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Kent State Banning Athletes from Using Facebook
Posted by
timothy
on Mon Jun 26, 2006 03:49 PM
from the thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another dept.
from the thank-you-sir-may-I-have-another dept.
denebian devil links to a Columbus Dispatch story about athletes at Kent State being forbidden to use Facebook — "not by the Web site, but by university administrators."
From the article: "Athletics Director Laing Kennedy recently told student-athletes they have until Aug. 1 to remove their Facebook profiles, citing a need to protect both their identities and the university's image. "We're really concerned about the safety of our student-athletes and some of the personal information some of them have on there," he said. ... If student-athletes don't remove their profiles by the deadline, they risk losing their scholarships, he said. Coaches and athletics counselors will monitor the site for violators."
denebian devil continues "Arstechnica also has an interesting take on the subject. Makes you wonder why they even bother providing internet connections on college campuses."
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Backslash: Kent State's Facebook Ban for Athletes 248 comments
Most commenting readers scoffed at Kent State University's new policy (noted on Slashdot yesterday) forbidding athletes from using profiles on Facebook. The arguments offered (legal, moral, and practical) mostly berated the school for limiting their students to no good end, but some thought-provoking comments exposed at least some complexities which make the issue less clear-cut than a straightforward case either of censorship or contractual freedom. Read on for a sampling of the comments which typified the conversation.
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Slashback tonight brings some clarifications, and updates to previous Slashdot stories including, Kent State Facebook ban reversed, exploding laptop old news to Dell, XM moves to dismiss RIAA suit, J2EE death greatly exaggerated, and Square's next MMOG not FFXI II -- Read on for details.
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Excessive force (Score:5, Insightful)
This belongs in a legal textbook (Score:5, Insightful)
A state university with this kind of policy is setting themselves up for the mother of all First Amendment lawsuits. What an amazingly-dumb waste of university funding.
Re:This belongs in a legal textbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Beyond ridiculous
Parent
Re:This belongs in a legal textbook (Score:5, Interesting)
Not true. US courts have repeatedly ruled that, as participation in extracurricular activities is not a required part of the educational mission, it can be subject to restrictions that would otherwise be unconstitutional. That's why drug tests for Algebra II are not allowed, but drug tests for Basketball are.
The major advantage they have at the university level is that athletic scholarships are tied to eligibility (and sometimes even performance), so getting kicked off the team also takes away the money you're using to pay for school.
Note that I don't support this move (though I can understand picking the low-hanging fruit), but it's certainly within their authority.
Parent
Re:This belongs in a legal textbook (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect that this has far more to do with the uni wanting to protect its image - which for some reason it believes would be more damaged by people being on face-book than than this action to put stupid restrictions over what people can do
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I hope the students speak out, because it they who have the power and their presence lets the University run.
Parent
Re:wow (Score:3, Funny)
Re:wow (Score:4, Funny)
Something here is broken. Maybe it's that Universities, institutes of higher education, are resorting to sporting events as a recruiting campaign. Maybe it's the number of schools pitting athletes against each other such that success requires dedication to the exclusion of personal growth. Maybe it's students, for being so vain as to photograph themselves in comprimising situations, and think that the public Internet is a suitable place to distribute these to close friends and strangers alike. Maybe it's you and me for watching the whole thing. But lets face it, there's no Rose Bowl for the most wholesome two teams in the nation. The Final Four aren't the four people left at the party who refused to hook up with drunken coeds.
Parent
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
-nB
Parent
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Adults can also choose to enter into contracts. Since these are students recieving athletic scholarships, my guess is that it's legal to say "if you want this free money, you can't use facebook". It's the same way that NFL teams can write contracts that forbid things like skydiving or riding motorcycles.
Not that I approve of the practice in this case -- it seems to me that banning social network sites so your jocks don't post up the stupid shit they do is attacking the problem from the completely wrong side. But this is a university system, so expecting them to do things that make sense is a tad unrealistic.
