alcohol then fine, sack her... but until then she's done nothing wrong (innocent until proven guilty!) :)
1... She's 27, this was 2005.. making her... 25
2... she's drinking coolaid. (proove it)
3... There has to be some obscure state law where she is allowing pirates to consume rum after 7pm or something! I mean, hell in Morrisvill, PA You need a permit to wear make-up if your a woman Here
4... It should not be the place of the educational intitution to decree what is morally acceptable for an adult, it is for society as a whole to judge
I'm sure someone will add more funny reasons why this is going to get laughed out of court.. should be entertaining to see
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.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Having a wife in education, and after reading this article (http://bbsnews.net/article.php/20070502234811315) , I would agree with the discipline of the student teacher. My wife is going through something very similar now, where a student teacher posted very negative comments about a student on her myspace page. It would seem there is more to the issue here than just a picture of a woman drinking. All of you reactionaries who are declaring that puritanism is back, really need to research beyond the submitter's original submission. The aforementioned news story from the town this occurred in says this woman encouraged children to have personal contact with her outside of school. That's a no-no for any school district, and common sense for any teacher because of all the problems that can occur. This wasn't just about myspace, it was about maintaining a proper student-teacher relationship, something that will impact this woman's future in teaching.
Actually, not always. The groups that breed like cockroaches don't necessarily invest heavily or even much in their offspring. r-K selection is an aspect of natural selection described by one of two extremes. In an r scenario, high volume, high churn is the name of the game: produce as many as fast as possible and some will live to reproduce. In a K scenario, emphasis is on a longer development and is more useful in a more stable environment: produce only a few, but make sure they're really good.
These strategies apply to primates as well.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
It would have been really easy for her to turn this around and sue for some ridiculous amount of money, but $75k is pretty modest for the most part. Probably the same amount that one would spend getting a teaching degree from a private institution.
Cigars.
And lying about it.
Ok, so "smoking" isn't completely accurate... but you get the picture.
(Shudder.)
Ok, DON'T picture it...
It was the fact that she repeatedly encouraged students to visit her myspace page, even after she was told to stop. In so doing she was not maintaining the line between her personal and professional life.
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.
Having read some of the associated articles, it sounds like her mentor at Conestoga HS had told her that she had to maintain a more professional image in front of her students. There was apparently a specific objection to her maintaining a MySpace web presence that was visited by at least one student. Presumably the pirate photo was used as an example of this broader behavior.
My thinking is that social networking through MySpace and similar web sites, and also blogging, are too new for anyone to be making determinations about what constitutes appropriate behaviors on them. However there is clearly one teacher at Conestoga HS who has decided that it is unprofessional for a teacher to have such a web presence that students could easily access; that this bordered on fraternizing with the students. And this one teacher has been able to persuade the credentialing body at uni to withhold her Teaching Certificate.
I think it is unfortunate that any representative of the teaching profession feels that the only contact a professional teacher should have with any student is in the classroom. This is a confusion of specific, limited roles (teacher, student) with the holistic individuals who play those roles for only a few hours a day, a few days each week. I think most teachers are bright enough to find other ways of using their professional persona, without crippling the other aspects of their life.
Having spent a miserable Senior year at Conestoga HS, I can state that it was one of the most overtly racist and class-conscious institutions I have encountered in my 50+ years. It is also the only place where I have ever heard faculty describe their institution as a "factory" whose purpose is to churn out "quality product". I can well imagine that faculty at Conestoga are having difficulty coming to terms with web technology, where the age, sex, race, style of attire, and other clues to social status of persons you might exchange emails with are not available.
Racism and class consciousness are not part of the internet experience: you, Dear Reader, have no clue to my race, social standing, etc, etc, beyond what I might choose to tell you (and even then you have no way to verify). The racism and class consciousness that so badly mars that part of Pennsylvania (the Main Line suburbs of Philadelphia) cannot survive without those little clues. People who willingly participate on the web are a direct threat to a very narrow and ugly way of life there.
I wasn't questioning her judgment for drinking and partying, but the fact that she posted it online for the whole world to see, including any prospective school (employer), it's students, thier parents, and others who may be interested.
