PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Two mothers filed a free-speech lawsuit Monday against a Pennsylvania school district that suspended their daughters for wearing the popular “I (heart) boobies!” bracelets. The American Civil Liberties Union believes the lawsuit is the first in the country over a school’s ban on the bracelets, which are designed to raise breast-cancer awareness among young people. The rubber jewelry has become wildly popular among students, prompting bans across the country. School officials in Easton argue that the slogan is distracting and demeaning, and that some staff feel it trivializes a serious illness. PINK CLEATS: Football player back on the team BRACELET BAN: ‘Boobies’ not OK in S.D. schools The district banned the bracelets in October, a month into the school year and after students had been wearing them without serious incident, the ACLU said. The two girls had their parents’ permission to wear the bracelets but soon found themselves in the principal’s office at Easton Area Middle School, the lawsuit states. They were also banned from school dances for a month. Amy Martinez said her daughter Kayla’s suspension seems unduly harsh, given that the 12-year-old had agreed to wear the bracelet inside out, with only a breast cancer-awareness website address showing. That, too, was deemed inappropriate under the school dress code, she said. “I don’t believe that vulgarity, obscenity, profanity or nudity (in the school code) apply to the word ‘boobies’ or ‘breast,’” said Martinez, an accountant whose late aunt suffered from breast cancer. “There were teachers that had ‘breast cancer awareness’ T-shirts on” in October, National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, she said. The ACLU calls the bracelets perhaps silly and irreverent, but not lewd or indecent. “The First Amendment does not allow schools to censor students’ speech merely because some students and teachers are offended by the non-vulgar educational message, and silencing the speakers because other students may react inappropriately would amount to a constitutionally impermissible heckler’s veto,” the ACLU said in the suit. “Seeing a bracelet with ‘I Love Boobies!’ on it is a conversation starter that leads to discussion and awareness of issues affecting young people,” the lawsuit said. The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in Philadelphia on behalf of Martinez and Jennifer Hawk, the mother of an eighth-grader. The two girls are friends, Martinez said. Kayla Martinez continues to wear the bracelet to school under her sleeve, her mother said. The suit asks the district to end the ban, allow the girls to attend all school functions and expunge their disciplinary records. Easton’s superintendent did not immediately return a call for comment. In discussions between the two sides before the lawsuit was filed, district officials complained the bracelets made some people uncomfortable and had prompted some boys to make inappropriate comments, the suit said. “I don’t know … why the educators are not equipped to deal with distractions. Why do they have to ban, ban, ban?” Martinez said. Schools from Florida to California have banned the bracelets. The rubber jewelry is sold by the Carlsbad, Calif.-based nonprofit Keep A Breast Foundation to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer organizations. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A central Pennsylvania technological college with fewer students than many Facebook users have friends is blacking out social media for a week. The bold experiment at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology — which has drawn praise, criticism and even a jab on late-night TV — means students and staff can’t access Facebook, Twitter or a host of other ubiquitous social networks while on campus. Provost Eric Darr said the exercise that began Monday is not a punishment for the school’s 800 students, nor a precursor to a ban, but a way for people to think critically about the prevalence of social media. The blackout comes on the heels of a report that Web users in the U.S. spend more time socializing on Facebook than searching with Google , according to data released last week from researchers at comScore Inc. Still, Darr said he can’t believe the controversy generated in the Twitterverse, blogosphere and academia, with some accusing the school of inflicting “a terrible thing and an infringement upon people’s rights.” “By and large, the students are supportive of the whole exercise and don’t get so worked up over it,” Darr said. On campus, attempts to log in to MySpace or LinkedIn return the message: “This domain is blocked.” E-mail, texting and other Web surfing is still allowed, but not instant-messaging. Student Ashley Harris, 22, said the blackout has freed her to concentrate on her classwork instead of toggling on her laptop between social networks and the lesson at hand. “I feel obligated to check my Facebook. I feel obligated to check my Twitter. Now I don’t,” Harris said. “I can just solely focus.” Part of Harris’ willingness to disconnect stemmed from her feeling that the experiment demonstrates the young university’s focus on innovation. The private nonprofit institution was founded in 2003 and operates out of a 16-story building in downtown Harrisburg, the state capital about 95 miles northwest of Philadelphia. Adam Ostrow, editor-in-chief of the social media news site Mashable.com, said he’d be interested to see if the university collects any hard metrics from the ban, such as better class attendance or more assignments turned in on time. But he doesn’t think a blackout is feasible over the long-term. Though Facebook has been blocked in some workplaces as a time-waster, it is a crucial tool for college students to coordinate social schedules, organize events, plan study sessions and collaborate on assignments. “You really can’t disconnect people from it in the long run without creating some real inefficiencies and backlash,” said Ostrow. Ironically, the university hosted a social media summit on Wednesday — mid-blackout. That caused some angst for guest speaker Sherrie Madia, communications director for the University of Pennsylvania ‘s Wharton School , who, like many, is used to tweeting during conferences. She said the buzz around the ban has started a much-needed conversation about effective use of social media and how to balance online life with the world offline. “Do we really want to be enslaved to Facebook or Twitter?” Madia said. “Once you create anything in social media, you have to feed the beast. When you stop adding content, you disappear.” The university has created course work around the ban, and some students will write essays about their experience. Comedian Jimmy Fallon joked in Monday’s late-night monologue that he knows the title of those essays: “We All Have Smart Phones, Dumbass.” Darr acknowledged students can use smart phones to bypass the university’s computer network or go to a nearby hotel for unblocked WiFi. And at a tech-centric school, he said, some students will try to get around the firewall just to prove they can. Yet if people feel that compelled to check status updates or Twitter replies, that’s important to know. “I want an honest reaction to the experiment,” Darr said. The provost also confessed to some trepidation: College officials can’t use social networks this week either for student recruiting, business networking or curriculum planning. “Next week, I will be as thankful as the next person we’re back on social media,” Darr said. So will junior Giovanni Acosta, 21, who said he’s been texting up a storm trying to coordinate social events without Facebook and Twitter. But student Dan Warseck, 36, said it doesn’t bother him — he prefers face-to-face communication and doesn’t even have texting on his phone. “I’m not one of these people who puts their life online,” Warseck said. “My friends have my phone number if they really need to get in touch with me.” Harris thought for sure she’d cheat on the blackout, but to her surprise she’s embraced it — although she does draw a line in the sand. “I don’t know if I could turn off my phone,” Harris said. “I don’t know if I could be that liberated.” Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

