Each community has the ability to set standards and ramifications. What would fly in New York City or even Indianapolis is unlikely to be the standard of conduct in Churubusco. Consequently, the culture of rural Indiana is somewhat different than more metropolitan areas.

If the girls were Freshmen it would be possible to argue that they were unaware of the code of conduct required to participate. They aren’t. I am parent of two children that have signed similar codes of conduct in Fort Wayne. Students know the rules before they play.

Churubusco High School has a graduation rate of 95%. The school educates approximately 430 students in grades 9-12. The population is 99% Caucasian. The school district has a total of 3 buildings.

Do you have a link to any news articles giving details about the reduction in the initial punishment? I am not finding anything about it on Google News, Google Blog search or Technorati.

I’m familiar with student athlete codes of conduct, but surely there are some limits to the scope of behavior for which schools can punish students under these contracts?

The case has gone to court, but the initial punishment has already been reduced.

In Indiana, as in many states, student athletes sign a code of conduct contract with their district which covers all students participating in statewide officiated athletics and music activities. Essentially, the code of conduct binds involved students who will represent their school, to a higher standard of behavior than their non-participating peers. It applies to drinking, smoking, reckless driving, language, lewd behavior, etc… Scholarships through the IHSAA are based on compliance with this code contract.

Other organizations that these girls might find themselves in the near future are also governed by codes of conduct. Fraternities, sororities, college athletics, and scholarship contests regularly have agreed to conduct codes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinker_v._Des_Moines_Independent_Community_School_District

Within 5 seconds of my standing on it, my bathroom scale will now even share my weight and BMI with my iPhone, my doctor’s iPhone, and the whole web (if I choose)! Is n-o-t-h-i-n-g sacred any more? )

But therein lies the difference: if I choose. We need a public conversation about our rights to control the aggregation and dispersement of information about us in the cloud. Then we need a legal framework to support a newly defined privacy. The more I ponder this, the more complex it seems!

I presented to a group of elementary teachers last year on being careful with what they post to their Facebook profiles. I pulled some personal content(such as their phone numbers)and possibly controvesial content (groups they belonged to with the word “*itch” in their titles, photos of them tossing back a few drinks) from their profiles even though I wasn’t their Facebook friend, and listed the content (without their names) as examples of what I was able to find without much effort. I later found out that they felt “violated” that I had found that information because I wasn’t their Facebook friend. Which I thought was interesting since they voluntarily posted it out there and put no privacy settings on it.

The whole incident really made me realize how strong the illusion of privacy, as in “Only my friends can see what I post” is. And how naive they were – I showed them how easy it was for me to save down one of their photos with a simple right-click and “Save As”. Much like what was done from the photos of the girls you reference in your post. First Amendment issues aside, we have much, much work to do in educating all age groups in this area.

Google has facial recognition built into both their Picasa desktop and web products. If limited facial recognition (works best when the person if facing the camera) is available for free in consumer products, imagine what is available in professional products (profile view, body view, rear view, clothing matching, age adjustment, etc.)

And how long before this technology is available to consumers. Combine high quality recognition with web crawlers, and finding all those pictures of YOU is going to be possible. Hmmmmmm.

Yes, comparing, identifying and finding (Googling) images, audio and video is going to get as easy in the future as finding text is today. Chew on that for awhile.

Cheers!