I'm not suggesting that having a good time on your own time is wrong, by any stretch of the imagination. Rather, that she should have thought about the implications of publicly documenting her personal activities where it could come in potential conflict with that of her profession.
Like it or not, right or wrong, everyone makes judgements. And you sure as hell don't want to be on the wrong end of an unfavorable one from your employer, because that will hit you directly where you live.
As for your assessment of my original post as an "I have better judgment than you" attitude on the internet... the nature of your own response comes off to me as a proverbial Pot Calling The Kettle Black.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
...she's not demanding enough. $75,000 damages? In this day and age? In America? What sort of lawyers has she got? Let's add a couple of zeroes to that number - then we'll be talking about teaching the university a lesson it won't forget.
plausible denial.
> Isn't that what they call a straw man argument...
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.
How about you read the whole story and the STFU? What does it take to get you morons to stop jumping to conclusions? You're as bad as the fundies.
Anybody notice the article goes from stating "pictures" (as in more than one) to only mentioning the pirate picture. There could of been an overall "party" type theme to her myspace that would make the argument stronger. Of course I still don't see that as being enough to change her degree or even stop her from teaching. Everybody has skeletons in there closet but that shouldn't stop people from being able to have a certain career (just look at our last two presidents).
What's to say that this isn't water? Are teaching students supposed to swear off all liquids? Even assuming it is 120 proof grain alcohol, does that school have a rule against adult students drinking?
I keep thinking that Rod Serling is going to step out from behind a door and say, "A quiet campus in a quiet town becomes the stage for tragedy when teetotalers go on a witch hunt, in the Twilight Zone."
-- QED
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
It's because she was drinking coors and not the university approved beverage of choice...
I can't understand why people use these things. Myspace, facebook, whatever... they are all a big waste of time.
Valkyrie is about to die! Wizard needs food -- badly!
This reminds me of something in the news in Houston. A teacher and her principal are in hot water after the teacher took some leave to appear on the TV show "The Bachelor". It seems like a vocal minority of parents didn't want their kids being taught by some floozy. It just seems like the complainants, once their initial complaints are met by "no harm, no foul", are picking through technicalities looking for any possible ammo.
Your comment is truelly remarkable and gtives an idea of the completely screwed up mentality USa people have (at least, a part of it, and most likly the bible-belt part).
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.
--- "To pee or not to pee, that is the question." ---
I'm sure somebody has already covered it and it hasn't been modded up to the level I read at, but I'm glad I live in Australia where you can at least have a beer before you get sent off to die fighting for your country.
Yeehaw, you're 18! Drive a car, get married, stick a bun in the oven and then go to Iraq and blow away some dirty sand nigger terrorists, but don't you dare have even a drop of refreshing icy cold beer after a hard day's shooting in the desert heat until you're 21!
I shudder to think about the reaction these people would have upon being told that the high school I went to has a functioning vineyard and winery and teaches kids how to make wine. (A surprisingly scientific endeavour!) =]
Seems all that is really known is the girl's side of the story and whatever hearsay and sensatiolism can be drummed up stemming from the fact that this may involve MySpace.
/. has gotten us all hyped up about this and most automatically assume the school is in the wrong, I do hope they'll follow-up later--especially if the facts show that perhaps the school was in the right on this.
This statement seems to imply that there were a lot of other factors involved. Lies? Maybe. Who knows. I'm confident the court proceedings will bring the truth out though.
Since
The plastic cup clearly says "milk chocolate" on it. I fail to see how they determined that she was drinking alcohol.
Cress, cress, lovely lovely cress
I lvoe the fact that there is not a single acoholic refrence in that entire photo. I have to agree with most of the posters, this just goes to show that latly that any institution would rather screw over one of its students rather than deffend them. 10$ bucks says she is a good teacher but goes against the grain. She probly pissed off somer old friged woman who then complained, found the picture and with bible in hand set out to ruin this pore girls life. Teachers are hummans first, teachers second. They have sex, drink, and party just like the rest of use.