Parent
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, but can you retroactively add to the contract? That is, when they signed on (for their scholarships), was that restriction there, or anything remotely resembling it (for example, an NFL contract stating that you can't do dangerous activities, which could be applied to trying to do stupid things on a motorcycle, ala Kellan Winslow Jr.).
Plus, looking at the article, it's a move to "protect" the student-athletes. From the article:
Why must the adminstration do something about this? Putting your own information on a public site is not a great way to maintain your privacy, one would think; i.e. if one is worried about privacy, then how about not putting things like your address, phone and class schedule up for all to see?
Parent
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't know this for a fact, but I'm guessing that there is language in the scholarship agreement that allows the university to impose restrictions of this type. I mean, I'm guessing that Kent State might have a lawyer that they ran this past.
That aside, I don't see what the big deal is here. It's not as if this is being imposed as a requirement for attendance at the University, it's being instituted as a condition of accepting a free education in exchange for participation in an extra-curricular activity. If you as a student athlete find that unacceptible, you can always take out a loan like the rest of us did.
If you want to start talking about outrages related to athletic scholarships, this is the wrong end of the pool to start in.
Parent
Re:wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Step 1: Become coach
Step 2: Demand female athletes put out on command or lose their scholarship
Step 3: Profit (every day and twice on sunday)
It's okay by you, right? Because they can just drop out of school.
Parent
Re:wow (Score:3, Funny)
So, while I can write an athletic scholarship demanding that a student participate in a given sport in order to get the money, I cannot write one that forces women to have sex with me (since that would be coerced sex or, depending on the attitude of the
Re:wow (Score:4, Informative)
If the coach has $10,000 of his own money he wants to give as a scholarship to any girl who will take off her clothes, that is of course perfectly legal. (though he'd likely get fired because of bad publicity)
If the University wants to start a Stripping team and awards scholarships for it, that would be legal (though probably a bad idea due to the inevitable lawsuits and bad publicity no matter how well-run the program was).
If a university gives a scholarship to a player for playing a sport, and the coach declares on his own that he'll stop her eligibility unless she takes off her clothes, that's sexual harrassment. You see the difference? You keep suggesting that somehow the coach gets to dictate the terms of a scholarship or eligibility, and that's just not the case, coaches are coaches, the scholarship committees do the contracts and finances (though often the coach is on the committee, it's unlikely they'll get away with adding a stripping provision to the contracts).
Parent
Re:wow (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:wow (Score:3, Insightful)
Adults can also choose to enter into contracts. Since these are students recieving athletic scholarships, my guess is that it's legal to say "if you want this free money, you can't use facebook". It's the same way that NFL teams can write contracts that forbid things like skydiving or riding motorcycles.
First, there are a lot of protected rights you can't sign away, no matter how hard you try. The majority of contract signed in this country probably have at least some unenforceable terms as a result. Se
Re:The policy is too broad (Score:3, Insightful)
You mean we have a constitutional right to a college scholarship?
I wish I knew that earlier.
Re:wow (Score:5, Informative)
If you weren't 18 you couldn't sign it without your parents co-signing it. I was 18 and thus a legal adult. I assume that Kent would be doing something very similar (hell they probably use the same paperwork being that they're in the same conference).
Kent doesn't exactly have an "image". They are just another college in the Midwest that no one cares about.
Parent
Dumb Students (Score:5, Interesting)
Drunk photos on facebook (Score:5, Insightful)
"Our students don't drink! Honest"
I can attest to the fact that lots of students post drinking photos, even joining groups like "I was drunk when my facebook profile photo was taken". Kent state is worried about this. While I'm guessing they're wringing their hands at such open bragging about underage drinking that sort of thing is a fact of life, from long before facebook existed.
Re:Drunk photos on facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
It's funny to think of "underage drinking" as "drinking under 21" as in Belgium you're legally allowed to drink from the age of 16.
Even before you're allowed to drive a car...
I'm not sure what's better though, I used to get wasted when I was 16-17. Now I'm 24 and I barely drink as I lack to see the "cool" or "fun" of it other then once in a while a glass of wine with a nice dinner.
