Posted on 05/09/2007 7:50:46 AM PDT by agent_delta
MILLERSVILLE, Pa. - A 27-year-old Millersville University graduate filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against the college for denying her an education degree and teaching certificate after a controversial Internet photograph surfaced last year shortly before graduation.
The picture shows Stacy Snyder of Strasburg wearing a pirate hat while drinking from a plastic "Mr. Goodbar" cup. The photograph taken during a 2005 Halloween party was posted on Snyder's MySpace Web page with the caption "Drunken Pirate."
"The day before graduation, the college confronted me about the picture," Snyder said Thursday. "I was told I wouldn't be receiving my education degree or teaching certificate because the photo was 'unprofessional.' "
Snyder said she apologized for the photograph, but Jane S. Bray, dean of the School of Education, and Provost Vilas A. Prabhu refused to issue the bachelor of science degree in education and teaching certificate Snyder earned.
Instead, the college issued Snyder a bachelor of arts degree in English.
Millersville University spokesperson Janet Kacskos referred questions to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education spokesman Kenn Marshall, who declined comment.
Snyder, a single mother of boys ages 9 and 7, works as a nanny for a family in Lititz.
"I dreamed about being a teacher for a long time," Snyder said. "When I was growing up, I spent more time with my teachers than my own parents, and it inspired me to someday make a positive impact on children."
Attorney Mark W. Voigt of Plymouth Meeting filed the lawsuit after failing to negotiate a hearing with Prabhu and Bray.
"Stacy deserves to be a teacher," Voigt said Thursday. "The bottom line is we want the college to bestow the degree and teaching certificate that Stacy earned during four years of hard work and sacrifice."
The lawsuit also seeks $75,000 in compensatory damages.
The university, Bray, Prabhu and professor/student-teacher supervisor J. Barry Girvin are named in the suit.
Voight writes in the lawsuit that Snyder, a dean's list student, performed her student-teaching requirements in 2006 at Conestoga Valley High School.
Teachers Deann Buffington and Nicole Reinking advised Snyder.
On May 8, Buffington called Snyder at home about an "issue" about her "professionalism" as a teacher, according to the lawsuit.
Reinking viewed the "Drunken Pirate" picture of Snyder on myspace.com and showed it to Buffington.
Buffington gave it to Girvin, who told Snyder "she may lose her teaching certificate due to the incident," according to the lawsuit.
Girvin also issued a final student/teacher evaluation of Snyder and granted "superior" or "competent" ratings in all areas except "professionalism." He gave Snyder and "unsatisfactory" rating, according to the lawsuit.
"There were errors in judgment that relate to Pennsylvania's Code of Professional Practice and Conduct for Educators," Girvin wrote in the evaluation.
On May 11, Girvin, Buffington and Reinking showed the "Drunken Pirate" photograph to Snyder, according to the lawsuit.
Buffington told Snyder that posting the photograph on the Internet was "unprofessional" and Conestoga Valley students might find it offensive.
Buffington also accused Snyder of "incompetence" and "claimed she should have been removed from her student-teaching position months ago."
Conestoga Valley officials told the college their students wouldn't be allowed to perform student-teacher requirements there if Snyder was not punished, according to the lawsuit.
Bray met with Snyder May 12. She accused Snyder of "promoting underage drinking through her 'drunken pirate' photo. Bray then stripped Snyder of her education degree and teaching certification, according to the lawsuit.
Snyder graduated the next day with an English degree.
“Snyder graduated the next day with an English degree.”
Doesn’t this mean she won the lawsuit? And that the college will pay her legal fees, as the successful litigant?
As for the picture, I see nothing unprofessional about it at all. Who’s to say what’s in the cup, anyway?
Where are you getting this information?
i hope she wins, and this is the wakeup call to make your myspace pages private.
