School admins coerce cheerleader for Facebook password

At this point, you would think that most users would be aware that they should keep embarrassing information off of Facebook. Everyone from potential employers to the press regularly check users' accounts on the service, looking for evidence of illicit or debauched behavior, and a number of jobs have been lost due to the information found there. Still, many fail to exercise discretion when using the service, people in positions of power are catching on, and there continue to be problems that result from the blurring of boundaries between public and private.

In what may be the latest example, a suit was filed in Mississippi that alleges a school official—more specifically a teacher acting in her capacity as a cheerleading coach—demanded that members of her squad hand over their Facebook login information. According to the suit, the teacher used it to access a student's account, which included a heated discussion of some of the cheerleading squad's internal politics. That information was then shared widely among school administrators, which resulted in the student receiving various sanctions.

As we noted when Bozeman, Montana attempted to obtain login credentials from anyone applying for a municipal job, it's easy for anyone to view pictures and text that a Facebook user has chosen to make public simply by signing up for an account with the service. By demanding login credentials, authorities gain access to materials that users have chosen to keep private. Whether this is done because people intend to get access to private data or because they are simply unfamiliar with how Facebook operates isn't always obvious, and probably varies from case to case.

According to this suit, the student's login details were requested during school hours, and the teacher accessed the account the same day. The account included the contents of a discussion between the student and a fellow member of the school's cheerleading squad about its internal politics, which was then allegedly shared with other squad supervisors and the school administration. The student was then "publicly reprimanded, punished, and humiliated" due to the contents of that discussion.

The student was allegedly forced to sit out of various school activities and had difficulties arranging her academic schedule to avoid taking classes from any of the individuals who were both coaches and teachers. Her parents claim that attempts to discuss the problem with school administrators brought them no relief.

The Student Press Law Center has more detailed account (via TechDirt) of the events, in which it reports that several other students asked for their logins simply deleted their accounts using their cell phones, preventing this sort of intrusion; the schools apparently have a filter that blocks access to its Web interface from school computers. It also suggests that the initial search of the Facebook accounts was done with the intent of finding pictures of the students smoking or drinking.

In any case, the suit alleges that the school's administration and staff, along with five John Does, violated the student's Constitutional rights to privacy, free speech and association, and subjected her to cruel and unusual punishment. There are also charges of causing emotional distress, defamation of character, and civil conspiracy. In general, courts have concluded that public school students have some constitutional rights, but only a subset of those afforded to the general populace. It may be that the student's lawyers are aiming broadly in order to find some area of constitutional law in which the student is clearly protected.

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