Not the sort of noodling I would be hoping for... http://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots0020.html
The MIT degree of student who embezzled nearly $100K from the student newspaper was revoked, and his convicted pre-degree associates lost all their course credits. However this is extremely rarely done only in the case of a campus-related felony conviction. I recall a similar debate about a Harvard student convicted of murder two years ago, and a Harvard freshemen who hid a teenage murder conviction on her application.
But we are just talking about a suggestive picture, no conviction in this case. The ridicule should be enough punishment.
Yeah, I'm sure she is the only person who ever got drunk while attending that college. I attended two colleges on the way to my degree, and I never saw anyone -- especially anyone under age 21 -- drink or get drunk.
Oh, wait.....
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
It looked cropped to me. Perhaps there's more to that picture? Or as the story seems to indicate, the University is completely clueless. I'd bet there are two sides to that story.
Now you can loose your job, degree and whatnot but you still have to repay the student load....
I hope she wins, I hope she nails their asses to the wall.
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
Donna Martin graduate! Donna Martin graduate!
Circa the late 1980's through early 1990's there was a teacher at Sun Valley High School in Aston, PA (very close to the Conestoga school district spoken of in TFA) who had posed nude in Playboy magazine. She had Playboy logo items on her desk. There was nothing scandalous about this, though it was considered a bit titillating. It really didn't get in the way of the educational process.
This photograph is far less damning than a nude spread in an adult magazine. The girl in question is holding a cup that might be iced tea for all we know. She's dressed in a costume, as many teachers choose to do in school on Halloween. Even if the cup contained beer, there is absolutely nothing scandalous about this photograph.
Why is this nation descending further and further into such prudish and impossible standards? How can we cry out for more people to take up teaching while holding them to very high moral/behavioral standards and simultaneously paying them so poorly?
I'm an IT guy who has considered bailing out of this line of work to take up teaching. But I do enjoy beer, and I do get a little crazy at St Patty's Day and so on. Hell, I even like brewing my own beer from time to time. So maybe I should look into some other line of work since beer is evil and so is adult partying.
It's just as simple as that.
If for anyone isn't, please, impeach President Bush because of allowance of his daughters actions involving alcohol and/or drugs. Ooops, and his own actions involving drugs and lottttsss of alcohol.
I had a young teacher, fresh out of uni, in high school. My friends and I would see him at the local punk and hardcore shows, with his wife, drinking and having a good time with his friends. Should someone who has a social life be considered unfit for teaching children?
How about the teacher that I would always run into at the grocery store. In her cart, she always had tampons and cat food. Should someone with cats and a bleeding vagina be teaching kids?
So how about the teacher who went to a party with some friends, and someone saw her there?
And how about the teachers who have pictures of them nude, clutching a bottle of Jack, and blowing a dog? So what if those pictures are not on the internet. Shouldn't school officials search every teachers house and personal effects to make sure that they only ever sit at home quietly?
Hell, I had an English teacher who was hated (because he was "too hard", which is code for "we don't like to read books") and consequently his address was known by a lot of his students, you know, so people could vandalise it, and so on. To put a stop to it, he would chase kids off his property nude and with a loaded shotgun. He was never fired, and went on to become my personal hero.
- 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?
- "History shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men" -- Blue Oyster Cult, 'Godzilla'
Obviously, if she'd just dressed up like a Ninja instead, everything would have turned out fine...
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
Some historians point to a declining birthrate as the cause of the fall of the Western Roman Empire. Decadence and homosexuality (which avoided children) caused massive drops in birth rates, and eventually Rome collapsed.
If you think about the economics of inheritence, it's even more stark. Now we split inheritence by all children (traditionally only male, or lesser shares for daughters), but the number of children determines the wealth build up. A family with 4 heirs will pass along half the wealth as a family with 2 heirs. The secular families not only fail to maintain their share of the population, they build up wealth quickly over a few generations. Now we have wealthy children with trust funds... they aren't likely to take up arms and defend Rome... Rome's vassal system of poor soldiers from slave colonies and client-kingdoms let by officers of Roman stock simply collapsed when there weren't younger sons of aristocrats willing to become officers searching for glory. Apparently with enough wealth, one need not have glory.