Her lawyer should file an amended petition which ups the compensatory damages claim from $75K to an amount which is a much more serious threat. When they realize that the "pirate" has a treasure map leading directly to the school's endowment fund, the board of trustees will apply a steel-toed boot to the seat of the administration's pants.
Don't you agree that makes the university look ridiculous? If they have to lie so capriciously to enforce their own policy, what would you believe them about?
'What would a jury believe them about?' is the better question.
If that's the real story they might as well just start cutting that check for damages right now because it sounds as meretricious as 'double-secret probation'.
Oh, don't blame the evil media for this one.
We’re sorry, tcrlaf. We discovered you were posting from home at the rightwing message board Free Republic and we feel that you are setting a bad example for our company because our customers all support either Hillary or Obama. Pack your things and leave the premises.
Why are they giving her a degree in something other than teaching if she’s got “a full range of academic performance issues?” How can she earn a degree of any kind with those “issues?”
Know many teachers in PA, so I know the student teaching process very well.
as to the rest of it, its right in the article. The school threatened to end ALL student teaching from this college if this woman was not disciplined... that’s a HUGE threat. So this picture I’m sure has little to nothing to do with the issue, but its what sells papers.
I can testify that I partied with more than a few "back in the day".
I looked it up when the story broke - it’s part of the state university system. This would make sense if it was a private school, but it isn’t.
Sorry, it looks to me like the University was looking to let the issues with this girl slide.
The school threated to COMPLETELY END the student teaching program with this college over this girl and her actions, that’s a HUGE deal. I think the picture was some minor thing out of an obviously much larger issue. But, that’s the hook that will sell newspapers, and can be used by a lawyer to sensationalize, so that’s exactly what’s going on.
With a teaching degree, you can get a job teaching. There is nothing that an undergrad English degree is good for.
Not guilty.
Wait, wrong thread?
Did she, in fact, pass her course work?
If she was all that “incompetent” in an assigned course - student teaching - wasn’t the school and the professor in error to allow a passing grade?
How on earth would public school administrators know what an incompetent person looks like? It’s not like they are overrun with competent people to benchamrk by, now is it?
That picture has everything to do with the issue, even if all of the rest of it is true about her incompetency.
They've labeled her an alcoholic based upon an innocuous picture that doesn't prove anything.
Why didn't the university just stick to it's established criteria as the reason for declining her teaching credentials?
See, now that's where the university stepped in it. Even if they had good reason, it's all about the picture now.
Photograph is overexposed. Should not have happened with today’s modern electronics. Otherwise...
Yes, but the consequences should be proportionate to the offense.
How about employers not acting like everything is their damn business? My BIL is allowed to use his work computer for leisure internet access at lunch from approved sites. The log files are available to his supervisors if they want to see if he's doing so outside of that time frame. He spends it during football season to analyze his fantasy football teams. His she-boss made some comment about the amount of time he was using during his own personal time during lunch on that subject, like she was his freaking nagging wife. That's ridiculous.
My MIL is disabled and lives with us. I do her laundry for her because it's physically difficult for her. I know what color her panties are. It would be totally inappropriate for me to say something about that to her, even though I know the information. The problem is that there are busy-body people in power who get a high off of knowing information about people and are like stupid schoolgirls who can't keep secrets.
The Other Side:
“Kelin also said the photograph released along with the lawsuit was not the same one Buffington and Reinking submitted to the university.
The photograph they submitted, Kelin said, shows Snyder holding a plastic cup and making a hand gesture while wearing the pirate hat.”
So we aren’t seeing the picture to which the administration objected.
“Despite being warned to maintain a professional relationship with her students Kelin said, Snyder continued to direct students to her Web page.”
“Snyder’s Web site invites students to continue looking at her page, and in apparent response to Ms. Reinking’s advice that such an invitation was unprofessional says, ‘I don’t think that they would stoop that low as to mess with my future.”
So perhaps she was warned and chose to ignore the warnings.
http://local.lancasteronline.com/4/203603
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