This must stop.
Yuri? Your school just called; they want slightly more understated smile from you in the future. Or else.
Yuri Wright, a top ranked high school football player who is being sought by schools in the Big Ten, Pac-12, ACC, SEC and Big East, was expelled from Don Bosco Prep High School in Ramsey, N.J.for sending sexually graphic and racial Twitter posts to his more than 1,600 followers. The action jeopardizes his chances of getting a big-time football scholarship.
“He was expelled from the school for the things he had written on Twitter,” the school’s football coach told ESPN. “It was pretty simple really, what he wrote were some graphic sex things. This is a Catholic school, things like that cannot happen. It was totally inappropriate.”
OK, so it was totally inappropriate. The tweets have been taken down, but let’s assume they were as bad as we can possibly imagine. It is none of a school’s business, whether it is Catholic or not, what an ass a student chooses to make of himself from his iPhone or computer. Expelling a student for his output on Twitter is such a gross invasion of the student’s autonomy (I can’t exactly say privacy when Twitter is involved) and such an outrageous attempt to control his personal life that Don Bosco Prep High should be awash in protesters right now. Hey, you Occupy guys! Want to do something meaningful? Go tell a high school that its tendrils should stay out of the homes and electronic devices of its students.
If Wright had been breaking the law, then the school might have a legitimate role to play. He was writing, and apparently his content was interesting enough that over a thousand people cared what he had to say. His tweets were sexually explicit and racially offensive? So is Chris Rock. At least Wright can string words together to express a thought—this puts him well ahead of many of the students recruited for the Big Ten.
Schools have a legitimate interest in disciplining students for what they do in school, and related to their studies. Anything else is attempted mind-control, indoctrination, and an abuse of power. Expelling a student for non-school activities and jeopardizing his future for expressing himself on social media is indefensible. I usually deplore the tendency of parents to threaten law suits every time a school attempts to discipline a student, but in this case, I hope Wright’s parents are interviewing lawyers.
Ethics Alarms 
Sorry as a former Catholic and Catholic student I disagree. Catholic schools have always taken a intrest in what their students did outside the classroom and that is understood by both the students and the parents when they enroll there and actually it is one of the things that attarcts parents to them. No one is making them go to a Catholic school. If they dont want a school to take such an intrest then they should go to a public school not a Catholic school.
Bill: I’ll trust that all of that is true: I have no basis to dispute it.
Even so, the punishment here is WAY out of proportion to the offense, especially in light of the secondary consequences of the expulsion–jeopardizing his college football prospects–which the school MUST know are part of the equation.
–Dwayne
I agree that the punishment is way out of line. When I was in Catholic school the Priests and the Nuns wouldnt have expelled you. They would have kept you there so they could keep an eye on you and discipline you themselves.
I understand what you are saying Jack. If fact I agree with you, but what if he was selling drugs, bullying a schoolmate, or drinking off the school property? I know our state high school league has penalties for student athletes if they are caught doing these types of things. Isn’t this a good time and place to prevent more “Sanduskys”?
You already answered my question. I’m sorry, I reread the post.
If this were a Public school, they wouldn’t have an ethical or legal leg to stand on. Because it’s a Catholic school, they are probably within their legal right to expel him. Chances are the student, and his parent(s), signed a pledge agreeing that this kind of extra-curricular behavior was grounds for expulsion. Doesn’t mean I agree that he should have his life potentially ruined. Hopefully, he’ll immediately transfer to another HS and graduate (football season is over anyway), still get into a great college, be offered a full scholarship, and have wonderful opportunities afterward. All that said … just another example of why I consider myself a NON, rather than a LAPSED Catholic.
Int. Blogger, like recovering alcoholic or recovering addict, I think the current term of art is “recovering Catholic”…(writing as one of those).
I agree the punishment was draconian, could have been better handled.
IB’s got it. I believe any private school has the right to expel students for any reason. The Catholic school also has the extra rights afforded to religious institutions to make decisions about who they allow in and out.
As you know, the issue is right, not rights. Employers often can fire someone for any reason at all. it’s not right, nonetheless. Punishing a student for what he says and writes of campus cannot be defended ethically, in my view.
Of course, I pulled my own son out a Catholic school after one semester.
We’re in agreement. Not ethical, but there’s no legal case against the school.
Jack, I’m sorry, I honestly am not getting clearly where you are coming from on this.
Cannot a breach of promise, or breach of contract, short of crime (or arrest as a suspect in a crime) justify a student’s expulsion? Isn’t that (enforcement of obligation) a right that is right?
