Playing college athletics is a privilege and not a right. However, student-athletes do not lose their civil rights when they enter the locker room. In an insightful and troubling ESPN Outside the Lines Report, it was uncovered that a now former student-athlete at Stevenson University was forced to quit her school's athletic team because she refused to abide by an illegal and discriminatory social media policy. The policy required the women's ice hockey student-athletes to provide their coaches access to their personal social media accounts.
Requiring students to provide coaches and administrators access to personal digital accounts is not just a privacy issue but also a personal safety, cyber security, and civil rights matter. Does a coach have a legal right to demand to see what political candidate a student-athlete supports? Does a college administrator have a legal right to see if a student-athlete likes a page that may indicate their sexual preference? Does a coach have a legal right to see all of your personal messages to your friends and family?
Maryland was the first state in 2012 to enact legislation to generally ban employers from demanding access to personal social media accounts and it was also the first state to introduce legislation to protect students from being required to turn over the same information to schools. While Maryland was the first state to introduce legislation to protect personal student social media accounts it wasn't able to enact a state law on the matter until earlier this year when it became the 13th state to do so.
While the student-athlete who was profiled by ESPN was harmed by Stevenson University's clearly unethical and illegal social media policy, it doesn't appear she has a claim under Maryland's new student social media privacy law that went into effect on June 1, 2015. However, she may have a claim under the 2012 employee social media privacy law if she worked in some type of capacity for the university. On the federal level, there may be potential Title IX, federal computer crime law (i.e. the Stored Communications Act), Office of Civil Rights claims, etc... If Stevenson University's illegal social media policy was in effect after June 1, 2015 the school may have additional legal challenges on the horizon.
The bar to settle this type of matter was set at $70,000 per student last year when a Minnesota student received this amount to settle a similar situation. Since the student profiled in the ESPN piece appears to have been clearly harmed by her university's illegal policy her damages may be significantly higher than $70,000. Every student who was told they must provide access to their personal social media account to participate in a school sponsored activity may also be entitled to at least $70,000.
There appears to be approximately 24 students on the Stevenson University Women's ice hockey team this year. If 24 students participated on last year's team and they were required to provide access to their personal social media accounts, Stevenson University may be on the hook to compensate each student-athlete at least $70,000. For example, 24*$70,000=$1,680,000 in potential damages just for last year's team.
If last year's social media policy was in effect this year that could cause additional trouble for Stevenson. While the new Maryland law caps state damages at $1,000 per student plus reasonable attorney fees and court costs, this law doesn't affect potential damages under federal law. If the student-athletes band together and obtain joint legal representation they may be able to file a class action lawsuit and the total damages against the university could theoretically reach $2,000,000+.
Stevenson needs to become transparent about this matter and held accountable. How long has their illegal and discriminatory social media policy be in effect? How many students were required to abide by this policy? Did the policy just apply to female ice hockey players? If not, who else. These are just some of the many questions that Stevenson must answer.
The bottom line is that universities need to better understand the legal ramifications of their social media policies and engage those who actually understand best practices. The legal issues involved are very serious and trump the personal/university branding issues that many schools focus on.
Copyright 2015 by The Law Office of Bradley S. Shear, LLC All rights reserved.