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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.
Here’s another great resource — the National Coalition Against Censorship.
We’ve linked to their blog in our sidebar, but feel free to poke around their main site, too.They’ve got lots of stuff going on, including various projects run through their Youth Free Expression Network.
An Australian friend draws our attention to two stories that appeared in the Australian press last week:
The government of Western Australia is considering placing police officers in that state’s high schools, in response to a recent increase in assaults on teachers there…
…And an officer assigned to an “elite unit designed to be the public face of [the] police in high schools” in the state of New South Wales has been arrested on charges that he sexually assaulted a child.
This is just one incident, of course. But it does serve as a reminder that whatever the benefits to teachers and students of bringing police onto school grounds may be, the practice carries real costs as well.
(Thanks to lauredhel of Hoyden About Town for the tip.)
The British police have in recent months opened files on more than two hundred students who have been identified as potential “criminals and would-be terrorists” by teachers and other authority figures.
Under a program called the “Channel project,” launched in selected British localities 18 months ago, Muslim students who have expressed “bad attitudes towards ‘the West'” have been reported to the police and subsequently subjected to formal intervention by community members or government officals. Such intervention is said to range from meetings with religious leaders to investigation by social services workers and “intervention directly by the police.”
Students targeted by the Channel project have been as young as thirteen.
Connecticut eighth grader Patrick Abbazia attended classes wrapped in duct tape Friday morning to protest his East Shore Midddle School’s “no touching” policy.
Earlier in the week, East Shore principal Catherine Williams sent home a letter telling parents that “physical contact is prohibited to keep all students safe in the learning environment.” The announcement was prompted by an incident in which a student required medical attention after being kicked in the groin, but the letter specifically banned “hugging” and “horseplay” as well.
Contacted by the Connecticut Post, Williams said she was “only concerned about unsafe behaviors,” but Abbazia claimed teachers had told him that high-fives and pats on the back were out of bounds as well. Superintendent of Schools Harvey Polansky told the paper that principals would use their discretion in interpreting the policy.
Abbazia had a friend tape his torso at the shoulders and elbows while he was waiting for the school bus, and kept the tape on until fourth period, just after noon. School officials called his father in for a conference, telling him that Patrick had misunderstood the policy.
The elder Abbazia told a reporter that he supported his son’s actions. “He is using his freedom as an American citizen to protest,” he said. “Those are the kind of people who get ahead in the world.”
studentactivism.net 
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