Not terribly ironic, how did the Abrahamic faiths spread to cover half the world. The rules are quite simple:
1. Take virgin wives, be fruitful and multiple with them
2. If you don't have a child within 10 years, she's infertile, dump her
3. Don't have gay sex (which doesn't create children), but have lots of sex with your wife/wives about 10 days after her menstruation (when she's fertile)
4. Never use birth control, keep having children
5. Preserve and build the community, the community trumps the individual
That is a methodoly for taking over the world.
Contrast that with the secular ethos:
1. Sex is fun, have it as much as you want as often as you want, preferably for years (the most fertile ones), but make sure to use a condom
2. Marriage is something risky, push it off a while, just keep having sex for recreation first
3. More education is better... Age 16 isn't enough, a high school diploma @ 18 isn't enough, a college degree at 22 isn't really enough, how about some grad school (24-28)... DO NOT GET MARRIED BEFORE YOU FINISH OR WE TAKE YOUR FUNDING AWAY
4. Start your career before starting a family, wait a few more years
5. Don't have more than 2 kids, you're a breeder and sucking up resources... Let's cap every woman at 2 kids, and not wonder what happens when not all women have kids
6. Spoil your children, so they push off real life an extra few years...
7. Oh, and gay sex should be idealized, not stigmatized, and considered an innate behavior
8. Screw the community, individual liberty is all that matters, whatever makes you happy.
Which one will take over the world in a few generations?
The only reason I bring up the gay sex is that while I don't really care what people do, it certainly isn't a precreation-supported behavior. While a certain amount of sexual desire is innate and certainly biological, there is definitely some social shaping of it... Bisexuality amongst women moved from taboo to "sexy" and a MUCH higher percentage of teenagers poll as "bisexual" than the general population... Doesn't mean that they are acting on it for real, but social factors can certainly influence behavior. A man who mostly feels urges towards men but occaisionally does towards women might be able to marry and have a family if under social pressure to do so, but if gay sex is an equally valid option will most likely go that route and probably be happier... if you goal is individual happiness, than gay rights is a civil right, if your goal is societal growth, then it's to be condemned (perhaps by
Don't assume that something is illegal just because it's unfair. A lot of stuff has been made illegal because it's unfair, but there's no general legal principle about it.
I'm not saying that there's no law that protects costumed education students from kneejerk moralized. But I can't think of one. And, I suspect, neither can you.
Unless you want to argue that this is religious discrimination. I mean, the woman certainly dresses like a Pastafarian...
At my school we had examinations at the end of every year. When we came to sit public examinations aged 16 it was not too big a shock. The head master gets to track progress. Progress of students obviously, but also of teachers. Did the class come on as well as expected? as well as they did in other subjects.
It seems very natural to test the pupils of a student teacher, before and after, and see it she has been successful during her school placement. Conestoga Valley have defamed Snyder by saying that she is a bad teacher. Presumably they intend to defend any resulting legal action by claiming that their defamatory comments are true, but there is no mention of any tests results. I wonder if the courts will allow teachers to be called good or bad without regard to whether their pupils learn?
A tad incompetent. They wait until virtually just before the certificate award to deliver the bad news. You'd'a thought they would would have spotted "bad apples" *way* before this point.
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
Do tell. Please, how exactly does my having more than one sexual relationship hurt anyone?
...and before you say "oh but I am always careful about birth control". Birth control is not 100% effective even when properly used. Would you let people ride motorbikes without helmets if they promised to be careful and not have an accident knowing that public health care (at least outside the US) would be footing the bill if they did have an accident?
Easy - if it results in kids then who is going to look after them? Chances are it will end up with a single parent family that will need considerable support from society and that means that the rest of us end up paying for your behaviour.
Now of course you could extend this type of argument to things like eating at McDonalds (at least in countries with public health care) so I am not AT ALL suggesting that laws should be changed outlaw such behaviour: everyone needs some freedom to choose their own life. However it is a fallacy to think that promiscuous behaviour cannot hurt society and so it is not unreasonable to expect other people to have an opinion about it.
