Facebook posts get kids -- and teachers -- in trouble

A University of Oregon wide receiver has been booted from the school's football team, apparently because of "an expletive-filled statement on Facebook," according to a story posted Monday on SI.com. While Ducks Coach Chip Kelly did not explicitly say that the Facebook rant was reason why Jamere Holland was "dismissed from the team," according to the posted story, that is what he hinted.

Closer to home, Justin Bird, a 16 year-old sophomore at south suburban Oak Forest High School, is fighting a suspension, according to Kevin Roy's story on ABC 7 News, because Bird "created a Facebook fan page on which he called a teacher a derogatory name." The page promptly attracted nearly 50 fans, according to Roy's story, but Bird took the page down the next day. ABC 7 reports that "High School District 228 Superintendent Bill Kendall says what Bird wrote was 'disrespectful, inappropriate and lewd.'" Exactly what Bird wrote has not been reported. While Bird wrote whatever he wrote on his home computer, the school administration considered it so "disruptive" that a suspension was warranted.

Bird's parents are contemplating legal action.

This is understandable in one sense: Students have complained about teachers since time immemorial. It's almost a sacred tradition. What right do school administrators have to interfere? Of course, there is another equally ancient tradition that may be applicable here: Students are usually careful to grumble in places where they can't be overheard by the teacher in question -- or the teacher's colleagues -- lest they get in trouble.

The ACLU has expressed sympathy with Bird's plight, according to the linked story. An ACLU spokesperson, Ed Yohnka, is quoted in Roy's story as saying, "We don't need a sort of governmental agent in the form of the school reaching into that household and correcting that behavior simply because the school thinks it somehow involves them."

With Facebook, though, kids like Justin Bird aren't merely griping in someone's household; they're making derogatory statements about unpopular teachers right in the middle of the electronic public square, in front of the persons they think they're criticizing only among themselves. Perhaps merely by posting on Facebook -- and almost certainly in creating a fan page -- a student like Bird may have made it impossible for him not to be overheard. There is as yet no consensus on the etiquette of this situation.

There is consensus among the experts only that threatening harm on a site like Facebook is never appropriate and will -- and should -- get the poster in trouble.

Thus, 18 year-old Joshua Walker is in trouble in downstate Benton, Illinois, "arrested and taken to jail after he posted some threatening and harassing remarks on his ex-girlfriend's Facebook page," according to a story posted tonight on MSNBC.com. Adriana Correa's story, originally for NBCChicago.com, says Walker allegedly "began posting death threats on the social networking site shortly after the girl ended their relationship." The girl's family called the police -- which is pursuing felony harassment charges, according to the story. Correa quotes Franklin County Sheriff's Police Captain Don Jones as saying that what Walker is alleged to have done is "just another form of domestic violence."

But it's not just students who can get in trouble on account of their Facebook musings.

Meet 24 year-old Ashley Payne.

Until last fall, Ms. Payne was a teacher at Apalachee High School in Barrow County, Georgia. She lost her job, though, after an anonymous email was sent to school administrators complaining about pictures like this one, taken on a European vacation. In the picture -- and in nine other pictures of the roughly 700 vacation pictures she posted -- Payne appears to be drinking an alcoholic beverage. *Gasp!* She was also accused of using the word "bitch" on her Facebook page.

Maureen Downey wrote about Payne's case in a November 10 article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and again on November 13.

Downey's articles make clear that, although she did "friend" some of her teaching colleagues, Ms. Payne did not "friend" any of her students. Nevertheless, the writer of the anonymous email that cost Payne her job claimed to be the mother of a student who had access to Payne's Facebook page. (Downey's November 13 article suggests, persuasively, I think, that the anonymous email came, not from a student's parent, but from a fellow teacher.)

A February 19 story in the Barrow Journal updates the saga: Payne is suing the school district -- but settlement negotiations have recently broken down.