ATLANTA (AP) — The University of Georgia won a national title this year — top party school. The Princeton Review announced Monday that Georgia is the No. 1 party school on its now infamous annual ranking. The school of about 30,000 students has been on the list 10 times since the ranking was created in 1992, but this is the first time the university has taken the top spot. For the campus — surrounded by nearly 100 bars in tiny downtown Athens — parties are just part of life from August to May each year. Many students gear up for the weekend on Thursdays and sometimes don’t rest until Monday morning. “That’s what people look forward to starting Thursday — Thursday night is the new Friday night,” said junior Andrew Chappell, 20. “The party atmosphere is such a big part of Georgia.” University of Georgia spokesman Tom Jackson said the list is not one the school wants to lead. He said he’d rather emphasize that the school made Princeton Review’s top 50 “Best Values” list or the “Green Honor Roll” of the most environmentally conscious campuses. BEST VALUE COLLEGES: Top 100 for 2010 PRINCETON REVIEW: 286 greenest colleges BEYOND RANKINGS: Scores on student engagement Georgia beat out Pennsylvania State University, West Virginia University and University of Florida — which were the top party schools over the last three years. Those three made the top 10 this year, while Ohio University ranked second. The ranking comes after several years of work by University of Georgia administrators to curb drinking on campus and tone down the party atmosphere. Since 2006 — when a student died of an overdose of alcohol, cocaine and heroin in his dorm room — university police have been hauling underage drinkers to jail rather than simply giving them a ticket. School administrators call parents on the first offense and suspend a student for two semesters after the second alcohol violation. “The University of Georgia takes student alcohol education programs very seriously and will continue to do so,” Jackson said. Those efforts weren’t helped when athletic director Damon Evans stepped down last month after being charged with drunken driving. Evans had appeared in a video message played before home football games urging Georgia fans not to drink and drive. The ranking is based on e-mail surveys of 122,000 students at more than 370 colleges across the country. It combines responses on alcohol and drug use on campus, hours spent studying outside class and the popularity of fraternities and sororities. The surveys are filled out voluntarily by students, and on average about 325 students from each campus respond, said Rob Franek, author of the 800-page book put out by Princeton Review each year with nearly 60 categories of rankings. Other rankings include best campus food, least accessible professors and most religious students. “I want to make sure we’re giving any college-bound student a very clear example of what life could be for them at any of the 373 schools in the book,” he said. Colleges dismiss the rankings as unscientific and complain that they glorify dangerous behavior. In advance of Monday’s announcement, University of Colorado President Bruce Benson sent a letter to the Boulder, Colo., Daily Camera newspaper criticizing Princeton Review and the rankings. “What I get really upset about is this is headline-grabbing, and it’s extremely unscientific,” Benson told the newspaper. His school ranked 16th on the party list this year and No. 1 in 2003. This year, Brigham Young University topped the list of “Stone-Cold Sober Schools” for the 13th straight year. The Princeton Review is a Massachusetts-based company known for its test preparation courses, educational services and books. It’s not affiliated with Princeton University. Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

State’s cyber schools would help Pennsylvania 124 bricks-and-mortar charter schools into Charter School Digital Learning Network said Dr. Nick Trombetta. In the School Leadership Conference sponsored by the Pennsylvania Coalition of Public Charter Schools Dr. Trombetta made a proposal to

Read more