Myspace? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Myspace? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Myspace? (Score:3, Informative)
Facebook is the "cool kids' table" at lunch, and is technically superior to Myspace in almost every way.
problem with facebook (Score:3, Interesting)
Because the main "advantage" of facebook is also its main disadvantage. Since the profile is automatically associated with your college email address, the facebook profile becomes an extension of your "college identity" and what you present on there is more or less irrevocably associated with the college you go to (there are now ways around this, but circumventing this basically makes having a facebook profile meaningless.)
Will KSU care what their student athletes put on Myspace
No surprise (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:No surprise (Score:5, Funny)
At least these are college students instead of pedophiles, adolescents, and aspiring criminals
-
you mean that's not the same?
Parent
Proof? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's to stop someone from taking a Kent State player's identity and creating a fake profile of them?
Pro Athletes (Score:3, Funny)
One student chose a picture of himself shirtless holding a Miller Lite can for his profile photo. He's on the baseball team.
Another belongs to the "My cell phone is my best friend when I'm drunk in Kent" group and lists skinny-dipping as an interest.
I always thought these were good things on a pro-athlete's resume?
One more step down the road... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One more step down the road... (Score:3, Insightful)
The situation is university administrators not wanting athletes to spoil their image. It has nothing to do with Facebook or anybody else "pushing content".
It's all about the moolah (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's all about the moolah (Score:3, Interesting)
I think I'd prefer to say that I recognize that people with more money traditionally have to make fewer tradeoffs in life. I'm not going to sit here and declare that I should be able to talk shit about my employer in a public forum and expect to do so with impunity, just like I'm not going to moan about how unfair it is that I have to go to work everyday while Paris Hilton is out shopping or driving an expensive car or
reveals the true nature of their concerns (Score:5, Insightful)
Attention: Kent State Athletes (Score:5, Funny)
My Favorite Part (Score:5, Interesting)
The move to ban the site came from students and coaches expressing concern over safety and privacy issues. Kennedy said he hasn't seen the site.
So not only has the guy making the policy not even seen the site, but the move supposedly came from students and others - the same students who were posting there in the first place? "Higher" education is so smart.
why provide internet on campus? (Score:4, Interesting)
Um, perhaps because it is easeir to plagerize papers using the internet? But seriously, one could consider research for papers, help with math and science papers. Most universities, perhaps you haven't been in one recently, pay for a large number of resources, that are really quite expensive, to thier students and faculty.
Of course, it may be that millions of dollars of infrastructure and millions in connections fees are what is neccesary for the modern college student to get a date. I just had to ask the babe that sat next to me in Calculus.
To be more serious, I understand that this ban has more to do with public image, and could be construed as censorship. But think of ti this way. The average athelete is on scholarship, which mean he or she is there at the whim of the university and those alumni that donate to the university. If, due to something posted on the net, such funds become unavailable or the students freedom becomes compromised, then the student does not get an education. We all know that adolescents and young adult do silly things, and none of us really want to impose any significant consequences for the most of the silly things kids do. The minor things are often best handled in house in such a way that boundries are enforced, but the future of the student is not compromised. It may seem funny to post teammates drinking, or in drag, or pretending to commit some felony, but in the competitive world of althletics, where perhaps 1:500 gets into college ball, and 1:2000 gets into pro ball, such actions may not be insignificant.
And think of it another way. When one enters college, escpecially on an scholarship, and especially on an athelitic scholar ship, one is asking the college to help guide you to a hopefully more promising future. A significant number of freedoms and rights are given away. Unlike other 18 year olds, you are in class and studying, instead of working at starbucks for 8 hours then coming to you apartements and doing nothing. The college students has any number of people using thier experience to navigate a specific educational journey, even though it is theorectically possible to navigate that same path using free resources. In other words, the student is attending the university to help insure a specific outcome, and has accepted some limitations to achieve that outcome.
