Expelled student unsure who outed him
An American student expelled for listing he’s gay on MySpace is unsure who led the university to his information.
Jason Johnson was dismissed from the University of the Cumberlands in Kentucky last year after violating the Baptist school’s policy on sexual behaviour.
Jason’s sexuality which was listed on his personal MySpace page was ‘not consistent with Christian principles’ according to the university.
A second year student at the time Jason said: “The only thing that I was told by the administration is that they don’t go out and police the various websites of their students or look for behaviour that is contrary to their policies…they just take whatever information is given to them.”
“I was never told if it was a specific person or that it was the administration going around looking for things.”
University of the Cumberlands director of media relations Nancy Phelps maintains that the university does not use these sites to
investigate
students
nor do they
use social networks to screen future students.
Jason who now attends Eastern Kentucky University said at first he felt like his privacy had been invaded but understood that the information was in a very public space.
“At first I was shocked but I put that up there and I run the risks of my school finding out or my employer.”
“I’m not ashamed of any information that was on there but I realised that privacy and the internet is really hard to achieve because there’s no telling who can or who is accessing it and what they’re going to do with that information.”
Ms Phelps added: “When someone posts something on MySpace, one has no reasonable expectation of privacy.”
Click here to listen to Jason's reaction to being expelled.