High School Admins Coerce Cheerleader for Facebook Password

[Are_grits_groceries]

In a strange twist of social media lawsuits, a cheerleader at Mississippi’s Pearl High School may have had her first amendment rights (and then some) violated by her cheer coach. Along with her parents, she’s now suing the school district, its Superintendant, the school’s Principal, and her coaches for their involvement in coercing her to hand over her Facebook login credentials, and then exposing the sensitive information they found.

The suit claims that the 16 year-old cheerleader, Miranda Jackson, was forced to hand over her Facebook password to a coach during school hours on September 10, 2007, even though she had never used Facebook at school. Tommie Hill, a cheer teacher and sponsor, allegedly used that info to log in to Jackson’s account and, “disseminated the information within Jackson’s Facebook account to fellow Pearl High School teacher, dance and cheer sponsor Tiffany Durr, cheer trainer Corey Byrd, Principal Ray Morgigno, Superintendant John Ladner, and other unknown individuals.”

That offline spread of Jackson’s private FacebookFacebook information reportedly led to some pretty negative side effects with the girl being “punished and humiliated.” The lawsuit goes on to claim that Jackson was barred from cheer practices and participating in school sponsored events.

http://mashable.com/2009/07/29/cheerleader-lawsuit/

I want to know more. This is just wrong on the face of it. What in the world did she post? How can they justify what they did?

[liberal N proud]

1. Civil liberties violations 101

[GoesTo11]

17. Clear violation of Miranda rights.

had to say it.

[SoCalDem]

2. As unfair as it seems, young people need to KNOW that anything they post online

is PUBLIC, or can be made public.

It's like sending a postcard through the mail. You better not mind other people reading what you wrote.

In retrospect, she might have been better off telling them all "NO", and then getting busy tidying up her Facebook page as best she could.

Of course if they knew she HAD a facebook page, someone must have visited the site. Isn't that the whole purpose? What good would having the password do them? Couldn't they just look her up on Facebook?

[imdjh]

3. It seems that parents need to parent.

In my family, my parents did sex education early on, because I was extremely sensitive when it came to body parts and that sort of thing. I was one of those kids an older kid could wreck just by talking dirty.

My parents also educated us about our rights. I'm not talking about this belligerent "you can't touch me" or "You're not my mother." kind of defiance behind some notion of rights. My parents educated me about my rights to be secure in my person, in my privacy, and that if I felt violated by an adult at school or elsewhere I was to fight to have a parent present, regardless of the situation. And in their part of the bargain, my parents were ALWAYS the drop-everything kind of parents, day or night. The other difference between them and some of the modern "my kid can do no wrong" parents who teach defiance, is that calling my parents into the situation only guaranteed me justice, it didn't guarantee me a favorable outcome. When I was wrong, I was wrong. I have had to apologize to all sorts of people when I was wrong. Only ONCE was the order of my parents unjust, and it was in a situation beyond their control and that's what they told me when ordering me to apologize to a petty man in a position of power over my father. And then they got out from under that POS asap.

[PVnRT]

4. Facebook profiles are generally private

You have to be a friend to look at them, provided you set it up right. That's probably why they wanted the password.

[JohnnyBoots]

8. That would be an expectation of privacy, wouldn't it? NT

[PVnRT]

12. I would assume so, yes (n/t)

[lukasahero]

7. "Couldn't they just look her up on Facebook?" No they couldn't

Properly used, Facebook privacy settings prevent others from viewing the contents off your page unless specifically permitted to do so.

She should never have given them her password. Not only could they then see what was on her page, they could plant damaging material on it.

[Recursion]

14. According to the article, the coach wanted to use it to spam for the cheerleading squad

She logged in to post ads for the cheerleading squad's appearances on the cheerleader's profile. Or am I misreading that?

[intaglio]

16. Wrong - according to the original article

from WLBT3
http://www.wlbt.com/Global/story.asp?S=10806760

The coach read private mails between this girl and another that contained "profanity".

Now it may shock a few adults, but kids do use foul language between themselves from 9 or 10 yo onward and usually grow out of it by the time they're, say, 30; spying on a kid and punishing them for such use is abuse of privacy and abuse of power.

[madokie]

18. Doesn't she have the right to post anything she wants to

as long as it was lawful? Should be no need to clean up her facebook page should there?

[PVnRT]

5. Why do administrators think they have the right to do this?

There was a case maybe a month or two ago where a principal went through a student's phone and found "sexting" pictures on it. Why in the fuck was he looking through it in the first place? Confiscating the phones while school is in session is fine, but what right does he have to go through data on the phone? ESPECIALLY without a minor's guardian/lawyer present? I wonder if he was specifically looking for some nudie pics to gawk at.

Something tells me that Miranda and her friend were probably talking about the cheer coach behind her back (wow, high school students being gossipy, what are the odds?) and the cheer coach just couldn't handle that.

[followthemoney]

6. It is very important that the young learn to accomodate ...

The needs of state tyranny at a very early age. Those who do not attempt to adapt to rights violations imposed by the state until adulthood will make very poor adjustment.

Remember, if it serves the interests of the state, all other interests must be subordinate.

[Echo In Light]

10. Chomsky 101: The education system is a weeding-out process for those too independent minded

[BolivarianHero]

9. I hope the coach "disappears"...

People like this are destroying your country. You're better off without them.

[aikoaiko]

11. Need more information, but it does sound wrong.

I'll wait and see what forced and coerced means in this case as well as the information on the Facebook site.

[Kingofalldems]

13. I see at least three 'Cheer teachers' or whatever

What do they teach at that school?

[JBoy]

15. Cheer coach, Cheer sponsor, Cheer trainer. But surprisingly not cheerful.