Facebook Photos Land Eden Prairie Kids in Trouble 626
slim-t writes "The Star Tribune is reporting that students have been disciplined for photos of them on Facebook. 'Eden Prairie High School administrators have reprimanded more than 100 students and suspended some from sports and other extracurricular activities after obtaining Facebook photos of students partying, several students said Tuesday.' Is the school right to do this? My opinion is that the students should know not to post pictures of yourself breaking the law."
I'd just like to know what all those administrators are doing cruising Facebook pages looking at the students in their school.
Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:4, Insightful)
Also, if the students are breaking the law outside of school hours, isn't that a matter for the police and not the school?
Rights not online (Score:4, Insightful)
This isn't a "rights online" question. It's a natural consequence of the stupid prohibition laws we have. They need to be repealed.
If the only way anyone found out about the drinking was looking at Facebook after the fact, then how was it harmful?
I'd say both sides are wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the crux of the matter. Yes, those kids are idiots for posting evidence of illegal behavior for all to see. But the administrators have no jurisdiction over what goes on outside of school. He should have reported these pictures to the police, if anything.
Yeah, right. (Score:3, Insightful)
First off, the kid is a liar.
Second of all, if he's freely distributing evidence of himself breaking the law, he's lucky it's just his school that is punishing him.
Third, he's lucky it's just him getting punished and not his parents.
Kid breaks law, gets in trouble. The internet was mildly involved. News at 10:00. Bitching on Slashdot at 9:30.
Just a thought... (Score:3, Insightful)
It's surprising, I know, but some teachers actually care about their students. Not just whether they make the school look good at scholastic meets and football games, not just whether they pass all their (irrelevant) standardized tests. Some teachers care whether or not Joe Quarterback makes it home from prom nite. They actually care whether Suzie Cheerleader makes it home from prom nite unfertilized.
Just a thought. I didn't have the greatest high school experiences myself, but even I know not all school officials are malicious animals prowling 'That Facebook Thing' for whom they may devour.
There is, in fact, some middle ground left to on which to stand.
looking at the students in their school (Score:1, Insightful)
Notice to all: Timothy has given up the right to Google for people that he meets in life.
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:4, Insightful)
My guess would be some teacher caught a student goofing around on that FaceBook page, recognized what was going on in the pictures, and that's where this came from. I agree the administrator has better things to do than search FaceBook for this.
The kids are morons (but what do you expect from a 15 year old with the chance at "fame"). The first rule of Fight Club is you don't talk about Fight Club. The 1/2th rule about Fight Club is don't take pictures and post them on the 'net.
Is this legal? I'd say... yes. Kids have no privacy. They aren't adults. They deserve to be punished if they broke the rules. Now I have two ideas at this point. If they violated a code of conduct that they signed (like for a sport), then they need to face the consequences. They chose to do it. If it's a private school, kick 'em out if you want if they violated the rules. If it's a public school and the kid isn't in any activities, you don't have any authority to punish them, since there isn't anything to bad them from.
Either way, if the pictures clearly show them drinking, those should be turned over to the police/DA. If they want to do something, they will. If they don't, it's over. But there are crimes there (drinking underage, drinking and driving probably, supplying alcohol to a minor, probably others).
But really, they need to learn their lesson. When you do something illegal/wrong... you don't document it and post that on the 'net for everyone to see. That's just plain stupid.
Re:Rights not online (Score:5, Insightful)
How is that? According to the article one kid was just holding a drink. Another was standing behind a bar. The article makes no mention of any crazy antics. You're making that assumption because they're young and got in trouble.
The problem here is the system, not the students.
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Your rights do not apply at School (Score:5, Insightful)
How does a picture prove you were drinking alcohol (Score:2, Insightful)
The bottle could, maybe, be empty. If the picture makes it obvious it's not empty, it could have water, or lemonade, or ice tea, or Cola, or. . . you get the point, in it. It's *probably* beer, but I wouldn't put it past kids to think it was a cool prank to take an old empty they found somewhere, wash it, then fill it with soda and take pictures.
