[This article was first published as OMG Did U C That? on Technorati.]
OMG Did U C That?
It was bound to happen. A father in Irving, Texas, said he plans to file a lawsuit against the school district there for reading his daughter's text messages.
According to The Dallas Morning News, the Irving School Board dismissed the father's complaint this week. The board determined that in April, MacArthur High School administrators had probable cause to search the 17-year-old's cellphone, as well as those of three other students, because they believed a possible school violation or criminal incident had taken place.
Administrators said they read the text messages because they believed the cell phones might have contained information about two cars that were vandalized, a possible gun on campus, and bullying.
The girl's father, however, said his daughter's right to privacy was violated in the search. The dad asked the school board to issue an apology, terminate the administrators involved and award $7.5 million in damages to his daughter.
$7.5 million in damages. RU kidding me?
Jeez Louise, I wish I had thought of that.
Several years ago when my youngest daughter was in high school, she had her cell phone confiscated by an assistant principal because she was caught texting, and cell phones weren't allowed in school at that time.
For some reason, school administrators read her text messages and went into a tizzy. They called me very, very concerned because one message contained the phrase "my dirty little secret."
Unconcerned, I told school officials that I would wager there were lots of kids with that phrase on their lips since it was the name of a song by the band All-American Rejects. In fact, the song was so popular it stayed in the top 10 slot on Billboard magazine's Hot 100 chart in January 2006.
$7.5 million? Puh-leese. Between you and me, I would have settled for a cool million.
And that, my dears, could be our dirty little secret.
3 comments:
i'm with you on that one...7.5 million is over the top. She was not effected that much by it i'm sure. A thousand would probably be enough.
The price of damages--I assume to be emotional or psychological--is always overinflated when it comes to teenagers. They exaggerate everything!
Ah yes, just 2 years ago my daughter's cell phone was taken by the assistant principal when it suddenly rang in class...she did think it was turned off...it was one of those spam calls that were happening at the point in time. She turned her phone off. Handed it over and when I came in to get the phone and sign her up for her detentions. The phone was on, and it was on the text page...lucky I guess that there were no texts on DD's phone at the time. The assistant principal had obviously searched through the phone while she had it.
Or else it had turned itself back on like my DD claimed had happened in the first place. (happened to DH's phone too. We got new phones over this)
I would have loved a cool million over it all and we didn't even threaten, even though the woman was very rude to me.
After all the phone rang, there were no texts and my DD is/was a 4.0 student...it must have upset her so greatly that she had to be rude. I was nothing but polite.
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