I expect the reasoning behind this is that since she wants to be a teacher, everything she does is an example to kids. So drinking is promoting underaged drinking. Well, being 25 (or 27 now) she very likey has a drivers licence and owns a car, so she is promoting underaged driving as well. What makes matters even worse for her, she has two children. What signal does that give to underaged children, that it's alright to have sex?
Man, this woman is depraved! She should be jailed for life!
I sure they had absolutely no issue with the underage drinking issue. It was because of the hat she was wearing. Duh.
What's wrong with underage drinking?
When I was in school, I drank every single day, and you know what??? It kept me from getting thirsty!!!
SOMEONE needs to start thinking about our little tykes' thirst, and I don't think it would be a good idea to introduce intravenous watering mechanisms.
It's like they say. "If you don't say anything when they come for your water, what's to stop them from coming back for your food?"
Oh, wait a second! That's a Mr. Goodbar cup. Did you know those things have SUGAR in them??? She's promoting people eating SUGAR!!!
Sorry, I take it all back.
Why try to apply logic to a bureaucracy? They continue only through inertia, much like a totally off-topic thread on /...
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.
Is this modern times? Is this modern times the USA way? Or what is the reason for people reacting this way to photo's like this one?
Only if woman can survive
The peace sign has the palm of the hand facing the receiver.
That's actually the Australian and New Zealander equivalent of The Finger.
Which, BTW, Bush gave to the Aussies on his first tour. Gets off the plane, boom, up goes The Aussie Finger.
Imagine what would have happened if John Howard got off the plane in Washington and flipped y'all the bird? Jesus H. Christ, you guys probably would've nuked them back to the stone age!
Do daemons dream of electric sleep()?
WOW - Frivolous lawsuits STAND ASIDE and let this one through. I hate what our society is turning into.
My guess is getting Slashdotted is probably the best thing going for this woman. Two things can buy justice in American courts, money and eyeballs. Money makes the world go round and with the exception of certain eyeball cases is all that is needed for a victory. Eyeballs on the other hand guarantee that if a court gives a fucked up ruling they'll suffer for it.
It's unfortunate it comes down to needing one of the two for justice to happen.
The preceding post was not a Slashvertisement.
Legal age adult.
Picture from a Halloween party.
Dressed as a pirate.
Drinking from a 'cheerful' plastic cup with no indications of alcohol.
Once again, legal age adult allowed to drink alcohol photographed drinking an unspecified and unidentified substance, if you ASSUME the cup isn't empty. (A not uncommon event at parties when someone is about to take a picture.)
Caption reading 'Drunken Pirate'.
Well, lets see. Whenever anybody dressed as a pirate drinks anything, the standard joke is drunken pirate, and 'is that yer rum?' if it's in a bottle, or 'drinking yer grog ration agin I seez...' if it's a cup or mug. Probability of that being either rum or grog, just about nil. Nobody would be drinking rum from that plastic cup, not even a frat boy. And as to grog, nobody drinks that at a party. Grog is definitely not something to celebrate with. Bread beer is (slightly) better. Most people would rather drink nightquil and mouthwash than grog. (If they've ever tasted grog.)
Ok, short version, the educators need to be taught a lesson in civil and legal responsibilities. I'm amazed the plaintiff is only asking for diploma, certificate, and $75,000.
(I'm guessing she's also going for legal costs as well.)
I guess she's lucky she didn't brandish that plastic cutlass. Then the school might turn her in for being a TERRORIST...
wooohooooo bible quotes. Old testament even. I'll Play.
Leviticus hmmmm I'll first few. Its all about animal sacrifice. Pure Satanic crap (Bow down to Set i tell ya) if you ask me i mean read this:
"3:5 And Aaron's sons shall burn it on the altar upon the burnt sacrifice, which is upon the wood that is on the fire: it is an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the LORD." Creepy I tell ya.
And what about this?
"3:16 And the priest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering made by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the LORD's." mmmmmmm fat *drool*
And yes, before anyone ask, I am going through the Skeptics Annotated bible. (skepticsan...dbible.com ??? nice abbreviation slash) Let us continue
26:16 I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it. The bible says everyone must get stoned
-Your friendly neighborhood Anonymous Cowper's Gland
ps, my spell checker tells me curseth is spelled wrong. should be curse th . Take that Left hand of God bible writers!
pps this is not a troll
When will you slashdotters evr lrn?!
always persecute the *same* thing. (Unmatched socks coming out of the dryer, when MATCHED ONES WENT IN.) Makes everything much simpler.
