Pennsylvania College Student Files Lawsuit Against College Denying Her Teaching Certificate

Stacy Snyder, a 27 year old Millersville University graduate was issued a bachelor of arts degree in English. Which would be wonderful if not for the fact that and English degree was not the degree she chose. Or the degree she earned from Millersville. What should have been issued to her was a bachelor of science in Education, as well as her teaching certificate. Why all the concern? The denial of said earned degree was due to one picture of Stacy Snyder. A photo of herself at a Halloween party two years earlier in a pirate costume, in her hand a cup. The caption on the photo was *Drunk Pirate*. Apparently Millersville University feels that this photo was *unprofessional* and deemed as *promotion of underage drinking* by Jane S. Bray, the Dean of the School of Education at Millersville, although the photo was taken during Stacy's 25th year, 4 years over the state's legal drinking age.

Stacy Snyder was a dean's list student. She is a mother of two, and a nanny. Her student teacher requirements were fulfilled at a nearby high school in 2006. After the photo surfaced school ofiicials, including Bray, referred to Snyder as *incompetent* and suggested she should have not have been allowed to continue her student teaching assignment after the photo was discovered.

The issue that this incident brings to the table is that of personal privacy. What exactly is it that Snyder did that caused all this bad drama? Apparently Millersville University feels that the social lives of students is somehow their business. Over the past few years, there have been many instances of schools attempting to punish students based on content on their personal networking webspaces. There have been reports of similar instances in the workplace as well. Someone writes a blog bitching about how they dislike their boss, someone forwards it, next thing you know there is accusations of insubordination.

Unfortunately, Federal law does not offer much in the way of protection from this type of incident. As long as the *privacy invading* party does not use wiretapping or hacking methods to retrieve information on the subject, no laws are broken. Which brings us to free speech. Although there was nothing illegal or even *unethical* going on in the drunk pirate picture, University officials were able to pull a switcharoo on Ms. Snyder's degree without regard to her constitutional rights. Internet privacy as a legal concept is still a baby. Many law firms and legal think tanks are working hard to keep the *law* up to date with technology, no easy feat there.

Now, this entire situation could have been easily avoided. MySpace allows for private profiles, meaning that unless Millersville officials were approved by Snyder as *friends*, her profile, if made private from the public, would have been accessible only to approved *friends*. Statistics are now showing that teens typically use the *private* function on social networking sites, (mostly to deter sexual predators), and the same applies to most college students using these networks. Social networking profiles are now being used as evidence for prosecuters all over the US, many kids posing with firearms, drugs, and other contraband thereby providing incriminating evidence against themselves. In the Snyder case, again, nothing was illegal, but Millersville University found the material offensive in whatever capacity. Looks like Stacy Snyder will likely win this case. Most will find it sad if her degree of choice is not issued to her, but I for one am POSITIVE that the next time she posts a funny picture to MySpace, she will likely make sure that she marks *keep my profile PRIVATE FROM PUBLIC VIEWING*.