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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.
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...
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'?
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.
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
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?
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...
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!
It is not neo-moralism as much as it is simple cowardice. People in authority today, more than ever before, are doing the CYA thing regardless of the consequences to those under their authority. This judgement is sad, sick, absurd, wrong. But the people who made the judgement ( withhold her certificate ) thought that this was the safe course of action, that they were protecting themselves from any political fallout. As I suspect we will soon see, they couldn't BE more wrong. /chandler bing
Yeah but that's neither illegal or immoral. As a society we allow and tolerate adults drinking, even, gasp, for recreation.
It'd be like the teacher having a blog talking about her sex life. Are we now to disallow teachers from copulation as well? Well we don't let kids vote either. So teachers shouldn't vote. And most kids can't drive. Therefore no driving, etc...
TEACHERS ARE NOT [supposed to be] KIDS!
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
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.
Actually, I do pay property taxes as a home owner. I also know people who work in the teaching profession in the same city in which I pay these strangely high taxes. And in my brain I've made a note to someday figure out where the money is going because it's not going to the teachers.
And whereas yes they do get 3 months a year off, most of the don't make enough to avoid needing to get a summer job. Many of them are either working on grading papers and preparing lesson plans at home, or they're putting 12 hour days in at the school keeping up with some of it. The worst part is knowing how many of them honestly want to instill that vital critical thinking nugget in the heads of kids, but then get beaten down with the fact that they have to teach to a standardized test because that's what they'll be reviewed over.
Maybe where you're at the teachers job is a cushy one, but from my observations in a non suburb city it isn't. The only teachers I know who are thriving and loving the job all teach at private schools, and there aren't enough of those jobs to go around.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
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)
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.
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
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.
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.
You don't have to be religious to be self-righteous, authoritarian, or just a plain old bastard.
Insisting on "correct" English is like saying that there is only one, definitive recipe for chili.
Ah, but is it over the national average for people with a Master's? Compare like with like.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
Oh, I think it is for the worse.
Irrational harshness is a sure sign of incompetence. We don't know how to protect kids, but we'll cover up our complete ignorance of anything that might do any good by setting up anybody who comes across our desk as an example. Nobody can say we don't care if we indulge ourselves with in an appalling tantrum.
Just don't ask us to think, evaluate evidence, or have a real strategy. We're reacting here.
Let's not root out the bad or abusive teachers. That's too much work. Let's string up some student for dressing up like a character from a Disney theme park.
There is no evidence that this person thought "underage drinking was cool at 25". There is no evidence that she was drunk. There is no evidence that she has alcohol in that cup. The only thing she did was put a comical caption on a picture of herself.
This kind of foolishness is indefensible. It is not only unjust to the prospective teacher, it is not only unjust to the students who might have benefited from her service, it mollycoddles incompetent bureaucrats posing as moral crusaders.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
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.
nobody in Europe wanted those pesky Puritans around and thus kicked them all to the US. Sometimes, I really dislike the behavior of some of my fellow Americans.
Me too. I find myself more and more wanting to move to Australia. At least they were founded as a penal colony.
-
- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
So she was reprimanded, did she get a passing grade? If yes, then give her the cert, if not deny her the cert. And just because she gets her cert doesn't mean they have to give her a recommendation or hire her.
But if they pull that BS she should get enough money from the school system so she doesn't have to work, the people recall most of the school board and the superintendent is forced to resign. Its called you screwed somebody's life over, now you get to pay.
If someone is passing you on the right, you are an asshole for driving in the wrong lane.
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.
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.
She was reprimanded for giving out her myspace page to students - if she hadn't, they would have found it anyhow. She might as well use it as a way to connect to them. And the new picture is slightly goofier than the old one, but still fairly innocuous. Sure, she probably didn't show the best judgment, but if she already had tenure (ie, worked in a district for 3-5 whole years) there's no way she could even be fired for this, let alone have her certification stripped. No one involved has to give her recommendations when she tries to get a job, but if she fulfilled the certification requirements she should be certified.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
> 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.
Hey guess what? The day before your 21st birthday you're underage. Underage drinking is underage drinking up until you're actually 21. If you don't want to get caught for underage drinking, use your freaking brain. Don't drink till you get alcohol poisoning and stay the heck inside and out of trouble. It's not that hard.
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." ---
The unfortunate fact is the test to if a child has really learned critical thinking is how well they do once school is no longer a part of their lives.
My wife and I are working on having a spawn of minions right now and I fully expect that it will be "informational tidbits you learn at school, thinking you learn at home". Not because the teachers can't teach it, but because they don't have time. I am just mildly bitter because I feel I got a leg up on life because of a few teachers who really cared and made me learn to think, once I knew how to think, and how to find answers actually "learning" anything became exponentially easier.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
- 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'
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.
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.
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.
What's different is that the page (at least the photo I saw) shows nothing of the sort.
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
I have a teacher friend who had to make her MySpace profile private for this very reason; her boss saw it as unprofessional. There weren't pictures of her getting stoned at a party or anything; her principal just thought she should have such a visible private life. Additionally, several school districts even go so far as to have "no public drinking" policies. So if she was in one of these districts (I know, I know, RTFM), that could be reason enough. I hate it that employers think they can control every aspect of your life, but if you sign the contract it's your own damn fault.
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.
If you're referring to the article itself, this lady isn't even employed by a district. This is about her living her life and someone else trying to dictate a level of "professionalism" upon her. This is ridiculous and I hope she wins.
No sig for you!!
no matter how good it is, it is human nature always wants to make things better
"Additionally, several school districts even go so far as to have "no public drinking" policies. So if she was in one of these districts (I know, I know, RTFM), that could be reason enough. I hate it that employers think they can control every aspect of your life, but if you sign the contract it's your own damn fault."
This woman wasn't even working though, she was a student finishing her teaching degree at a university. She was 27 years old when she was denied her degree, and 25 when the image was created that led to the denial of her degree. Her action was not illegal in any way, nor does it reflect anything that is generally societally unacceptable. Even worse, she was censored by the SCHOOL, not by an employer of any kind...
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
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.