A big victory for students’ rights: a federal judge has blocked a Pennsylvania prosecutor’s plans to file child pornography charges against three teenage girls who stored suggestive photos of themselves on their cell phones. 

Two of the three were wearing opaque bras in the photographs at issue, and the third was topless. None was engaging in sexual activity. The three were among twenty students in Pennsylvania’s Tunkhannock School District who were contacted by the prosecutor after school officials confiscated their cell phones, searched them, and found nude or revealing photos on them.

The prosecutor told the twenty students that they had a choice — they could sign up for an ongoing educational program on “what it means to be a girl in today’s society” and mandatory drug tests, or they could be charged with possession and distribution of child pornography, a felony.

Seventeen of the students signed up for the program. The other three sued. And yesterday a federal judge took their side.

The prosecutor, reached for comment yesterday, refused to say whether he would appeal the judge’s decision.