What we know:
From Millersville University's website: The University notes, however, that all of its educational decisions are based on a full range of academic performance issues, not solely on a student's personal website or social networking site. The University is committed to maintaining the academic integrity of its academic programs and degrees and will vigorously defend itself and the actions of its employees in legal proceedings related to the lawsuit.
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 that said this:
Stacy Snyder, a 27-year-old single mother of two, was a student-teacher at Conestoga Valley High School at the time she posted the picture on her "MySpace" account last May. Earning her teaching degree at Millersville University, she was all but done with her requirements before graduating. But then, her cooperating teacher at Conestoga Valley found out about the posting, and confronted her. "'(She said) There's a problem with your professionalism. You're not able to attend our school. You can't come back,'" said Snyder from her Strasburg home.
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.
Right, but if I'm simply an animal, and not a human being endowed by my creator, and I'm not a creation in God's imagine, but rather a result of natural selection over generations, shouldn't I focus entirely on passing my DNA along? Isn't man's "wiring" for promiscuity stem form a desire to spread their seed, a desire the that Hebrew Bible merely channeled by declaring each woman his bride and obligating him towards them.
It's EXTREMELY ironic, in my opinion, that the more one accepts religious dictates, the more likely one is to behave in a manner consistent with evolution theory, and the more one rejects those dictates and accepts science as the core value, the more likely one is to behave in a manner inconsistent with evolution theory that they "accept" and "believe" in.
Correct, the secular enlightened societies can compensate for low birthrate by pulling in the people from the religious communities. The problem with this is you need them to come AND assimilate into the culture, increasing your stock of people for your culture. As the EU has seen with their North African immigrants, and the US has seen with SOME groups of immigrants, there is an increasing trend of mass immigration that combined with multiculturalism that decries forced assimilation, is resulting in these immigrant groups joining the country and economy as cheap labor, receiving citizenship of the adopted nation, but not assimilating into the culture.
Unless nation-state immigration policies begin to incorporate cultural assimilation, I think that it is far more likely that the expanding cultures will simply over-run the nation-states, grabbing control via Democracy instead of outright invasion.
http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/203603 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.
Seams this whole thing against her is more vindictive than a justifiable issue. More likely either a facilty member or a fellow student who reported her to the facilty had a personal grudge with her and is using some trumped up alligations to keep her from achieving her goal of becoming a teacher herself.
Could be something as simple as personalities clash or she spurned someones advances... Who knows, but this is clearly another example of the system being abused to punish someone else because of some other irrelevant personal issue. If its a facilty member then we are also looking at abuse of power or position...
Regardless, the school has errored in its action and its likely she will win her case. Sadly the damage is done and this all public record so she'll still have a hard time finding a job teaching anywhere...
... to encourage underage drinking.
My God, people! Don't you know that nearly 100% of hardened criminals and drug and alcohol abusers started out by drinking milk? That's what she was drinking in that photo, right?
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.
The trouble with taking over the world by breeding is that eventually, you run out of world.
warning: This post is likely to contain gobs of dripping sarcasm. Consume at your own risk.
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.
People are against BC because they believe either
a: Marriage is to procreate
or
b: they believe that the BC in question destroys a human life (the believers that Humanity begins at conception with the unique DNA fingerprint).
Also most anti BC people are all about the sex, more the better as well, better chance of procreation. This knocks down all three of your assumptions and replaces them with more substantial versions.
However, even a non Christian (as it seems Christians are at the head of the anti BC debate) can admit that BC directly reduces the chances of babies so out of wedlock people can have more sex. Sex out of wedlock statistically is causing an exponential increase in STDs, which in turn increase the chance that a non sexually active person will get an STD accidentally or an STD will be carried over into a marriage.
