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Web site posts Princeton cheerleading initiations photos(Comtex Business Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)PRINCETON, N.J., May 19, 2006 (The Daily Princetonian, U-WIRE via COMTEX) --Photographs taken at the Princeton University cheerleading team's 2005 initiations came into the public eye Wednesday when the website badjocks.com posted them along with images from 11 other college teams' initiations under the heading "the Dirty Dozen." BadJocks was recently featured in the national media after Northwestern University disbanded its women's soccer team because of initiations photos posted on the site. The incidents have raised privacy concerns among students about outside access to online images depicting possibly inappropriate or incriminating behavior, including hazing. The website, in existence since 2003, has dedicated itself to exposing what it sees as disturbing occurrences in sports. It is unclear, however, if the site specifically alleges that the University cheerleaders depicted participated in hazing. The eight photographs, which were taken from a webshots.com album, accompany links to the team's roster and the section of the University's "Rights, Rules, and Responsibilities" that deals with hazing. Both the album and the roster have since been taken offline. The pictures, which depict some of the girls on the University cheerleading squad ostensibly drinking and covered with scrawled permanent marker, are relatively tame in comparison to the other teams' photos. One team's photos include a girl passed out on a bathroom floor while another shows a male stripper wearing only underwear in close contact with several girls. All of the albums in question have since been removed from Webshots, but still appear on BadJocks. Members of the University's cheerleading squad declined to comment for this article. The University's response is that "[these events] are part of individual student behavior" and do not reflect on the University as a whole because they did not occur at a University-sanctioned event, University spokeswoman Cass Cliatt '96 said. "We are aware of the website, and the University is looking into it," Cliatt added. Director of Athletic Communications Jerry Price declined to comment on the situation until an investigation by the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students into the initiations has concluded. The incident comes only months after nationwide concern developed among college students about the availability of images posted by students on facebook.com, a popular networking site. The University's Public Safety department, after earlier denying that its staff sought access to the site, admitted to using images obtained from Facebook in limited circumstances in its investigative work and established guidelines for future use. "I think people really have to be careful when photographs are taken of them ... especially [by someone] they don't know and trust," said Alex Halderman '03, a current University computer science graduate student who specializes in computer security, digital rights management and information privacy. Halderman added, though, that it is ultimately the photographer who causes the public exposure. "People have to take responsibility for what they post on the Internet," he said. There are also legal issues concerning the online publication of the pictures by BadJocks, Halderman said, because the Digital Millennium Copyright Act makes posting of pictures online without the permission of the photo's copyright holder illegal. The original photographers, who automatically hold the copyright to the images, would probably be within their rights to ask for a cease-and-desist injunction against the website, Halderman said, but the costs associated with legal action may deter any such action. BadJocks' publisher Bob Reno was unavailable for comment. Reno gave the 12 colleges' athletic departments advance warning Wednesday morning of the pictures' publication. Athletics director Gary Walters '67 forwarded the message to all varsity sport head coaches in an email obtained by The Daily Princetonian. "[Y]ou can't be too vigilant about team initiation, hazing, and partying activities," Walters told the coaches. "Please address this issue with your respective teams." Also, the University's general counsel, Peter McDonough, sent an email to Cliatt, also obtained by the 'Prince,' which was then again forwarded by Walters to the head coaches. Written a day before the receipt of Reno's warning and in response to the events at Northwestern, the email outlines New Jersey's law on hazing, which defines it as conduct that "places or may place another person in danger of bodily injury." BadJocks also included several statements by psychologist and hazing expert Dr. Susan Lipkins and provided links to her website, insidehazing.com. In an interview Thursday, Lipkins said she is "completely unaffiliated" with BadJocks and made her statements on hazing in general at Reno's request because she had not specifically seen all the photos in question. The point of the photos was to "really make this not about the kids, but to show the country that [hazing does not occur] in isolated incidents, that it's part of our culture," Lipkins said. When asked why links to team rosters were included and students' faces were not blurred out, Lipkins said she could not speak for Reno, but that she believed it was intended to convince schools that the incidents had actually involved their students. "Nobody forced any of these kids to post the pictures," she said. "They don't see anything wrong with it. They put it on a website for the whole world to see." Lipkins said that the main goal of publicizing the images was to prove that "hazing is alive and well on campuses around the United States" and to dispel the misconception that hazing is just an aspect of fraternities and sororities, not athletics. As for the implications of hazing on students and society, Lipkins said that it is a dangerous activity that is "physically or psychologically harmful, or potentially harmful." Alcohol, especially because of the way in which it is consumed and in the amounts in which it is provided, adds to the danger and sends many people to emergency rooms, Lipkins said. "It does happen and it happens more frequently than most people admit," she said. "I don't see why people don't understand it's a potentially dangerous behavior." |