The point is, a picture of someone drinking from a beer/vodka/whiskey/wine bottle does not PROVE that they were drinking alcohol. I would say it's, on the face of it, impossible to prove someone was imbibing illegal substances based on a photograph. The only way to really prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, in my opinion, is if you could actually test the liquid in the bottle somehow (smell, taste, chemical analysis), or by getting a urine/blood sample from one of the kids in the picture close to the time the picture was taken.
Other types of offenses might be provable from pictures (inappropriate nudity, sexual misconduct, etc), but not underage drinking.
Re:Yeah, right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Revenge of the nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
1) Take a buddy nerd and sneak into a party where your victim will be (since you're a nerd you obviously weren't invited)
2) Hand the jock a beer, have your friend snap a picture during that second he's holding it (but before you're being pounded with it)
3) Post picture to Facebook using a fake account
4) Wait for jock to be suspended
I'm still trying to figure out how to fit "Profit!" into there as well. Maybe blackmail?
All these "well you shouldn't have posted the picture" posts are forgetting the very common case where someone snaps pictures of a bunch of people and posts them all onto Facebook. It's amazing how fast the camera phones can go off if you do something stupid even for a second at a party.
Re:Bizarre (Score:5, Insightful)
It's the root of our obesity, and almost every other problem that the rest of the world seems to not have.
Problem is , today you are called a nut for questioning the puritanical ideals.
The other problem is the whole point of the article shines light on a bigger problem.. Our children are incredibly stupid. They do things they know are wrong and will get them in trouble if their parents or officials find out about it, and then they publish it with incredible detail in a public forum and then SIGN IT!
The current crop of children here are incredibly stupid.... I blame the use of Corn syrup.
Different symptom, same problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Isn't it easy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
What if your parents caught you doing something illegal? Should they not punish you? Should they instead go straight to the police and turn you in? What kind of Gestapo bullcrap is that? Do you really want to live in a police state where you can't even confide in your own parents?
Consider the options. "You take the punishment we are dishing out or we turn these photos over to the police. Which do you prefer?" Most kids will take the school's punishment and they would be right and smart to do so. The school may or may not be dishing out appropriate punishment and that needs to be figured out. But they are at least trying to do the best thing for these kids and that is to discipline the kids without the extreme of getting the police involved.
There will be some who decide to not post their photos on facebook/myspace/etc... But most will still take pictures and that's still a liability. The school wants them to just not do these things in the first place. While they can't control people like that, they can influence and that's exactly what they are trying to do and that is the whole damn point of punishment.
Not their job (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
As others have said, this all has to do with one thing: power. It's a lot easier to control kids than it is to teach them, so that's what schools do.
Fucking pathetic.
Re:Hah. (Score:2, Insightful)
That's bologna. Grow up.
Re:Hah. (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll reference the other anonymous coward above [slashdot.org] who mentions the pictures were supposedly delivered on CD or other media to school officials, and then add in your mention that some students caught in your example may have lost scholarships in order to come up with the following:
Perhaps some student or parent is behind the gathering of these images and subsequent presentation to school officials.
Given the very competitive nature of college admissions these days perhaps someone is attempting to make the students depicted in the photographs less attractive to scholarship committees.
Or I could be totally off-base in my speculation. Maybe someone just has an axe to grind.
Re:Hah. [[ Supposedly pics were delivered (Score:4, Insightful)
I was in the EP school system from Kindergarten until halfway through 9th Grade... and I recall it was pretty clique-ish and people were particularly nasty and cruel to other kids.
Most people might say it's the same in every high school, but I went to 3 high schools my freshman year (EPHS inclusive). And the high school in Connecticut and especially the high school in Arizona were a LOT nicer in terms of students' attitudes and treatment of other students.
Sounds like revenge!
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Not that I'm all bonered up about annihilating a kid's future because he/she did some stupid shit while they were young, but the line must be drawn somewhere. Using school equipment to post pictures of highly illegal exploits is beyond that line.