Personally I am a fan of BC, allows me to plan my family better and keeps poorer families from slipping into poverty (which I believe was the original intention of BC). I am picky about my birth control though through a well though out process I believe. I have many friends who are consistent anti birth control, where Natural Family Planning is out of the question as well.
But this post has gotten long enough and I hope it clears a bit of your anoyances with the debate up, and if you do have friends/family that believe what you posted, I sincerely feel they should be on birth control to save their children from their line of thinking.
CS: It is all sink or swim...oh and did I mention there are sharks in that water?
Personally, I think Rome's collapse had a lot more to do with its rulers being batshit crazy, but, that's just my opinion. ;-)
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
First of all, who cares what she does on her spare time, second she is not underage or was at the time, third she paid her school in time (I asume), and pass her classes. So they should give her the diploma of what she was studying. As long as she wasn't drunk in class, they (school admin.) have nothing to say.
You forgot about the .00001% chance of a necrophiliac robbing your grave and raping you.
>>> "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)."
/ex post factum/ (and do) but you are confusing the motive with a worldly justification.
c hapter=6&version=31) says that when we have sex with someone we're united with them. Here and elsewhere we are told to be only united with God and our spouse.
The Church (the followers of Jesus Christ that is) oppose promiscuous sex because God says it's wrong. Period.
The fact that promiscuous sex spreads disease, leads to unwanted children being conceived, breaks up families and distracts people from living a fulfilled life (you may disagree with this last one) is not the reason. It is not about logic it is about obedience. We can attempt to justify the morality
Corinthians 6 (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?book_id=53&
Also, I think you're way off base with this "father figure" idea. Promiscuity and paternity aren't mutually exclusive. Moreover for Christians God is the supreme father figure and the church community would offer a proliferation of male role models. This means that if it were down the the morality that you propose there would be a way to maintain the father figures for children (and perhaps increase the access of children to male role models) and still sleep around.
FWIW.
If her fellow teachers really support her, maybe they can do some sort of DDOS defense: all supporting teachers on the state have themselves photographed when drinking and publish the pics on the internet. They can't ban all the teachers of a state. If her fellow teachers don't want to support her, then maybe they all deserve to live in that kind of society.
Hi;
:-)
While I recognize that you cannot comment on the ongoing federal lawsuit, I would like to send my sincere thanks to your institution for teaching us all a very valuable civics lesson regarding the current state of our Constitutional liberties in our great republic.
As a state university, your officers are agents of the state. Just as the Bush Administration (like the Clinton administration before it) has gone out of their way to suggest that any of their compelling interests (like the appearance of security) take precidence over our essential liberties, so too have you shown that you the once-cherished Freedom of Speech seems to be dead if one might misinterpret the ideas as supporting even in the abstract the possibility of lawless action.
I would sincerely hope you start encouraging law schools to omit Brandenburg v. Ohio (and the previous cases such as Yeates and Whitney) from their curriculums since these might too be taken as supporting ideas which are dangerous to our sense of right society. Once we can ensure that these pesky precidents are forgotted about, we can get back to the business of creating a society of pleasant appearance, free from those pesky liberties which are the source of all bad choices.
And no, I am not a lawyer
Best Wishes,
Chris Travers
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Being a Millersville University student, I find this to be ridiculous. Lets just hope she wins and sticks it to "the man".
Yeah, next time my teacher has a tired look on his face and takes a sip from his mug, I'm gonna snap a picture of him and use the caption "Is there vodka in that mug!?!"
If one of the rebelious children of any of the administrators who brought this action want to dig through their parents' photos and find a similar or more 'interesting' photograph of the administrator, I'm sure among the slashdot crowd we could scare up a grand in $1 donations for a copy of said picture.
This would just be a karma-enforcement action.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Maybe her dream was to teach pirates. The picture is more than enough proof to show the she is well qualified!
I can still feel the probe up my butt, you insensitive clod.
Write your own Choose Your Own Adventure. http://www.freegameengines.org/gamebook-engine/
First off .... That is not a real Pirate hat. Secondly Pirates DO NOT drink from Mr. GoodBar cups.
Any questions ??
