Odd Cell Phone Morality

Here's another cell phone ruined my life story that also reflects the lack of ethics and order in the world of cell users. A woman named Leigh Ann Arthur who was a high school teacher for 13 years taught in Union, S.C.  The problem is that Leigh and much of the human population today leaves he unlocked phone cell on lying around her workspace. In her case it was a high school.

You guessed it!  Last week while she was on hall patrol duty for five minutes in between classes, the engineering and computer programming teacher at Union County Career and Technical Center's phone was too easy a target for one of her a 16-year-old students. He grabbed her phone and found a nude photo she had taken for her husband for Valentine's Day. Nothing wrong with a wife taking a nude picture for her husband, except the student took pictures from his cell phone of that and then he told the whole class that he would send them to whoever wanted them.  After class, the student told her, "Your day of reckoning is coming". It was only later she found out the photo had been sent and seen by most of the other students in her class.

Too bad for Leigh you might say. She had her phone stolen and some of its content unlawfully published. I bet you might say, that student will be expelled from school and possibly even prosecuted. You are wrong. The student thief has not been reprimanded in any way. But Leigh was fired. Yep. even though the student shared the photo through texts and on social media,  the school superintendent  of Leigh's former school district, David Eubanks, instead announced that Leigh was given the choice to resign or go through a process for dismissal. She resigned last Tuesday.

Who is the criminal here? I guess the cell phone is such a sacred device in this cell addicted world that right and wrong is somewhat convoluted when  it is involved in a crime. "I think we have a right to privacy, but when we take inappropriate information or pictures, we had best make sure it remains private," Eubanks said. Leigh can't believe she was the victim of a crime in her school and yet is being blamed for it.  She plans to press charges and has also complained to the Union Public Safety Department, which is investigating. "The whole premise of my privacy being invaded is being ignored and that's what's wrong," she says.

I agree and so does more than 1,000 people who have signed a petition to have her job restored. though Arthur says she's not sure if she'd take it.  Well, at least something makes sense in this cell phone mad world.