What about the federal military academies, with their honor codes and other regulations? Are you saying that cadets admitted to one of those places, who tweet lies, or who text information even if only to help students at, say, a public elementary school to cheat on their exams, or who just “Weiner” themselves (that is “just expression,” I believe), are not accountable to whom they promised despite being in breach of obligations?
Just in the past day, my employer updated its policy on employees’ use of social media. I’m probably violating it as I type here. So rights vs. right in this brave new world of communications are kinda important to me. I need for you to clarify; I know that you can, but respect your right to decide whether you will.
The simple answer is that a high school, private or not, is not a military institution or an employer. Military training is explicitly about teaching discipline, honor, and character, and there is, as you say, a Code. The students live on campus—there is no privacy, strictly speaking.
I believe an employer always has the option of dismissing an employee whose conduct hurts the reputation of the company or interferes with the employee’s effectiveness I don’t see the relevance to a high school student. Seriously—do you think anyone read Yuri’s tweets and thought, “Boy, his school must be crap!” Tweets are personal, and a kid’s tweets, whatever they are, are trivial. The school, in this case, made them significant.
Thanks, many thanks. You are helping me extensively to calibrate my ethical instruments. I now understand better what you meant, and recognize and understand better a few mental knots I tend to tie myself into often, regarding absolutism vs. relativism and proportionality.
I am more in agreement now, purely from a critic’s perspective, with the notion that Yuri’s expulsion may have been disproportionate. But, I am not comfortable with a notion that Yuri has no obligation or accountability whatsoever to his school (even if only implicit, or explicit-yet-still-vague), for his conduct off campus. I disagree fundamentally with “tweets are personal.” Handwritten diary entries are personal. Electronic broadcasts are inherently beyond personal.
I consider “expression” an act, and tweeting, conduct, just like I consider posting in social media, and clicking on hyperlinks, acts and conduct.
Admission to or inclusion in any school, any employment, any social unit, is a microcosmic assumption of citizenship, and no trivial event. The admittee(?)(citizen) must acknowledge privately at least, if not publicly promise to uphold, both express and implied obligations under the unit’s social contract(s), no matter how clear or vague are the terms of such contracts. That is exactly like citizens in the macrocosmic political sense, who must “submit” to a “higher authority” inherent to the political unit.
Thus far there appears no clear consensus on the definitions of, or delineations between, which conduct is private vs. which is public in the environments of the newer media. That’s why I referred to a “brave new world” in my earlier post, needing help. For now, though, a guy who’s got a personal broadcast station at his fingertips is failing to think enough, or think clearly enough, about what he is doing or about to do and the possible impacts, if he is broadcasting racy (or otherwise provocative, such as some racism-sensitized persons would deem) expressions.
I could not begin to guess all the possible ways people on the receiving end of tweets might react. But I would not dismiss all possibility that persons of power and influence would react to tweets by a known student of a particular school, with a feeling of suspicion that the student’s school is failing or unfavorable in some way – and/or with a justified call for the school to join with a larger community in holding the student accountable for his tweets.
Full disclosure: I absolutely eschew Twitter. I drew the line decisively and permanently a couple of years ago. I was only beginning to see the value (and pitfalls) of Facebook, when suddenly in that very same time period, it seemed, Twitter use was starting to skyrocket. I am not an e-gadget-phile anyway, so I made myself clear on Facebook: I will not use Twitter. Out. Enough. With a cram-down of changes coming to how Facebook works, I just might eschew that, too.
Expelling a student from a private school that he attends by choice is NOT threatening his future. It may prevent him from playing football in college but that is hardly threatening his future (and I’m a former high school coach and a college football fan). Allowing him to continue to tweet sexually graphic and racist content without appropriate repercussions would be a much greater threat to his future. Assuming the school has a code of conduct that addresses behavior exhibited by this student, they are well within their rights (in my non-lawyer opinion).
Gee, and I went through my whole academic career believing that being expelled from any school reflected badly on a student and would damage his future prospects (which is what is generally understood by the term “damage one’s future.”
I’m sorry, but i think that’s a flip reply. Ditto to the idea that harming the prospects for a college football scholarship for a talented player—who may have no other outstanding talents—isn’t also damage.
The fact that he might rebound from this setback and discover a cure for cancer doesn’t mean that his future opportunities and options haven’t been limited by the punishment. Of course the have. But saying that continuing to send dumb tweets in high school will damage his future is fanciful. Maybe in the future old tweets will be brought back as “gotcha’s” in future Presidential contests, but somehow I doubt it.
