What value does free speech have, if you can be fired from your job for it, or, as in this case, prevented from ever getting a job in the first place?
MILLERSVILLE, Pennsylvania: 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 the Web-published picture of her, which bore the caption “Drunken Pirate.”
Snyder received “superior” or “competent” ratings on her final student-teacher evaluation in all areas except “professionalism,” in which she was labeled “unsatisfactory,” according to the suit filed Wednesday. […]
“There were errors in judgment that relate to Pennsylvania’s Code of Professional Practice and Conduct for Educators,” wrote professor J. Barry Girvin, who supervised Snyder’s work, according to the suit.
Snyder did her student-teaching at Conestoga Valley High School in 2006. Conestoga Valley officials told the college they would stop accepting student-teachers from Millersville if she went unpunished, the lawsuit said.
No crime was committed. No robbery, no sexual assault, no purchasing liquor for a minor even. She was more than old enough to drink alcohol. All she did was post a photograph.
Yet because of that photograph, the dean of her school informed her she was promoting “underage drinking” when she learned, on the day of her graduation no less, that she would not receive her teaching degree. One photograph was all it took for for the Conestoga School District and Millersville University to ruin her life.
Now, ask yourself this question. Isn’t this a lot like the type of actions we decry and despise in countries like Iran or Saudi Arabia (or Iraq for that matter)? Not to the same extent, yet, but certainly headed down the same path.
Then ask yourself another question. How many teachers, male or female, do you suppose attended parties where they drank alcohol when they were studying for their teaching degree, or even (gasp!) while they were student teaching? I imagine it’s a significant percentage in our society. Should they be barred from teaching now? Should we impose mandatory drug and alcohol tests on everyone who wishes to become a teacher? Or if they keep quiet about their naughty behavior is that sufficient to give them a pass?
Then ask yourself this question. Is this what we want our society to become, one where we are technically “free” but too intimidated to exercise our freedoms? A society where speaking “freely” outside of “free speech zones” may get you arrested. A society where peaceful protesters at an officially approved rally just happen to get shot with rubber bullets and their heads cracked with batons by legions of quasi-military uniformed police. A society that keeps anyone just a little bit different “in the closet,” or else. A society where everything you’ve ever said (or was ever said about you) or posted online, or pasted on your car’s bumper sticker can and will be used against you by anyone standing in a position of power over you, whether your boss, your college, your bank, your credit card company or even your medical insurer.
Don’t like what you see? Me neither.