She will win her suit - get her certificate - and finally be able to buy a real Pirate hat and goblet
Its not the years, its the mileage
I teach at elementary schools in Japan right now, and I can say that their attitude about drinking is a little different. One thing that surpirsed me a lot when I came here is that it is legal to drink in public. I was talking with some of my fellow teachers about this, and they were like "Yeah, sure, go drink in the park, whatever. If a cop sees you he might ask if you have a job but if you do it's no problem." The thing that really amazed me, though, is that, at local festivals, flower viewing parties, etc. on the weekends, it is not that big a deal for a teacher to be stumbling down the street shit drunk with a beer in his hand in broad daylight, even if his students are at the festival. One of the funniest things i have ever seen was the expressions on everyone's faces, when, after a night of bar crawling following an official work party, all of the male teachers were stumbling out of a hostess bar in the red light district, and ran into the head of the PTA and a couple of his cronies stumbling out of a somewhat more risque establishment across the street at the same time. Nothing ever came of it, though. Just the PTA head and the vice principal looking really really embarassed and bowing at each other for a while.
It is not enough to show up in the office, work diligently during our working hours and then some.
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.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Despite you opting to "take the low road" and attack me anonymously:
1. MySpace being part of the popular culture IS completely relevant to this discussion. I had plenty of teachers when I was in school who referenced aspects of "pop culture", just to make themselves more human and "accessible" to the class. If you're going to be part of a captive audience, listening to the same person teach for at least an hour every day of the week, it's *normal* to want to learn a little bit about what their personal interests and beliefs are. It makes it easier to interpret some of the statements they make in class when you have a better handle on who they are as an individual.
2. No, it's NOT professional to go out and get drunk with your classmates - but I didn't think that was the issue here? The photo everyone was getting upset about was simply captioned "drunken pirate" and showed the teacher in a Halloween costume, holding up a glass. That means zilch! I bought a bunch of Halloween goblets a few years ago myself... ghoulish plastic cups that we usually just drink water out of. If I'm in *costume* as a vampire holding one, and a caption on my photo says "Enjoying a glass of blood!" - does that mean that's REALLY what I'm doing?
Bad ones are all the rest.
If you can't see what this is flawed, move to Iran or Saudi Arabia and ask them what is their opiion of having a Christian government.
Honestly guys, religious types should ensure their goverments are atheist, at least you all would have a fighting chance to be ignored in equal measure....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The Catholic Church sees pleasure for pleasure's sake as sinful.
Call it sex, glutony, or anything else really.
Sex by itself is immoral if it is pursued only by a means to attain pleasure (masturbation is heavily discouraged as well for the same reason).
Sex enjoyed when doing it for procreation is perfectly fine since pleasure is not the end itself.
ALl is nonsense frankly, but as somebody reaised as a Catholic I think you are mistaken.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If you're ever in South Wales I'll buy you a $beverage and we can have a chat.
I've got a few ties in the area and have an idea what might actually be going on A few URLs that are useful: Actual text of the lawsuit (which seems to be the basis of most of the news stories): http://www.thesmokinggun.com/archive/years/2007/04 26072pirate1.html
Public statement from the high school involved:
http://www.cvsd.k12.pa.us/DS/tempNews/snyderLawsui t05_07.pdf
Now consider
1) The picture swap. According to the lawsuit:
" To date, Defendants have not provided Plaintiff with a copy of the picture in question. However, a similar picture is attached hereto..."
Pretty sneaky, considering the plaintiff must know full well what the picture (it was on her page) was and seemingly has substituted a much more innocuous one as a substitute.
2) Only the plaintiff claims the picture is the reason the teaching certification was not granted. Lack of professionalism is the reason that is on paper.
3) According to the high school, the plaintiff was directing her high school students to her myspace page, it wasn't just "found" by someone out to get her.
4) The documentation from the high school seems to indicate the plaintiff was criticizing someone at the high school (presumeably one of her supervisors) on the myspace page.
My deduction (induction?) - the plaintiff was actually complaining to the class about her supervisor (their teacher) in a way she thought the teacher wouldn't notice. The picture was submitted as supporting evidence and has been used as a red herring to confuse the real issue.
What do you think?
2)