Having spent an inordinate amount of time in the quasi-creepy world of college football recruiting, I can assure you that the tweets in question read like a locker room wiretap transcript.
By the by, there’s a fair amount of material in college football recruiting should you get dry between here and National Signing Day.
Look at how many religious people back the school here, and then tell me that religion isn’t something we should work against.
What religous people? Maybe one?
I actually don’t see alot of religious comments on the various online stories of this situation. Instead, it’s all related to what happens to him for recruiting, which makes sense on ESPN or highschoolsports websites.
I jumped the gun on my comment, but if I can find a story about this on a religious site that allows commenting, I suspect I will be vindicated.
I am a Christian and I don’t support the school’s decision. I think it’s something that will take care of itself over time. The clown is out of the closet.
Jack, I work in a Catholic school, and I agree with Bill. We have always made it clear to our students that they represent the school, even when they’re outside it. Why? Because our mission extends outside the school, and we strive to rise above the culture. Mostly, our students are onboard with that; certainly their parents are (often, it’s why they enrolled their daughters here in the first place. But, as Bill says, nobody has to come here. Occasionally, a student finds things here a little too restrictive for them, and they leave us for another school. Short of actually breaking the law, and as Bill also said, we’d probably not expell (or even suspend) a student who went against the mission, as the local lingo phrases it. That’s because our mission is all about lifting them up, not ruining their lives.
I should have discussed the “representing the institution” angle, and might. I am bothered, however, when the conduct involved is in fact just expression…just words. Is the kid admirable in other matters? If he did charity work in his spare time, would the school still expel him for randy tweets?
Jack, we’re in agreement here (for a change). But I think a more interesting theme is the degree to which administrators feel empowered to censure and punish students for their speech rather than mold them to be better citizens during their development years. The Morse v. Frederic (“Bong hits for Jesus”) case could be partially to blame. Without understanding the narrow scope in which SCOTUS rendered its decision, principals and superintendents may feel empowered that they can limit all types of free speech. Heck, look at the “pizza is a gun” punishment from a couple of months ago. It’s unfortunate that there isn’t more constructive behavioral education rather than the extreme draconian penalties for kids who, we all know, are going to make mistakes.
I agree completely. Better to turn something into a “learning experience” than be completely arbitrary. More lacking is a sense of proportion. What kind of person ruins a kid’s life over randy tweets? He’s a teenager, when have teenagers EVER been bastions of chastity?
I agree with that, although both of those examples involve school grounds. There is censorship on school grounds, and always has been; it has been abused, just as the pizza-gun incident was abuse. School have a role in teaching basic character, but that job belongs, first and foremost, to parents, and as I have written before, I don’t trust school personnel to teach character, because they are not trained to do that, and often have serious character issues themselves.
Yuri is young and perhaps quite full of himself. His coach warned him several times about the use of Twitter and other sources of social media. While I don’t believe the coach or any other educator has a right to ban a student from these types of activities, I think it is perfectly acceptable to discuss the unintended consequences of tweeting etc. although in this case I’m not sure, without all the information, that expulsion was an appropriate consequence. I would like to think that Yuri’s parents are giving him a very long, loud and strong lecture about not listening to the advice his coach gave him. Perhaps a more humbled Yuri might have his eyes opened that what he has written reflects badly on him and and has also embarrassed his family and others who care for him and in the future he will think more carefully about his actions. I believe it would be a good lesson learned for a young man who will no doubt go on to play football at a major university despite this expulsion.
Justifying an unethical and harsh punishment on the grounds that a student will learn a lesson from it is, to say the least, unwise. He might learn that lesson if the school sent hired thugs over to his house to rough him up, too. Up to a point, the school has a justification to discuss his tweets with Yuri, but I’m not especially comfortable with that either—if the tweets don’t involve the school, his social media practices are just plain none of their business.
I actually would like to speak more about the expulsion but have not found enough information about Yuri, what he wrote, or the school to come to a conclusion. Having said this, there is just something that doesn’t sit well with me about the expulsion at this point. Perhaps it’s because it is very clear that had this not been a private school the
expulsion would have been an absolutely
indefensible action on the school’s part.
