Letters to the Editor
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Don't Endorse Draconian BS
I wish writers like Catherine Price would be so willing to abandon privacy and labor rights with bullshit sentences like this one:
If you're trying to be a schoolteacher or otherwise work with children professionally, it's probably not a good idea to post a picture of yourself under the caption "Drunken Pirate" anywhere -- not even on your own refrigerator.
Bullshit. A photo of an adult engaging in legal and normal behavior in an adult situation is rarely sound basis for employer action. At best such a choice is vulnerable to civil challenges and in certain circumstances may violate labor laws.
It doesn't matter if her career of choice is teaching. It doesn't matter if the photo appeared on myspace rather than a local newspaper. It doesn't matter if it had a wacky caption.
Adults of all vocation appear in newspaper social pages and sporting event photos holding glasses which obviously contain alcohol. Sometimes wacky captions are involved.
Were a school to deny a degree to an education student for being photographed at a tailgate party for the local team, it would be considered absurd. Because it's myspace and a female teacher and a pirate caption, some people seem to think all rights go out the window.
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit. It's time we stop blaming the victim when some authority figure crosses the line with such phrases as "not a good idea." I'm sorry, but the point of our nation is we do not have to self-police 24/7. It's not just a principle, it's also often the law.
We are not a nation where the powerful get to act on their assumptions of the moment. We are a nation of laws. Children are not a valid reason to ignore this, unless people allow it to be.