Zoey (above), a high school senior at Ayala High School in Chino Hills, California —we don’t yet know her whole name—was expelled for cyberbullying, intimidation, harassment and attempting to cause physical injury to another person after she used her cell phone to live-stream a classroom brawl between fellow students. There seems to be some suspicion that she was in on the plot to attack one of the combatants, though Zooey denies it. The incident and the report covering it raise all sorts of ethics questions and conclusions.
Such as…
1. Why are students allowed to have cell phones in class at all, specifically cameras? The school has a rule against filming and posting occurrences in the school involving students, potentially embarrassing them, humiliating them and harassing them—why not just confiscate all of the phones before class so this kind of thing is impossible?
2. Zoey’s explanation: “In our generation, you go live to do makeup, to do everything, so it was just going live just to go live. It wasn’t my intent to purposely or try to cause harm to anyone.” I see Zoey has virtually reached adulthood without anyone teaching her that rationalizations aren’t valid reasons for unethical conduct, and “Everybody does it” is particularly wrong.
3. The story emphasizes that poor Zoey “already took her senior graduation pictures and purchased her prom dress in anticipation of her graduation” from Ayala High School in Chino Hills. But the 17-year-old” now ” can’t go to the dance or walk in her commencement.”
Awww.
Don’t get expelled, then.
More to the point, is missing out on the prom and the graduation ceremony all that an expulsion signifies today?
4. More from Zooey: “It was more of an impulsive thing. It was just bad judgment on my part.” That’s a universal excuse for everything from shop-lifting to rape and murder, and not one that tends to work.
5. “It’s very hurtful to me to hear these things said about her, knowing who she is and the integrity that she has,” Zoey’s mother is quoted as saying. Her daughter happily filmed a fellow student getting the snot beat out of him in her classroom and posted it on the web without displaying any compassion, concern, or sense of responsibility. That’s “who she is.” Take a bow, mom.
6. More from that paragon of integrity, Zooey: “[The school] knew they wanted to make an example out of me, and that’s what they did.”] Yes, that’s the principle called “discipline.” See, when a student violates the rules and misbehaves, the only way to show that the rules are taken seriously is to enforce those rules, also known as “making an example of someone who deserves to be made an example of.” Has anyone else done the same thing and not been disciplined? No? Then shut up.
7. Zoey doesn’t care. “I got a substantial academic scholarship – $19,000 – to go to a university,” she said. “I’ll be practicing law after I graduate.”
Great.
8. Back in my day, when dinosaurs roamed the earth, admission to college was conditioned on graduating in good standing. That seemed like a reasonable condition; still does.
_________________
Pointer: Old Bill
Ethics Alarms 
Scholarships granted! Grants can be denied also, I hope!
Probably being mentored by Michael Cohen.
I find it interesting that a high school administration that seems to have done things correctly gets more press coverage than the one that punished innocent kids and lost a lawsuit.
It is rarer, I suppose…
Fascinating observation.
6. Has anyone else done the same thing and not been disciplined? No? Then shut up. High school is such a modern hell scape, that it has probably happened a lot to the point students would have no fair warning that filming a brawl is against the rules and could lead to expulsion, making her punishment essentially arbitrary. I worked in a series of quiet suburban schools, and left in part because a student threw a desk (I also graduated in an unrelated field and got a full time job in it).
If the desk thrower got anything more than “in school” suspension, I’d be shocked. If the student who actually did the beating in Zoey’s case also got expelled, then maybe Zoey’s punishment is not so arbitrary. However, even if he were, would he be have been expelled if the incident were not documented and made public? Were the administrators covering their asses by expelling the one who revealed their incompetence?
Why doesn’t it work? You tell every one to drop their phones in a box. They pick it up after class. If they don’t, they get punished. How hard is that?
It sounds simple in theory. In practice, it gets muddy, very quickly.
Any of the above make successfully keeping students off their phones basically a nonstarter.
This is exactly what is done in my daughter’s freshmen math class. There is a hanging cell phone holder that is behind the teacher’s desk, everyone is required to put it there at the begining of class and once the instruction is done for the day and any assigned work is completed a student can retrieve they’re phone before the bell rings. Otherwise they retrieve it after the bell rings.
How is it that kids are allowed to brawl IN THE CLASSROOM on a fairly regular basis? There were usually three or four fights a year at my boys’ high school. If they were in the cafeteria, they were quickly broken up by the dean of discipline, Brother Daniel, who was bigger and meaner than any of the potential or actual contestants. He usually quickly inflicted more damage than either of the miscreants. Once a semester, a fight would be arranged in a nearby empty lot after school, but again, Br. Daniel’s sources would make sure he was there promptly upon the fight beginning. Now, it appears to be you can fight anytime, anywhere to the finish with impunity. I just don’t get it. And I taught high school for two years.