Well, the specific contents of his tweets are relevant here. There’s a world of ethical distance between him saying something sexually suggestive in a tweet, or posting pictures of his junk (especially if he’s a minor – is he?). If BYU, a private Mormon college, can dismiss Brandon Davies from the basketball team for violating the team’s honor code (engaging in premarital sex), why can’t a private Catholic high school expel a student for improper (and potentially illegal) conduct?
Well, for one thing, I haven’t thought about the Brigham Young case. For another, I don’t see how one questionable decision about a college student’s conduct can or should justify a high school’s decision about a student’s speech. And if you agree to an honor code that explicitly makes anything an offense, you agreed to it. I don’t know, but I’m willing to bet my head that there’s no “I promise not to make an ass out of myself on Twitter” provision in the high school honor code, even if there is one, which I doubt.
I’m sorry, Jack, I cannot agree.
Bosco is a private Catholic preparatory school, not a regular public high school. As such, it has the right to set rules for attendance there. I have no doubt that Wright knew the policy of the school, which he would have had to agree to as a condition of attendance. To think that those policies would not include social media in today’s age is unlikely.
He almost certainly violated his contract with the school. The school was well within its rights, both ethically and legally, to part ways with him. Were this a public school, I might agree with you, but the purpose of having a private school, particularly a religious private school, is to create an environment where normally acceptable and legal activities are eschewed in the interests of that environment. The environment is created by contract with the students and parents, and even if one might say the environment at the school was not really affected by Wright’s conduct outside it, I think we all know that is not really true, especially if it is a direct violation of school policy.
Attendees of public schools may have no alternatives, so setting rules about off-campus behavior is much more questionable, if not completely off limits. In this case, however, the kid and his parents would have had to agree to Bosco’s rules, plus pay the $11,750 it takes to go there for a year (plus up to roughly $2,000 in additional fees)
The First Amendment dog will not hunt in this case, owing to the nature of the school. The courts have long held that private schools have much greater freedom to censor speech than public schools, particularly speech that can be characterized as lewd or offensive.
With that said, if all the youngster did was write a couple of sexually explicit, but not really lewd tweets, then I’d say the school overreacted even if it was within its rights. I think there is a line there that may be hard to define and even more difficult to agree upon, but blanket expulsion for some sexually salty language and politically incorrect racial commentary would be more troubling from an ethical standpoint, at least to me. Unfortunately, there are not enough details to make an informed judgment about that.
You do good work, Jack. Very thought provoking. Keep it up.
Glenn, I just posted a long piece addressing some of this, but in brief..
1. I’ll bet you a sandwich that when Yuri enrolled, and probably now, there was nothing about social media in the school’s rules. You’d be surprised.
2. Whether is was within its rights or not (and I don’t think so), the school was still wrong.
3. The mention of the ACLU at the end was careless. There’s no Free speech issue, other than the fact that all American institutions should respect the ideal, and not interfere with it unless absolutely necessary. And this wasn’t.
Jack, I don’t know if there is anything in the rules about social media and neither do you. So we’ll have to leave that one in abeyance until someone obtains a copy, but I accept the possibility you may be right, but I stand by my statement until proven wrong.
I am confident that the schools was within its rights. As to whether they were right or wrong, in my opinion, that largely depends upon the understanding between the school and the student. If the student had a reasonable expectation that he could engage in such behavior and not violate school policy, then the school would be wrong.
I do not accept the idea that off-campus conduct is any more insulated for a student of a private school than it is for an employee of private business. Whether you think it is ethical or not, behaving in a manner that casts a school who’s image is critical to success in a bad light is an unethical act. Parting ways, in my view, was in the best interest of both parties in this case.
Actually, it is ethical. If a student isn’t willing to uphold Catholic values in a Catholic institution, then it isn’t the right place for the student. Allowing the sexually explicit tweets to go unchallenged is to give tacit approval to religiously antithetical behavior. The article stated that Wright was warned ten to fifteen times to stop tweeting and he chose not to. He knew what he was doing and knew the consequences of his actions. Bed, made, lie.
Nope. Even a Catholic school has no business punishing him for his life—it is not his emperor, owner or parent. Their job is to teach values for life, not enforce them, Can he tweet opinions contrary to what the Pope decrees, Michelle? How about tweets favoring a pro-abortion political candidate? I don’t care how many times a school “orders’ a student to say what the school wants him to say—it can ask, but it can’t demand, and if I were Yuri, I’d keep tweeting just to make the point. Your argument is essentially, “The school told him it was going to abuse its authority, so it was his fault that it did. It was the school’s fault, because the school overstepped its legitimate power.
