One of the interesting questions associated with the rise of mobile technology is this: How long it will it take all of us to fully internalize the awareness that our actions can be recorded almost anywhere, at almost any time? That is a question that celebrities, politicians, and star atheletes have had to consider for…
A 15-year-old student at Glastonbury High School in Glastonbury, CT plead guilty on August 14 to two counts of criminal impersonation and was given a two-year suspended prison sentence and two years of probation. In April, Eddie Matos was arrested on charges that he solicited nude Snapchat photos from teen boys and men using a…
It’s been a disturbing couple of months at Evergreen High School in Vancouver, WA. In mid-June, science teacher Matthew Morasch was caught trying to shoot upskirt videos of female students. Now comes the news that Stephanie McCrea, a married theater and English teacher at Evergreen High, pleaded guilty on July 30 “to four counts of…
A rude Facebook comment, combined with some other inappropriate classroom conduct, nearly cost a Queensland, Australia teacher his license this spring. In the end, however, the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal determined that Dion Ashley Paulsen had taken sufficient steps to reform his behavior and allowed him to continue teaching. Paulsen, who teaches in the…
In the fall of 2014, a complaint was filed with the Disciplinary Tribunal of the New Zealand Teachers Council, alleging that relief teacher Leon Duffy had engaged in an inappropriate conversation with a 15-year-old 10th year student. The complaint was filed by the principal of a New Zealand high school (both unnamed) after receiving a…
I tell you three times: camera phones are the most significant driver of social change since the early 1960s, when television brought the street battles over civil rights into nearly every American home. We are only just beginning to appreciate the myriad ways in which the constant presence of camera phones is changing our society,…
It was the pool party seen round the world. On June 5, a number of officers from the McKinney Police Department allegedly responded to a “disturbance” or “reports of possible violence” at a pool party at the Craig Ranch North Community Pool in McKinney. It’s not entirely clear who phoned in a report or why,…
June is typically the month for momentous decisions by the U.S. Supreme Court, and this year’s round of society-shifting decisions is off to a rapid start. In Elonis v. United States, announced on the morning of June 1, the Supreme Court overturned the conviction of a man who allegedly threatened his ex-wife (and others) in…
During the civil unrest in Baltimore over the death of Freddie Gray, the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 34-Maryland Transportation Authority Police posted a photo of a memorandum it received from the Baltimore Police Department warning of possible targeting of police officers by various gangs: Baltimore, Md., April 27, 2015 — The Baltimore Police Department…
A trailer for a provocative Australian comedy about “race, Aboriginality, and discrimination” was banned from Facebook in mid-April because it contains very brief images of elderly Aboriginal women dancing topless in a traditional ceremony. You can view the trailer below. Rachel Clements, co-creator of the movie 8MMM, told the Sydney Morning Herald that she “was…