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:2, Insightful)
If only there was someone we could contact if students were breaking the law. Oh wait, there is. We pay taxes for police too...
Here's a novel idea. Allow the people we pay taxes for to do their respective jobs.
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:4, Insightful)
So really, they couldn't ignore it. Someone slipped them a CD with photographic proof, the cat's out of the bag. If I'm whoever sent that CD, and the school tries to ignore it -- I grab a copy of the student directory, and mail a copy of the CD to each and every students' house, addressed to the parents, with a nice letter explaining the administration not only knows about this, but is actively covering it up. And if I REALLY want to be nasty, I also send one to the channel 5 news, and the channel 7 news, and MADD, and the local state's attorney's office (among others), with the same insinuation -- 'School supports underage drinking!' tends to get headlines. {Not that I personally would do such a thing myself -- but whoever sent that CD obviously wanted to get these kids in trouble.)
Like it or not, avoiding this kind of political firestorm is part of the job of running any organization, schools are no different; they're supposed to be teaching the kids, not focusing on managing PR disasters. So no, the school administration can't ignore this.
Re:Hah. (Score:5, Insightful)
In the case from the article, that could be certainly be true. I'm glad I'm no longer in school and that when I was I didn't give a rusty rat fuck about scholarships or any of that. It's far too cutthroat for me.
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Rights not online (Score:3, Insightful)
Did nobody even bother to read the article?
Let me post a few interesting bits that should answer about half of the "insightful" questions raised in the comments today:
Let me sum up. Students joined the High School sports teams. As part of that they promised not to drink. Someone sent the school administrators photos of these kids who, as you may remember, had promised not to drink, drinking. They were disciplined for that.
This has nothing to do with "stupid prohibition laws". It has nothing to do with laws whatsoever. It has a lot to do with reading comprehension, but I'm just wasting my time even typing this far down because, let's face it, anything longer than 'I can has cheezburger?' is just too long to bother reading. So I'll just go on about a marvelous proof for one of my favourite theorems and then stop writing.
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
Frankly I don't think any school administrator has any business on Facebook in any official capacity. Period. Policing their students' morality is about as far from their duties as they can possibly get. If this shit is allowed to stand we're going to see kids whose Myspaces list them as Slayer fans harassed and monitored by the administration as potential school shooters, which I feel compelled to add would be a Bad Thing.
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:3, Insightful)
If they wanted to do that, they would have contacted the students' parents. The school has no right to punish students for a possible "offense" that occurred outside of school grounds and hours.
The article even mentioned that some of the photos were taken during family vacations, which may have been in entirely different countries where the legal drinking age is lower. At least in the wedding pictures mentioned, one can be confident the students had their parents' supervision while drinking, which makes it entirely legal in most states. (I don't know about Minnesota, specifically.) An interviewed student said some of the pictures used against him were taken two years ago, before he even joined the sports team he is now being excluded from.
In any case, the school should not be allowed to punish the students for this kind of thing.
Re:Hah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Befriending your students is a good thing. The problem here is that some do-gooder snitch was cruising Facebook for pictures of students doing things they shouldn't and turned them into the administration, who made like good little fascists and punished said students for things that happened off campus, which should be firmly outside the jurisdiction of the school administration but unfortunately is not.
If you were to express concern to one of your students over a picture they posted of themselves drinking, I would consider you a good person who I want teaching the next generation. What we have here is somebody who for whatever reason got a bunch of kids in trouble with an "authority" who should be spending his time (and our money) dealing with problems on his own campus.
Re:I'm from EP (Score:4, Insightful)
My wife and I don't drink or smoke and never really have aside from the occasional toast at a wedding or a new year sparty. Still this is too draconian. What about communion at church? They can't even be present? They can see their uncle when he has a lit cigarette? I couldn't allow them to toast at new years?
