Barely Legal of the Day: Almost three years ago, teenage girls in Indiana documented some sleazy slumber parties by posting pics to multiple social networks. The pics were “funny,” they claimed, and they “wanted to share with [their] friends how funny it was.’”
The photos spread around to their classmates pretty quickly, and, as you might imagine, the principal’s office wasn’t too crazy about it.
In fact, the school was so peeved that two of the slumber party attendees were suspended from partaking in school sports for the entire year. That woke up a sleeping giant — the American Civil Liberties Union — who claimed that, despite the crude nature of the slumber party pics, the school was infringing on its students’ rights.
Fast-forward three years, and the case of T.V. v. Smith-Green Community School Corp. has finally wrapped up. This month, a U.S. District Court ruled that it’s unconstitutional to “discipline [students] for out of school conduct that brings ‘dishonor’ or ‘discredit’ upon the school.”
But just how “dishonorable” were the photos by these anonymous students? The court has a pretty comprehensive description:
During the first sleepover, the girls took a number of photographs of themselves sucking on the lollipops … and added the caption “Wanna suck on my cock.” During another sleepover, T.V. took a picture of M.K. and another girl pretending to kiss each other. At a final slumber party, more pictures were taken with M.K. wearing lingerie and the other girls in pajamas. One of these pictures shows M.K. standing talking on the phone while another girl holds one of her legs up in the air, with T.V. holding a toy trident as if protruding from her crotch and pointing between M.K.’s legs. In another, T.V. is shown bent over with M.K. poking the trident between her buttocks. A third picture shows T.V. positioned behind another kneeling girl as if engaging in anal sex. In another picture, M.K. poses with money stuck into her lingerie — stripper-style.
“I wished the case involved more important and worthwhile speech on the part of the students,” said U.S. District Chief Judge Philip J. Simon. “But a school’s well-intentioned but unconstitutional punishment of that speech would be all the more regrettable.”
[Forbes]
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Copy & paste this:
TJ: Wait. Was that an mc chris reference?
