“Will someone please think of the children?”
Associated Press – April 28, 2007:
A woman denied a teaching degree on the eve of graduation because of a MySpace photo has sued the university.
Millersville University instead granted Stacy Snyder a degree in English last year after learning of her Web-published picture, which bore the caption “Drunken Pirate.”
“I dreamed about being a teacher for a long time,” said Snyder, 27, who now works as a nanny.
The photo, taken at a 2005 Halloween party, shows Snyder wearing a pirate hat while drinking from a plastic “Mr. Goodbar” cup. It was posted on her own MySpace site.
Although Snyder apologized, she learned the day before graduation that she would not be awarded an education degree or teaching certificate.
Jane S. Bray, dean of the School of Education, accused Snyder of promoting underage drinking, the suit states.
Can somebody explain how a picture of a drunk 25 year old promotes underage drinking?! And while you’re at it, explain why the frick she apologized!
Update: T.C. Moore found the school’s response here.
Millersville University denies the claims alleged in the federal complaint filed by Ms. Stacy Snyder. Although the University respects Ms. Snyder’s opinion, these allegations only provide a single perspective of this academic situation.
The idea of businesses looking online for profiles of people who are applying for jobs has come up often as of late. The problem with this is that many of the people who are doing these searches appear to not know much about the way the internet works at all. While a couple of theses stories talk about myspace and other pages where the person actually posted the material about themselves there will likely be stories where this is not the case. There is lots of fake myspace pages and other sites about people and knowing how to eliminate those false sources will be more difficult than just “googeling” a persons name. The recent fox news failure shows how easy it is to find false information.
John S
#19, And I still respect you this morning.
I can see a picture like that impacting her ability to get certain jobs, but it should not have prevented her from getting a degree (unless it was some sort of rule at the University). I hope that she gets her degree and a large chunk of cash for a deposit on a house or vacation.
The thought also comes to mind about why this college and businesses are so eager to look up info on line about people anyway. There are better ways to do things and this smacks of laziness on their part. As has been posted their is not guarantee that people will have their follies online. Thus the playing field will not be equal. As has been said my many “you are only guilty if you are caught”. So if you are trying to guarantee perfect graduates or employees good luck. The reason why she apologized is because as of late the people who do screw up(Millersville University in this case) are making those that did not (Stacy Snyder) apologize. Why take responsablility for your actions when you can force others to.
John S
Companies are making serious money, or will be soon, when databases collected off MySpace.com pages, or perhaps Dvorak.org, and certainly dice.com are integrated.
Employers will be a click and a few dollars away from knowing the differing ways resumes were padded and slanted through your carer, what your off hours habits and vices are, and how quickly you shift into spleen curdling rants.
A little later in Dvoraks blog we see music recognition pretty well nailed. Over a cel phone no less. Give it ten years or twenty when face recognition catches up.
The photos will have been catalouged and preserved nicely, and your name and numbers and likeness will be attached to all those funny flikr photos from the 1990′s onward.
It won’t take much fuzzy logic to attach real names to online psuedonyms and psuedoanonynyms. The data is there today. It will just be a scant few years before it is tied together into a nice neat package.
Everything from job promotions to health inurance to defense in civil cases will hinge on the dumb ass things you’ve done online.
You have been warned.
She is obviously a danger to society. When will the general public recognize the serious threat to our way of life posed by drunken pirates.
I know of no school system that does not have a morals clause in there teachers contract. We do not have many teachers on the blog here.
When you study in a particular major for 4 years or 2 years or whatever, and you fulfill all the requirements, what kind of university decides the day before you graduate to not give you the degree (and extra work for a teaching credential) that you studied for? What does that do to their reputation? I understand colleges have different rules, but the idea they can change your degree at the last minute is bizarre.
Why didn’t they just ask her to remove the picture if they wanted to protect their reputation. What kind of adult looks at any picture, let alone that innocuous one, on a personal/social site, and jumps to the conclusion that she’s promoting underage drinking.
Here’s their response. A whole lotta nothing. If they don’t leak their side of the story to make the case against her, I’m guessing they’re just lining up behind a knee-jerk, bureaucratic reaction.
http://urltea.com/gtb?millersville.edu
27. “I know of no school system that does not have a morals clause in there teachers contract.”
Ok, can you now explain why or how it’s immoral for a 25 year old woman to drink from a cup while wearing a pirate hat on Halloween?
#29 – Interesting response… All decisions are made on a range of acedemic issues, or so it claims. I’ve read a dozen or so news accounts and the complaint posted to The Smoking Gun… Unless there is some big secret here, the university has no legs to stand on.
#30 – Nobody can explain that to you because it simply isn’t a moral issue.
It is hard to argue this is a privacy issue as MySpace is quite public and people using these sites are putting themselves out there for public viewing – and why not? The point is “social networking.” It’s hard to network in private.
But we are seeing the tip of the iceberg with people being punished for having normal adult lives… I hate to say it in front of this crowd, but if businesses and institutions cannot be trusted to leave the lives of people to those people then perhaps there needs to be protection in the form of… OMG…. Legislation…
Before the conservatives jump all over that, remember, it ain’t gonna happen in this climate.
Wow. There is no proof whatsoever that she is intoxicated in that picture nor that there was an alcoholic beverage in that cup. The fact that she was dressed up as a pirate certainly in some way justifies the caption drunken pirate. what do pirates do? they drink Rum!