Sexting - Did She or Didn’t She?

A story in VIN describes an incident that may or may not have happened. Back in 2013 an anonymous woman called  Lev Bais Yaakov - a religious all girls high school - and reported that she had seen a nude selfie of one of their students that had been texted to her son.

It is fair to say that if this was true, it was grounds for expulsion. If there is one thing that Bais Yaakov schools focus on the most - it is Tznius. Dressing modestly in accordance with religious standards is part of their basic code of conduct. Obviously, a girl that  texts a boy a naked picture of herself is in gross violation of that code.

I understand why a religious school would have zero tolerance for that. But I’m not sure I would have expelled her without giving her an opportunity to do Teshuva, if indeed the accusation was true.

People make mistakes. Sometimes serious ones like this. Especially teenagers. Expelling her would almost assure that her reputation would be ruined in ways that can never be taken back. Including ruining her chances for marriage. It is highly unlikely that anyone that had done something like that would be considered marriage material. Even if she weren’t expelled. But an expulsion for that kind of infraction would very likely seal her fate.

The problem is that we have no way of knowing whether this event ever happened. An anonymous caller made that claim without providing any evidence of it. And even though the school initially claimed to have investigated it - that proved not to be the case. School officials reacted without seeing any evidence and without ever talking to the boy who allegedly received the text.

They sent out emails to all the parents of her classmates saying that she was expelled for reasons related to her reputation. Even though the student in question had no history of doing anything like that. That student’s life was ruined. All on the basis allegations from an anonymous caller.

And there is something else. The student in question was learning disabled (LD). The school was not really equipped to handle LD students. She therefore struggled with her studies and was not a very good student. Having a student like that in a school might have been considered a liability by school officials. And that might have also provided a motive to some parents who don’t want LD students associating with their children – to try and so something about it.

Point being that there is no way of knowing whether the accusations were true, or the act of an unscrupulous parent who refused to identify herself.  That is in and of itself suspicious. Why didn’t she identify herself? If her allegations were true, what did she have to fear? She might have even been considered a hero by the school and the parent body for exposing a wayward child that was ruining the school’s reputation!

School officials decided to simply believe her accuser and acted upon it. No thought was apparently given to whether those allegations were true.

Once she was expelled, no religious school would have her. What kind of school officials in their right minds would allow into their school a teenager that texts naked pictures of herself to boys?! She ended up in a school for wayward teens. Not a healthy environment for teens that aren’t actually wayward.

Her parents sued the school. Which begs the question of whether or not they had gone to a Beis Din or not. Be that as it may, VIN reports in their headline the following:

I’m glad the case was settled. I just hope this young 19 year old woman regains her reputation. Because all the money in the world is not worth losing one’s good name.