Each new years my folks use to let me and my brothers have a sip of wine and made us eat sour kraut for luck. It was a tradition. (I haven't eaten kraut since. My luck has been fine.) My wife is Italian enough that we eat spaghetti with the secret family meatball recipe at Christmas. Her family makes all sort of other Italian dishes and also finds a glass of wine to be obligatory. The school would tell me my kids can't go to the Christmas dinner at Great Grandma's? That would be another impact that the school has no right to impose.
Perhaps I need to start having words with the school now, before my kids reach high school. And if they confirm this and are not flexible to my wishes for my children, then my lawyer will have to start having words with someone.
Re:Hah. (Score:3, Insightful)
So much for that idea of "the punishment should fit the crime". Hmm, what you are saying or portraying is disagreeable
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:2, Insightful)
That's funny, I don't recall our schools being given the power to judge students over what they do outside the school. AFAIR that power belongs to the parents and the police authorities.
What if your parents caught you doing something illegal? Should they not punish you?
That would be up to the parents, wouldn't it? Not the schools.
Should they instead go straight to the police and turn you in? What kind of Gestapo bullcrap is that? Do you really want to live in a police state where you can't even confide in your own parents?
Strawman.
But most will still take pictures and that's still a liability. The school wants them to just not do these things in the first place.
What, take pictures? Because it somehow reflects on the school?
While they can't control people like that, they can influence and that's exactly what they are trying to do and that is the whole damn point of punishment.
?????!
Reread your own sentence. I hope you can comprehend the latent hypocrisy.
You know, when I was growing up (a long, long time ago) generally when we partied, our elders would say "oh, it's just kids being kids, having fun" - as long as we didn't do *really* destructive or dangerous things such as stealing cars, robbing liquor stores, setting fires, causing damage to property, etc...
But I guess I grew up in a more rational time. Not by much, mind you, but still... I ran into my old basketball coach a couple years ago and we had the opportunity to share a few drinks together. What's happening to our schools nowadays makes him sick at heart.
Sad times
tic
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's pretty simple, really. If that "crime" has a victim, report it. If not, then let people make their own mistakes, especially if you're talking about something like drinking a beer. The most severe action that is warranted in that case is informing the parents. To compare that to sexual abuse and murder is absurd; to put it (very) mildly, this is comparing an apple to an orange.
I know this idea is very scary to all of you law-enforcement-fantasy types who really think you can legislate morality, but controlling behavior is the least of your problems. If you really believe that putting a substance into your own body that someone else might disapprove of is morally wrong, what you need to improve is the power of your message and the reasoning behind it, not the government school's power to manipulate behavior by means of sanctions. The first option might actually persuade people to see things your way; the second option will drive said behavior underground and result in people who are better at not getting caught (namely, by not posting evidence on a public network).
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:1, Insightful)
It is in no way shape or form the schools place, role or mandate to punish a child for what he/she gets upto outside of the schools four walls.
There's these things called 'parents', that's their role. Frighteningly schools seem to be (successfully) trying to muscle in on the parental role and marginalise the 'redundant' and gross 'inefficiency' of each child having 'different' and 'wrong' ways of thinking. There is of course only one true way of thinking and one acceptable set of PC values, as mandated by the academics of the day and instituted by the school system.
*This* is the reality of big brother, parents totally and utterly marginalised in society, muscled out and stamped down, as soon as your child is 5 you send your child to the state, you will then be ignored and sidelined by an enormous entity that apparently now has authority over them twenty four hours a day seven days a week.
When I was a child if a teacher was checking up on what i was doing out of school hours, a lynch mob would have turned up on his/hers door step calling them a sicko.
Now it's policy, and for some reason being advocated *for*??
Re:Don't they have anything better to do? (Score:2, Insightful)
And if you think that going to the police to report possible illegal activities is the wrong course of action then law enforcement and the legal system is what needs to be fixed.
Except what would happen here if the school went to the police is exactly the correct behavior, the police would laugh and say:
What kind of idiots are you? We can't charge people with crimes because you have unsourced pictures that looks like they might be some sort of criminal activity. That's not enough to get my boss to even open an investigation up and spend the manpower on it.
