A confluence of some of the most disturbing trends in American society led to the lockdown Wednesday of Highland High School in Pocatello, Idaho. In the wee hours of the morning on October 7, an unnamed 15-year-old male had a Facebook Messenger exchange with another person, age and gender unknown. A screenshot of a portion…
In August 2010, a woman named Jennifer Woolsey reportedly found a video on the desktop of her family’s shared computer that showed her husband Brian on the receiving end of a sexual act by a young woman. At the time, both she and her husband were teachers at Sunrise Mountain High School in Peoria, Arizona,…
A couple of days ago, the Times of London published an op-ed by an anonymous female former teacher entitled “I Had an Affair with My 17-year-old Student.” The article, unfortunately, is behind the paper’s paywall, so it will only be accessible to those readers with a Times subscription or those who are willing to sign…
The dubious prosecution of two teenagers in North Carolina for sharing explicit photos with each other in the context of a romantic relationship continues to attract attention from media outlets around the world, most of whom (or at least the article commenters) take advantage of the story to deride the U.S. for its lingering prurience…
While sitting in Chicago O’Hare Airport the other day, I got a call from Joanna Walters, a New York-based reporter for London’s “The Guardian” newspaper. [@JoannaWalters13] (h/t to Dr. Jeff Temple for the referral). She was looking for background information on U.S. laws regarding sexting by children, as part of a story about the criminal…
Laws prohibiting the possession, production, and distribution of child pornography are of surprisingly recent origin in the United States. It was not until 1982 that the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that sexually explicit images of persons under the age of 18 are not entitled to legal protection under the First Amendment. See New…
In April, Charles Clay Dawson, a teacher at Wanette Public Schools in Pottawatomie County, was charged with soliciting nude photos from two female students, one aged 16 and the other aged 15. According to the investigative report, the 43-year-old Dawson solicited the photos from the students using standard text messaging and the KIK messaging app.…
Dorman High School, located in Roanoke, South Caroline (just south of Spartanburg), may now hold the record for fastest termination of a teacher accused of digital misconduct. On Tuesday, 8/18, officials at the school were told by a student that math teacher and assistant cross country coach John Sewell had been sending him sexually explicit…
Back in June, I wrote about the case of Patrick Newman, a Social Studies teacher at Trinity High School, an all-boys Catholic school in Louisville, KY. Following a tip by Twitter to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, investigators determined that Newman had used Vine (a video app owned by Twitter), Kik, and…
Unless you’ve been living under a fairly large rock for the past few months, you are probably aware of the fact that former Secretary of State (and Democratic presidential candidate) Hillary Clinton has been in a little bit of hot water over the fact that she set up and used a private email server in…
