Harmless High School Prank That Occurred Completely Off Campus Turned Over To School Police Officer
from the he-who-laughs-last-is-probably-someone-with-more-power dept
Because no form of school-related misbehavior can be allowed to escape law enforcement's attention these days, a Prior Lake, Minnesota school has turned a recent prank over to its "liaison officer" for investigation.
To be sure, the prank is ill-mannered, tasteless, offensive and sexist -- something that will only narrow down the list of suspects to male high school students. (I've buried the photo of the prank letter below the fold -- sort of NSFWish.)
Some student or students mocked up an official looking letter (using the school district's logo no less) informing female students (and their parents) that a "mandatory vagina inspection" would need to be completed in order to be eligible to graduate. The letter cites "Minnesota Health Code 69" as the impetus for the impromptu inspection, and requests the removal of any piercings.
It goes on from there, using the same sort of stilted language deployed by many official school announcements, only with many more appearances by the word "vagina." The whole thing is crass on every level, and there's no way anyone would believe it originated from a school official.
Despite the fact the school can't find any evidence it was created on campus, it has still decided to move forward with an investigation.
After the school’s police liaison officer saw a tweet about it on Tuesday, Principal Dave Lund sent out an e-mail to parents explaining that administrators “are aware of this letter, and we are addressing the issue internally.”All well and good, if you're the sort of person who believes that no bad joke should go unpunished. Obviously, the lack of on-campus misbehavior ties the district's hands. This explains its decision to hand it to the liaison officer, who can move freely between these two worlds and use the combined force of school policy and criminal statutes to nail the dastardly perpetrators who amused mostly themselves with this effort.
[Kristi] Mussman [school district spokeswoman] said the prank was “done in extremely poor taste” and administrators were “disappointed.”
Determining who wrote the letter is a police matter. The liaison officer has “some strong leads,” she said.
I'm sure the situation was slightly embarrassing for the school, but it had to be at least as embarrassing for any parent who got their huff on and rang the school, demanding to speak to "Barry McCockiner," the "director of vaginal corrections."
If anything, the prank runs afoul of federal law, which states that you're only allowed to cram unwelcome letters into mailboxes if you've paid the proper postage… and allow a uniformed postal employee to do the actual cramming. As horrifying as the phrase "violated federal law" sounds, the most likely outcome would be a small fine on par with paying the postage for the number of letters hand-delivered by the letter's author(s).
What may be worse is the imaginative reading of other, non-applicable laws performed by the liaison officer, who may be encouraged to make an example of high school boys acting exactly like high school boys. As this investigation continues, the school is attempting to finish the year out on a positive note.
Lund said that with only weeks of school left, staff members and students are trying not to dwell on the prank. “We are moving forward to finish our year strong,” he said. “We have a very good student body … and we are not going to let this prank diminish the positive performance of our students.”Well, "not dwelling" on the prank would be a whole lot easier if you'd rein in the officer. The last thing you want as summer approaches is a bunch of negative press should this prank result in arrests, prosecution, or even in the best case scenario, the declaration that it violated school policy despite occurring completely off-campus. Your student body will move on more quickly if you actually just let it go. You can't harm the positive performance of your students, but you still have the power to deliver a ton of self-inflicted wounds.
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Filed Under: high school, minnesota, police, pranks, prior lake
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Critical thinking skills are no longer taught in american schools. It's all about meeting quotas and being able to pass tests. Blind acceptance of what is being "taught" followed by reiteration and repetition is what passes for "teaching" these days. Problem solving, thinking through things, cause/effect are avoided at all costs. All necessary to have a compliant, dependent populace.
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BTW, it was wonderful!
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In today's society, anything that even remotely offends a woman automatically becomes sexual harassment.
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When is the press conference and stuttering forced apology?
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Whoops, tautology!
That's not a tautology, unless "sexual harassment" is actually defined as "offending a woman", which is a definition I've never heard of.
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So it won't violate most company's sexual harassment policies to tell your friends a dirty joke in the office while within earshot of a woman who might be offended by it?
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I think you're employing a logical fallacy. There are things that might offend a woman that are sexual harassment. It does not follow from that that anything that might offend a woman is sexual harassment.
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That it was not created on campus really doesn't change anything, because it implicates and involves the school. Threatening students with a "fail" which could lead them not to graduate is over the top.
Yes, it's juvenile humor, but there is some potential for harm, not just lulz.
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more non-sense about nonsense; makes ME want to get all up in their faces with as much 'obscene' shit as i can muster...
one more time with feeling:
you have the right to NOT be assaulted;
you do NOT have the right to NOT be insulted...
grow a pair of 'nads, or FOAD...
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I know we'd all jokingly pass it off as a silly job: "how hard could it be to correct a vagina?" But, could you really blame the school for being so transparently flabbergasted at being called out on its incompetence?
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This isn't the UK
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First there is a legal issue of misrepresentation school officials.
Second there is a social issue of bad social edicts.
In the past, 50 years or so ago, such situations as this would have been solved by taking the offenders out to the wood shed and apply now apply a completely politically form of discipline that would produced a complete and though understanding in the offenders of the meaning of the 1 st and 2 amendment.
For those lacking in understanding reference the Arron Burr / Alexander Hamilton debate on the subject or jerk action, offense, and solution in a more civilized time.