To put it simpler, if facebook is so important, an athelete could gain an education and even break into the majors without a university. It is not impossible to his the minors and work the ladder to the majors. But if one wants a univeristy degree, or wants the NCAA help, then one should have a little trust in the people in charge. If there is no trust, then why go to that school? If the school is so corrupt, then why accept the tainted money?
Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh you know, research, email, that sort of thing. This may surprise you but the original intent of providing internet access was not to pass around mp3's, pictures of yourself drunk, and porn (well, that last one is debatable).
You would think students over the years would have gotten better about using the internet but it seems it has regressed quite a bit. I am reminded of reports of students at the university where I work getting busted selling drugs on facebook and posting pictures of themselves doing illegal things. In the papers they always seem quoted as indignantly saying "I didn't know the police could monitor that stuff, that is really scary" as though cops looking at facebook was on par with warrant-less wiretapping.
Look, I'm a Fight The Power, Go EFF, Die MPAA kinda guy. However, the way I see it is if a school is giving you tens of thousands of dollars for your education and they decide they want you to either (1) not advertise that you are a drunken asshole all over the net, or (2) risk losing that free money, then that is their right. I think it is a little harsh to ban facebook altogether, I think I might have seen one or two actual mature entries in it, but that is certainly on more solid legal ground than subjectively taking it on a case by case basis.
Also, you can look at it as preparing these student athletes for the future. If they make it to the pros and become the typical corporate whore, they will have to get used to being told how to act, what to say, and what to do. College is actually preparing them for the real world
Finkployd
What's Wrong With Ohio? (Score:3, Informative)
I guess the only lesson the college learned from that hideous exercise was that published pictures of their students can get the college into trouble.
From a local: Good! (Score:4, Insightful)
Good, if not good enough. Because they're getting a ridiculous amount of money in the form of scholarships and such, in exchange for which they do terribly in classes (dragging their groups down with them, much of the time), drink as much or more as anybody else here (which is no small amount) and then go throw a ball around every now and then in exchange.
No, I don't have sympathy. Stop showing off your drinking skills and go to class. I'd be happier if they'd prevent them from drinking and tell them to stop using the team as an excuse to ditch classwork when they apparently have plenty of time for parties. Considering very few of them are going to be able to rely on sports as a career, I'd be happier if the University was less concerned with image and more concerned with the fact that the images are often of underaged students drinking alcohol. But... oh, right. I go to a state school in Ohio. Chances of that happening... slightly less than zero. They'll probably end up cutting the whole ban later due to lack of funds for enforcement.
Re:From a local: Good! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
Re:The Only Problem (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:The Only Problem (Score:5, Funny)
We're finally on our own website.
This summer I hear the clicking, Four spreads in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it
Firewalls are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her spread nude on the page
How can you link when you know?
Gotta get down to it
Firewalls are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her
And found her spread nude on the page
How can you link when you know?
Tin soldiers and Bush is coming,
We're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the clicking, Four spreads in Ohio.
Parent
Re:This is unfortunate... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why not?
The school did NOT say "You can't do this."
The school DID say "If you want to participate in our optional program, or continue to receive funding from us, then you will not do this."
There's a difference.
The kids can do what they want. If they want to participate in the athletic program, then they have to meet the terms provided for participation. It is a voluntary course of action. We're not talking about people who have no choice, or even people limited to a binary set of choices.
Parent
Re:This is unfortunate... (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, the school says "then you will not do this", then a few years later said "oh, and this too."
It's a state institution, that means the government is in charge. Would you let them change the terms of other contracts on a whim? Like your bond payout. Or your army service contract?
Re:This is unfortunate... (Score:3, Insightful)
That is, in effect, what they did say. It is completely unconstitutional for them, as a government institution, to use this form of coercion to restrict free speech. You need to go back and study up on constitutional law and then you'd be able to use your own name to post comments.
P.S. listening to Bill O'Reilly will not make you better informed about the US Constitution.
Re:This is unfortunate... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:This is unfortunate... (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting. I missed the part of TFA where congress made a law preventing scholarship recipients from using Facebook. I take it you believe that all NDAs are unconstitutional too? I'll have to remember that if I am ever in a position to do business with you.