Michelle is wrong, as Catholic institutions very often do not make the students abide by Catholic values. For instance, they don’t make Jewish students worship Jesus, which IS considered a value by the church.
On the other hand, Catholicism is its own fiefdom (by both church decree and the first amendment). They believe that everything to do with people involved in their organization is their business. This doesn’t apply to all religions, but many. It’s still unethical, but it’s not this individual decision that was the problem; it’s the whole concept.
I’m sorry, but this is such a strange reply. Firstly, Catholic schools certainly do expect -Catholic- students to abide by -Catholic- values. I’ve never heard of a Jewish student attending a Catholic school (why on earth would they attend a school for a religion diametrically opposed to their own?) but in that case, I suppose they wouldn’t enforce church attendance in that case.
Your second point agrees with mine. Catholicism is its own fiefdom and if you can’t act in accordance with the church, you run the risk of being expelled or excommunicated. Them’s the breaks and if you don’t like it, you have the option of public or a secular private school.
I’ve never heard of a Jewish student attending a Catholic school (why on earth would they attend a school for a religion diametrically opposed to their own?)
Somewhere in the range of 15-20% of Catholic High School enrollment in the U.S. is non-Catholics. Most private schools are religious. If you live a poor school district, sending your kids to a religious school is not necessarily about religion.
That you don’t understand this basic fact about religious schools shows that your opinions on the matter (what religious schools should do) is pretty worthless.
Your second point agrees with mine. Catholicism is its own fiefdom and if you can’t act in accordance with the church, you run the risk of being expelled or excommunicated. Them’s the breaks and if you don’t like it, you have the option of public or a secular private school.
That was directed at Jack’s comment not yours. Also. I absolutely don’t agree with you. You think this is okay. I think it’s horrible.
I wrote something that may not accurately reflect my opinion.
That you don’t understand this basic fact about religious schools shows that your opinions on the matter (what religious schools should do) is pretty worthless.
I didn’t mean to imply that your opinions (in general) are worthless. Just that you seem to be missing some pretty necessary background information in this one case, and no matter how good your ethics and logic are, when you start from false premises, you can easily be led astray.
http://www.ncea.org/news/annualdatareport.asp#ethnicity
18.9% of Catholic secondary school enrollment is non-Catholic nationally.
I should also add that sports (not just academics) are a big reason for enrollment in a religious school. Private schools can legally recruit athletes and can pay for better coaches, fields, equipment, transportation, etc…
Knute Rockne, a Norwegion Lutheran (he later converted to Catholicism), attended Notre Dame in the early 20th century. He coached there as well. Many of the religious private schools have almost as many that don’t belong to the denomination. That includes grammar all the way through to post graduate school.
The church may well decide to excommunicate a member for tweeting opinions contrary to what the Pope decrees, yes. Again, that’s their prerogative as a private institution. He knew the rules going in, and the school did lay out its expectations for student behavior quite clearly. They were asked multiple times not to Tweet sexually explicit material, or there would be a consequence. You have every right to feel the way you do, but they have every right to expect that their Catholic students live by Catholic values and to part ways with students that disagree.
Again, that’s their prerogative as a private institution.
And, again, that’s completely irrelevant to whether or not it is ethical to do so.
They were asked multiple times not to Tweet sexually explicit material, or there would be a consequence.
This would be relevant, but it is inaccurate. My understanding is that after the public tweets were complained about, Yuri took his twitter feed private. I don’t believe non-public messaging was included in the complaints.
You have every right to feel the way you do, but they have every right to expect that their Catholic students live by Catholic values and to part ways with students that disagree.
As noted, Yuri isn’t necessarily a Catholic student, just a Catholic School student.
Also, again, the right to part ways does not mean it’s ethical to part ways.
The kid is not a criminal. He didn’t break any laws. I had Catholic friends who went to private school. Granted, it was way before social media but we did worse things than this. However it wasn’t on school grounds. Why would anyone want a church or school to regulate what they do outside the campus? Sure it was wrong, but why are school officials paying attention to what he is tweeting or writing on a social network? He didn’t physically hurt anyone. I can about imagine how difficult it has become to recruit anyone to a Catholic school after all the sexual abuse scandals within the Catholic Church. We expect our kids to be safe but after they leave the campus, it is our job. People are against government over regulation and not public or private school regulation? And people are afraid of Sharia Law?
Love the last sentence, Michael. No kidding.
Sharia isn’t the right kind of theocracy!