Say What You Want Online. Ha.

We’ve written before about how important it is to be sure what you do or say online doesn’t come back to haunt you. But, because I’m continually amazed at how resistant people are to the idea of keeping things clean on their Facebook or MySpace pages, I’ll write about it again. This item by Sarah Perez on ReadWriteWeb gave me the starting point.

You may have heard about Stacy Snyder, who was dropped from the teaching program at Millersville University of Pennsylvania because she posted a picture of herself on MySpace, with a drink, the caption “Drunken Pirate,” and some words about the supervisor of her student-teaching position.

She sued the school, and lost. The court said her student-teaching status made her an employee, and so her free speech was only protected if it touched on public concerns.

Perez, put together an excellent, detailed description of the case. I’ll sum it up:

Woman wants a career in education. Woman is a less-than-stellar student teacher, with some negative reviews. Woman posts on MySpace: “I have nothing to hide. I am over 21, and I don’t say anything that will hurt me (in the long run). Plus, I don’t think that they would stoop that low as to mess with my future.” Woman posts tacky picture on MySpace. Woman doesn’t make them private. Supervisors see them. School fires her. College doesn’t give her degree in education. Woman sues. Woman loses.

Perez makes this note:

Synder may have needed more coaching in how to be a professional - the very thing that student-teaching is designed for - but it hardly negates her years of completed course work towards her education degree. So in the end, it really was her MySpace mistake that lost her the degree after all. And if that isn’t a tale that has you rushing out to manage your profile page’s privacy settings right now, then it’s hard to imagine what will.

Not long ago, I gave a talk to some undergrads about careers and was asked whether or not they should worry about what they post on their online profiles. I said they should. I was surprised at how much push back I got, with several kids arguing that, basically, they were entitled to their private lives and no one should hold their personal Web pages against them. I’ve seen others make that argument - often on Career blogs, which stuns me. Right or wrong, whether you like it or not, employers and bosses are going to see your posts, and it’s going to impact how the feel about you. The company you work for today may be laid back about these things, but you don’t know how your next boss will be. Of course, during this talk I was responding to a hypthetical question.

So let’s go back to the real world:

So in the end, it really was her MySpace mistake that lost her the degree after all. And if that isn’t a tale that has you rushing out to manage your profile page’s privacy settings right now, then it’s hard to imagine what will.