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What scool officials? Is "Barry McCockiner," not actually the "director of vaginal corrections." but a school official that operates in some other capacity like the Health teacher or something?
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What the line between this and a parody?
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You don't know many girls, obviously. It wouldn't completely surprise me if this had been done by females.
"Principal Dave Lund sent out an e-mail to parents explaining that administrators �are .. addressing the issue internally."
This might have been better phrased.
The only issue I see is the use of school letterhead, surely probably better addressed through a metaphorical slap of knuckles than threats of a criminal record. It certainly would be interesting to watch a judge deal with this in court, but a total waste of everyone's time.
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And we wont even get into what the boys have been hiding you know where. In prison I think it's called hooping. I know 'cause I heard about on NPR from Terri Gross on her show "Fresh Air"!
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Just give the perps...
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Throw these dirty copyright-infringing pirates in jail! They probably used a computer for this, so they have probably violated the CFAA in some way. They are also disturbing the peace.
Hmm...what else can we add to this...
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RIP
Truth
Courtesy
Justice
Common Sense
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Re: RIP
Honor
Good Taste
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the sooner the fall, the gentler for all...
Empire must die, or surely we will...
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Just because some school official pretends that it could be taken otherwise doesn't make it so. Letters from Nigerian princes are far more believable, but we still expect that no reasonable person would fall for them. (The tiny handful of cases where they have is balanced against the billions of emails sent.)
I actually came up with a few tips while reading. They missed many opportunities. Should I contact Barry McCockinher? Is there mailstop?
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I'm a Christian
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Plus you are off-topic, we are supposed to be commenting on the article above.
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"I'm a pretty conservative Christian and I see the humor in it"
"it" is misinterpreted from 'the joke letter' to 'being a cons xtian':
"you see the humor in being a conservative Christian"
There you all go. I'm pretty sure it's funnier once it's explained, right?
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That you John for coming to the defence of PRMan who does not think it makes sense to make a federal case out of bad jokes.
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So how come the "Mandatory Penis Inspection" letters were never turned over to the Police?
Some examples:
Carlmont High School
Camberwell High School
Mount Baker High School
Lowell High School
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Re: So how come the "Mandatory Penis Inspection" letters were never turned over to the Police?
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WTF? No LOLs
Come on, people, step up. This story is all teed up for commenters. It's like one of those "caption this picture" contests.
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It seems appropriate for the police, including the liaison officer, to investigate something that occurred off-campus. What is very inappropriate is that he was investigating who created the letter. That creation is clearly parody, not a crime, and not subject to school policy because it is thought to have been done off-campus.
If the letter was delivered to a specific subset of students homes it could be considered sexual harassment. If so, it still doesn't rise to the level of any crime that I am aware of and isn't subject to school policy because it was off-campus. I do fault Tim for not recognizing the sexual harassment aspect. He apparently missed the session on sexual harassment at re-education camp. I will inform the proper authorities. Tim, sexual harassment is not funny! Vaginas are not funny! No, no... NOT FUNNY!!
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prank or guerrilla action?
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Re: prank or guerrilla action?
You guys were smart enough to pull off a fairly elaborate prank, but not smart enough to figure that custodians work at night. It reminds me of my own cases of intelligent idiocy at that age!
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The fact that the school is even investigating the matter reinforces the parody's mockery of the type of heavy handed and invasive behavior the school administrators are known for. In other words, by sending a police officer to investigate a non-criminal matter so far outside the boundaries of what is considered acceptable they are demonstrating that the parody hit the mark as something the school would actually do if they could find a way to justify it to themselves.
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Unbelievable?
Ten years ago, I would have agreed with you. But nowadays we have Todd Akin and the rest of the Tea Party, and all those misogynist laws in red states requiring women submit to vaginal ultrasounds and similar humiliations if they seek abortions. It's sadly not so implausible that a public high school in a Tea Party state could end up with such a thing as "vaginal inspections".
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Re: Unbelievable?
Did you actually read the letter?
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btw, a big fuck you to mike... you are cunt and you know it ;)
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Lunds Humor
�finish our year strong,�
�very good student body"
"positive performance of our students.�
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Group Think Much?
Yes it was harassment. It was a threat of involuntary vaginal assault. Rape threats are not, in most communities, considered hootingly awesomely funny.
In fact, harassing women and girls out of school is illegal. Google "Title IX".
"high school boys acting exactly like high school boys."
And as a result, here is some very very basic information written for people who have never considered the reality of high school girls:
http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/ocrshpam.html
And I am sure you can Google statistics, but given the school size odds are one of the recipients of that oh-so-funny note has been sexually assaulted.
The importance of addressing dating and verbal aggression to prevent violence:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23233161
So, if it had been a funny flyer about lynching instead of sexual assault (which is what we call forced vaginal contact) would you still find it so funny? That you all embrace this as funny is sad. "Gosh, just because it would have made some icky girrrrrls not want to go to school, well boys will be boys!"
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/sexual-harassment-middle-high-school_n_1079117.html
"T he harassers often thought they were being funny, but the consequences for their targets can be wrenching, according to the survey. Nearly a third of the victims said the harassment made them feel sick to their stomach, affected their study habits or fueled reluctance to go to school at all."
Forced vaginal contact is not considered that amusing by most communities. Educate yourselves. Don't be *that* *guy*.
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1/2 way through, and LMAO!
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So close...
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