Nursing Students Expelled For Posting Photo of a Placenta on Facebook

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Add it to the list of things you should avoid doing on Facebook: Don’t post photos of yourself posing with an afterbirth that isn’t yours.   

Four students from the nursing program at Johnson County Community College in Kansas were expelled after posing for photos with a human placenta and one of those photos ended up on Facebook.

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One of the students, Doyle Byrnes, is now suing the college, saying that the women asked their instructor beforehand, and weren’t told it would be inappropriate. Rather, the lawsuit claims, the instructor simply responded with a noncommittal, “Oh, you girls.”

But once the photo was up on Facebook the instructor telephoned Byrnes and told her to remove it, which Byrnes promptly did.

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The next day however, the four women were expelled for their “lack of professional behavior,” a charge which they are now fighting. Byrnes’ lawyer said the women were disciplined too harshly and that they weren’t acting disrespectfully, they simply wanted to share their experience.

“They’re not giggly teenagers,” he said. “They all impress me as serious, career-minded women who are utterly stunned at what’s happened to them.”

Though the punishment is ridiculously severe, there is something to be said for wiser Facebook practices. Sure, it’s natural to want to show off your school projects; but if said project happens to have been ejected from another human being, it’s probably best left off of Facebook. (via AOL)

Update: A press release from the Johnson County Community College has addressed the reports that the nursing students were expelled from their program. Rather than being permanently expelled, the students were “temporarily dismissed from the nursing program. They are permitted to re-apply to continue their nursing studies in August 2011.”