And, incidentally, even if these were legitimate evidence of a crime, and the police somehow could prove that was alcohol, they still couldn't do anything, as the government cannot charge people with 'underaged drinking of alcohol at some unknown time under unknown circumstances'...criminal charges have to be more specific then that. I can show up in court and swear under oath I killed a man, and even sign a confession, but I can't be charged with murder if they don't know who I'm talking about or when it happened. You can't just vaguely have violated the law, you have to specifically violated it in known circumstances to be charged with anything.
And schools attempting to punish students for violations of the law need to be punished, period. It is slander to assert that people have violated the law, especially if you assert you have evidence but have failed to turn it over to the police.
I was told when I graduated high school, as I got older, I'd see the 'wisdom' of letting those fucktards dish out punishment however they wanted. Well, it's been a decade, and they're still as goddamn stupid as ever.
Re:Not their job (Score:2, Insightful)
It is, in fact, illegal for you to punish people for committing crimes, you fucktard. The school didn't stop a crime in question, they were handed what could have been evidence of illegal behavior, and punished people for that instead of operating within the legal system. That is vigilantism, not crime stopping.
Whether or not it is legal for them to do it is debatable, but your analogy is amazingly stupid. If you were handed evidence that someone had committed a crime, and you wandered over and punished them...well, I urge you to try that some day and see what happens. Their only defense is they are acting in loco parentis.
Reasonable to think they weren't drinking? (Score:3, Insightful)
That's not proof. I know it's unlikely, but unlikely is not how the law works.
The burden of proof in a misdemeanor case for underage drinking is beyond a reasonable doubt. If you saw a photo with a room full of people drinking out of cans and bottles clearly labeled as containing alcohol, in what appeared to be a party setting, what would you think? I think it would take an effort of willful blindness to buy the notion that they weren't drinking alcoholic beverages.
were the kids really doing anything 'wrong'? (Score:1, Insightful)
it seems to me that underage drinking can be stupid, but it's not wrong in and of itself. someone can do wrong while intoxicated, but it isn't the drinking that causes it. it's bad judgement. punishing kids for imitating the socially acceptable partying habits of people ~5-6 years their senior seems pretty hypcritical.
if the kids drove cars around, that's another story. but the 'wrong' would be having driven while intoxicated which actually endangers others' lives. but photos of kids being stupid to impress their friends?
laws obeyed for the sake of obeying a law doesn't reveal anything about the moral maturity or ethical reasoning of a person. in fact, it reveals that one is a moral midget who follows rules for their own sake.
kids do stupid things; adults do stupid things. hopefully we learn from them. when that stupid thing trespasses another's wishes it becomes a moral issue.
Re:I'm from EP (Score:3, Insightful)
the simple fact is that every one of them was co-erced into signing such a promise.
Fixed it for you.
Seriously. Take another look at what you just wrote. You're basically saying that you KNOW they signed it because they have no choice in the matter if they want to participate in school.
Re:I'm from EP (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hah. (Score:2, Insightful)
You must be american.
Re:Hah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hah. (Score:3, Insightful)
You must be american.
The reasonableness of drink laws aside, every culture has norms or laws that others find odd.
For example, the German's outlaw NAZI symbols - understandable given their history but still odd to others who view free speech as important.
Godwin's Law.
Re:Hah. (Score:2, Insightful)
Welcome to America in the 21st century.
Re:Hah. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hah. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Kosher (Score:2, Insightful)
This is true, but it strikes me as odd that they solve this by having the drinking age higher, not the driving age.
I mean, driving is still a risk even if you aren't drunk, whilst this way of doing things unfairly affects under 21s who don't drive. It's also surely more likely that an under 21 driver might get hold of some alcohol, compared with an under 21 who can legally drink then randomly deciding to find someone else's car and illegally go for a drive...
And I don't know, but to me, being able to drink - something which can be done even in private - seems like a more fundamental right than being able to drive a potentially dangerous vehicle around on public roads at life-threatening speeds... But I guess given the taboo of drugs in general, not many agree with me.
Re:Hah. (Score:2, Insightful)