A Stitch in Haste

Three different stories from behind the schoolhouse gate:

ITEM: Having solved all other problems, a Connecticut school district is deploying police officers to fight the War on Naughty Words --

Bad words are costing Hartford Public and Bulkeley high schoolers $103 each.

Police officers assigned to the schools have fined about two dozen students for cursing in a new program to curtail unruly behavior. The joint effort by school and police officials targets students who swear while defying teachers and administrators.
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Parents are required to pay the fines if the students cannot.

MY TAKE: There are several moving parts here. Students have First Amendment rights in school, but not to the point where their speech is disruptive to the educational mission. So punishing kids for swearing at teachers is, without more, okay. On the other hand, how does imposing a fine connect to maintaining discipline? In my day, if you were unruly or disruptive in class, then you were removed from the class, not sent a bill. And I am generally very opposed to having police in schools, especially for something as non-threatening as profane speech. I think teaching kids that "the police are everywhere and are always to be obeyed" should not necessarily be part of modern curricula. And one more thing: police are expensive. It's a waste to deploy them in this manner.

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ITEM: A California high school is in trouble for outing an already "out" gay student --

Ms. Nguon filed suit in September after a year of run-ins with Ben Wolf, the principal of Santiago High School in Garden Grove, Calif., over her hugging, kissing and holding hands with her girlfriend.
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Judge James V. Selna of the Central District Court of California ruled Monday that Ms. Nguon had "sufficiently alleged a legally protected privacy interest in information about her sexual orientation."
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In its motion to dismiss the case, the district argued that Ms. Nguon had no legally protectable privacy right because she was "openly lesbian" and "constantly" hugging and kissing her girlfriend.

"A reasonable person could not expect that their actions on school grounds, in front of everyone else on the school grounds, would remain private," the motion said.

MY TAKE: Sorry, but I side with the school on this one. I've never been able to buy into the notion that one has a "privacy right" in public. It makes no sense. Indeed, the frivolousness of a lawsuit like this detracts from the real issue, namely when schools betray confidentiality by disclosing the orientation of closeted gay students (a topic I blogged about in this post). I don't mean to make light of the process of coming out, but gay kids need to understand that, for better or for worse, "out in public" means out in public and decisions — even noble ones — have consequences. Other thoughts at Althouse, De Novo, Atlas Blogged.

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ITEM: I missed the whole brouhaha over the University of Pennsylvania student who photographed two fellows students having sex in the window of their dorm room. The student then posted the (R-rated, but not quite XXX) photos over his university-provided web account. The university had filed disciplinary charges against the photo-snapping student for sexual harassment, but then quickly dismissed them before the blogswarm could commence in earnest. Overlawyered has a good collection of links. My take is similar to the out-gay California high school student. If you have sex in a venue where people can see you, then you are presumed to be consenting to allowing yourself to be photographed. There can be no such thing as a "right to public privacy." If you don't like it, then draw the curtains.