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Cheerleader Sues School Over Facebook Snooping

By Robert J. Ambrogi

Early in the 2007 school year at Pearl High School in Pearl, Miss., cheerleading coach Tommie Hill demanded that each member of the cheerleading squad give him the passwords to their Facebook accounts. No sooner did the students hand over their passwords than most deleted their accounts. But Mandi Jackson, then 14, did not delete hers. The coach logged into her account and then disseminated private messages between her and another student to teachers, coaches, the principal and the superintendent. The messages, described as "profanity-laced," were between Jackson and the cheerleading captain and involved Jackson's asking the captain to "stop harassing" several other cheerleaders. But after the messages were circulated by the coach, Jackson was banned from attending cheerleading practices, participating in football games and participating in other school events. Jackson, through her parents, has now filed a lawsuit in federal court in Mississippi alleging that the school violated the girl's constitutional rights. "There was a blatant violation of her right to privacy, her right to free speech, her right to free association and her right to due process," the girl's lawyer, Rita Nahlik Silin, told the Student Press Law Center. "It's egregious to me that a 14-year-old girl is...

Full post as published by Legal Blog Watch on July 29, 2009 (boomark / email).