Students punished by high school for posting sexually suggestive photos on myspace

By: William Liao

At Churubusco High, a high school in Indianapolis, two girls were punished by their local school administration. As a result, the two girls complained and said that their free-speech rights were violated, as they were banned from extra curricular activities for a joke that they had previously committed, that had no relation whatsoever to their school-or any school for that matter.

So what happened exactly? Well, it was that summer before school. The girls had taken photos of them in lingerie and posted them on myspace. Now these photos weren't made open to all public, the photos were only viewable by their peers. Shortly after having posted these photos, the photos had reached a school official, and eventually their principal. As a result, when school commenced, both girls were told to attend counseling, and were banned from all extra-curricular activities.

Naturally, like any sort of case regarding the rights of a person, there are multiple perspectives. In this case we have two:

Side 1: Child advocates support the measures taken, and claim that it is important to monitor students.

Side 2: The children have a right to their own private practice, and the school does not have the right to dictate what the girls chose to do outside of the school environment.

So which side am I on? The latter. It's quite simple, and very plain: we as people, beyond any sort of written document, have rights as beings. At the most basic of levels it all comes down to a few things: we are entitled to our individuality, we are entitled to our private practice, and we are entitled to dictate precisely the way in which we commit to those two things, so long as we do not prevent any other being from doing the same thing. There is no reason we should conform and be under the thumb of another.

These girls did not harm anybody, they did not prevent anybody from exercising their very own rights: so what gives the school official the right to rob them of their own rights as beings? The truth is, the school official does not have any right to do so. The school official's job is to maintain order within a school, to insure that students can receive an education. What part of their job description requires them to monitor the actions of students outside of school-especially when it doesn't mar any part of the education process?

To sum it all up: the solution to all of this is to exercise the simple understanding of our rights as beings. The school officials need to understand what they are allowed to dictate, and why. This incident is an absolute abuse of their own power. The girls had every right to do what they did, as it was a matter of their own private practice-and so it should remain that way: private.