Blog

Just wanted to point out this new article sharing the story of a high-schooler who responded to a friend’s status update on Facebook, and consequently received a ridiculous sanction from his school for it.  He basically stated “you’re not going to bust a grape” – indicating to his friend (who posted about fighting another girl at school) that it was just a joke, and that she wasn’t actually going to *do* anything despite her threatening words.  The student – who is in Honors classes and who participated in a summer internship at USC this year – was then suspended for the rest of the school year, thereby jeopardizing his graduation date and future scholastic ambitions.

I believe that the school will likely be civilly sued by the family of the boy for overstepping their disciplinary bounds.  I believe they should have taken the time to calmly ascertain what was meant by the statement made on Facebook, and attempted to address it informally rather than through suspension.  This may be a case of administrators hoping to send a powerful message to the rest of the student body, but grossly overreacting and doling out a punishment incommensurate with the nature and context of the offense.

My colleagues and I have been discussing the phenomenon of sexting in great detail recently, in light of the actions of two Texas school districts.  Before the beginning of this new school year, the Houston Independent school district (one of the largest in the nation) and the Dallas-Fort Worth school district banned sending sexually-explicit photos or messages over cell phones.  Some argue that this action is paternalistic, outdated, tyrannical, and even possibly unconstitutional.  Others applaud the decision, which reflects that administrators are finally treating this matter seriously.

Personally, I’m glad that the district is focusing in on the problem, but I’m not sure if this policy will actually be useful as students tend not to be deterred by heavy-handed rule-making.  I also don’t want its presence to take the place of purposed educational efforts to teach students about the responsible use of technology.  This sometimes happens when laws or policies are implemented as a way of quickly “dealing” with an issue without understanding its fundamental causes.

When giving presentations, I talk a lot about the need to change prevailing social norms regarding what is acceptable and unacceptable in the minds of youth.  I feel that our prevention and response efforts are going to be less than ideal and fruitful if we cannot effectively counter what society and the media are hammering into the minds of adolescents.  If the dominant message our kids are hearing is that sex and sexuality lead to popularity and celebrity status with very little (if any) public or personal fallout, youth will continue to push the proverbial envelope and the line between right and wrong in this area will be increasingly obscured.  Maybe that’s fine – maybe that’s part of our inevitable march forward into modernity.  But maybe it portends more problems than we’re going to be able to handle.