If you are one of the millions of people who use social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter, then you probably have several posts or pictures that you would want to keep private and among close family and friends. However, according to an article published on March 8, 2012 by MSN news, your profile pages won’t always be so private. Colleges across the United States are asking their students to hand over their passwords to social media sites for evaluation in order to be considered for admission or employment.
University athletes are specifically targeted by colleges that want access to their student’s social media sites. For example, according to an Education News article posted on March 12, the University of North Carolina’s handbook states that “Each team must identify at least one coach or administrator who is responsible for having access to and regularly monitoring the content of team members’ social networking sites and postings. The Athletics Department also reserves the right to have other staff members monitor athletes’ posts.”
Wayne Magee, a junior physical education major and a member of UT’s lacrosse team, thinks this is an invasion of privacy. “One of the comments [in the article] talks about how we already gave up some things such as our urine for drug tests so it shouldn’t be a problem with us giving access to our social networks. I think it’s different because urine is one thing, the social network has a lot more details of someone’s life which could have people be judged for what they believe or how they want to live their life.”
I agree with Magee. If colleges look at their athletes’ profiles, it will just tell them information about their personal life and thus they would be judged on their ideas, beliefs, pictures and anything else they post online. These things have nothing to do with their performance as athletes, unlike urine tests which are necessary to test for illegal substances which do have a more direct effect on their performance. College sports departments want to make sure that their athletes are not participating in illegal acts and jeopardizing their careers or the college’s reputation, but it still is a complete invasion of privacy to demand to look at students’ Internet profiles.
Colleges are even going as far as ordering students to change information on their personal social media sites. According to a Huffington Post article published on March 13, Kiah Zabel, a student at Rochester College, a Christian college in Michigan, was reportedly threatened with campus housing expulsion after stating that she was a lesbian on her Facebook page. According to 19-year-old Zabel, shortly after posting a banner on her Facebook timeline that read “Out..Proud..Lesbian,” she received a letter from the college’s Dean of Students asking her to remove the photo.
“I appreciate your move towards honesty and being the real you, but I’m going to have to insist that you change your Facebook banner picture,” the Dean, Brian Cole, said in the letter. “‘Out…Proud…Lesbian’ is not really consistent with the heritage of Rochester College and has proven to already be disruptive among fellow students who are really bothered by it.” Cole reportedly went on to explain that if she did not comply with his request, she would be kicked out of housing.
Zabel could be prevented from living on campus simply because she added a picture to her Facebook page regarding her sexual preference.
Rochester College President Rubel Shelly released a statement, according to the Huffington Post article, saying “The report that the college has asked Ms. Zabel to leave the school is incorrect. She has not been dismissed or threatened with dismissal from the college. Such action would be inconsistent with the college’s principles and established practice.”
However, she does not mention the threat about being dismissed from housing. “The essential values of the college are well-known and widely published, and students tend to choose Rochester College based on their sympathy with these values. Students who find themselves uncomfortable with these standards always have options at other schools in the area.”
With this, the principal has demonstrated that if you participate in any actions that the school does not approve of and do not want to change your lifestyle accordingly, you can attend college somewhere else. I understand that it is a Christian school and thus has certain rules and values that are different from non-denominational colleges and if one goes to such a school, one must comply with their rules. But one thing is to make students abide by the rules on campus and another is to force students to change their personal thoughts, beliefs and information on their private social media sites. I do not have the details of whether Zabel acts in a manner that is disapproved of by the college while she is on campus, but the fact that the school is aware of what she says or does on her Facebook page and is punishing her for it, is completely wrong.
What gives colleges and employers the right to judge and direct how I use my own personal site? You wouldn’t peek through someone’s bedroom window or read their diary and tell them how to live their life. So why would you feel the need to look through someone’s profile which holds their photos, thoughts, friends, beliefs, essentially the representation of themselves and their private life, and demand them to change things?
This eerily compares to Big Brother, the enigmatic dictator in George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four who keeps his people under complete surveillance. I don’t think we should be heading in that direction. People should have the freedom to live as they want, even on their social media sites.
Paola Crespo can be reached at polly.crespo@hotmail.com.